For many years, the European Union launched statements objecting to Israeli policy on building settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem every time the Israeli government declared building a new settlement. The European Union repeated its condemnation of these settlements and demanded they stop. The Israeli response was always cynical, as the spokesman of the foreign minister declared: “A new settlement will be shelved.” We and all those who were looking for an effective European position were arguing with European officials, in conferences and European seminars, that if Europe really expected to exert influence and see its demands regarding the settlements met, it had to shift from words and statements to deeds and positions that would make Israel feel that its settlements policy would have an impact on its interests — its economic, trade, investment, technological relations with European countries in particular. The transformation in the European position came when High Representative of the European Union Catherine Ashton issued a statement 19 July 2013 saying: “Today the EU published a document that reiterates the long-held position that bilateral agreements with Israel do not cover the territory that came under Israel's administration in June 1967. This is meant to clarify the EU's position in advance of negotiations of agreements with Israel during the forthcoming financial perspective commencing in 2014… In this way, the EU hopes to further contribute to an atmosphere conducive to a meaningful and sustainable negotiation leading to a peace agreement between the parties (Israelis and Palestinians)… [The] specific provisions of the guidelines will not be implemented before 1 January 2014.” The new guidelines bar Israeli organisations, groups and companies that work in the occupied Palestinian territories from benefiting from European funding.
With reaching this date, and when Palestinian-Israeli negotiations under the care of US Secretary of State John Kerry seem to be inconclusive, a number of analysts asked why a third Palestinian Intifada doesn't emerge. However, the third Intifada they envisioned would not be as the first or the second, characterised by violence, throwing stones and suicide attacks. It will be a peaceful Intifada depending on non-violent resistance and economic boycott — basically through the EU in Brussels and opposition to the Israeli occupation all over the world (the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement). Lately, press reports stated that according to Israeli experts the international boycott inflicted last year on the Israeli economy damages estimated by $8 billion. Meanwhile, the European Union's suspension of all forms of cooperation with Israeli institutions functioning in settlements, and obliging Israel to identify the source of products exported to the Union, enabling the public to boycott settlement produce, will do further damage. The European Union constitutes the largest market for Israeli exports (at 32 per cent) followed by the United States. The activities of the international boycott movement indicate that the movement reached in the last year Israel's strongholds in Germany, Holland and the United States; notably with a great number of financial and academic institutions in the three countries boycotting financial and academic Israel institutions that have branches in the settlements.
Last week three European companies declared their withdrawal from a bid to build harbours in both Haifa and Ashdod cities within Israel. Also, the German bank Deutsche Bank, the third largest bank in the world, declared some days ago boycotting the Israeli bank Hapoalim because it has branches in the settlements. The Israeli media in recent days published a long list with the names of European, American, Canadian, Australian and South African institutions that declared boycotting Israel during the last year.
Israeli Minister of Finance Yair Lapid realises the impact of the movement on the Israeli economy, which depends on technical and agricultural exports to Europe, and on European investments in high tech industries that will cost Israel more than $5 billion yearly and thousands of jobs. Meanwhile, boycotting and isolating Israel is not limited to the European Union. There are indications that American institutions are catching up, with American Studies Association (ASA) — the biggest American academic association — voting to impose an academic boycott on Israel as Israeli academia partners in the process of violating human rights. The Israeli media pointed out that the ASA boycott is not limited to cooperation among individual scholars but touched military and non-military assistance that the US provides to Israel. What is significant is that Jewish members of the association voted in support of the boycott.
US Secretary of State Kerry tried to use the boycott movement to pressure Israel to be more responsive to the negotiating process with the Palestinians. In the Munich Security Conference, he said: “The risks are very high for Israel. People are talking about boycott. That will intensify in the case of failure. We all have a strong interest in this conflict resolution.” “Today's status quo, absolutely to a certainty, I promise you 100 per cent, cannot be maintained,” Kerry said of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “It is not sustainable. It is illusionary.”
Israeli leaders realising the seriousness of this boycott and aware of the lessons of its implementation in South Africa, where it removed the apartheid system, allocated $30 million to finance a counter-campaign based on threats and insults against those promoting the boycott movement. As Zionist organisations are active against the boycott movement, Palestinian and Arab organisations must mobilise international public opinion behind this movement, which is motivated only by the Israeli occupation and the subjugation of the Palestinians over the last decades, contrary to Israeli accusations that it is motivated by anti-Semitism. The writer is executive director of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs.
