Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions

Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) is an organization which promotes boycotts, divestments, and economic sanctions against Israel.

It is a nonviolent and Palestinian-led movement, and its stated objective is to pressure Israel to meet what the BDS movement describes as Israel's obligations under international law, which it defines as withdrawal from the occupied territories, removal of the wall in the West Bank, full equality for Arab citizens of Israel, and promotion of the Palestinian right of return to territories which became part of Israel proper.

The movement is organized and coordinated by the Palestinian BDS National Committee. BDS is modeled after the Anti-Apartheid Movement. Supporters describe it as a human rights movement and compare Palestinians' situation under Israeli policies to that of black South Africans under apartheid. Protests and conferences in support of the movement have been held in several countries.

Some critics accuse the BDS movement of antisemitism, a charge the movement calls an attempt to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Since 2015, the Israeli government has allocated significant resources to campaigns portraying BDS as antisemitic and has encouraged legal measures against the movement in other countries. Multiple countries, as well as a majority of U.S. states, have passed laws aimed at countering BDS.