click for explanation of what the four categories are
We must strategically focus on a relatively smaller number of carefully selected companies and products for maximum impact.
Many of the prohibitively long lists going viral on social media do the exact opposite of this strategic and impactful approach.
We have split these targets into four sections:
1. Consumer boycott targets - The BDS movement calls for a complete boycott of these brands carefully selected due to the company’s proven record of complicity in Israeli apartheid.
2. Divestment and exclusion targets - The BDS movement works to pressure governments, institutions, investment funds, city councils, etc. to exclude from procurement contracts and investments and to divest from, as the case may be, as many complicit companies as practical, especially arms companies and banks. We rely on the following authoritative sources:
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AFSC list of companies that have provided Israel with weapons and other military equipment used in its #GazaGenocide.
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AFSC Investigate database of companies enabling the occupation.
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UN database of businesses involved in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise.
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WhoProfits database of Israeli and international corporations profiting from the ongoing Israeli occupation.
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Don’t Buy Into Occupation list of businesses involved in the illegal Israeli settlement enterprise in the OPT in which European financial institutions have investments.
3. Pressure targets - The BDS movement actively calls for pressure campaigns against these targets. This includes boycotts when reasonable alternatives exist, as well as lobbying, peaceful disruptions, and social media pressure.
4. Organic boycott targets - The BDS movement did not initiate these grassroots boycott campaigns but supports them due to these brands’ complicity in Israel’s genocide and apartheid against Palestinians.
One good thing about being poor is that you don’t have to worry about where your money is going, because you never had it in the first place.
virgin bougie lefty: boycotts starbucks because instagram told them to
chad downtrodden proletariat: boycotts everything because they can’t afford anything more than basic food and housing
disclaimer
this is a meme if you are boycotting starbucks for their shitty behavior in relation to Gaza and unions i totally support <3 just jokes 🫶
The article mentions one branch of Siemens and then says boycott them by not buying Siemens appliances, Siemens doesn’t even own their appliance brand, they sold it to Bosch in 2014.
i’m not smart enough to understand this but if you find this to be a flaw definitely see about reaching out to them to either clarify or fix this list!
I learned this yesterday and thought, wow, I can contribute and then you’re already here. Damn. I can only add details. Siemens and Bosch founded BSH (Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte {household appliances}) in 1967. This company grew into a behemoth with 60,000 employees and 15 billion revenue. And as was mentioned, while Bosch and Siemens co-owned BSH, Siemens sold its shares to Bosch in 2014.
I support this boycott, especially because we should be minimizing consumption in general. We need to get the youth invested in taking power back from these corporations and lame politicians who think we’re a problem that can be suppressed.
Dems are delusional to think that this isn’t the dumbest move they’ve ever made. I’m preparing for the end of liberal democracy more than ever before thanks to the utter contempt they’ve shown towards us recently. I’ll always vote for the lesser evil, but I know many won’t if the Democrats don’t make drastic changes.
I’ll shed no tears for any pro genocide Dem that gets targeted by Trump if he wins. If they lose this election, it’ll be because they failed. If a dictatorship is established, we shouldn’t pretend that the state deserves anything but euthanasia. If the last semblance of democracy gets extinguished in America, we need to turn ourselves into porcupines and ensure every attack on us is as painful for them as possible.
I’ll shed no tears for any pro genocide Dem that gets targeted by Trump if he wins
Uhh Trump will go for the anti genocide people first, I’m not sure you’ve thought this through
True, but not because they were anti genocide. Trump cares so little about the conflict that he celebrated Hamas on October 7th because of personal beef with Netanyahu. He’ll go after the anti genocide people for being farther left in general. He’ll go after all Democrats for simply standing in his way.
High profile Dems that supported genocide will get targeted more than low profile Dems that opposed it. Pelosi and Biden will get targeted more than even AOC or Sanders because they personally annoyed him more.
Wait, I work at McDonalds, and don’t really have any other choices, everywhere else either pays too little, I quit, or I was fired. So what do I do
these boycotts are mainly about avoiding buying from these companies, not working at them.
if you do wanna help though, you can try to waste as much of their money as possible, for example by slacking off or giving customers extra food (of course if this is your only means of living not getting fired should come first)
I’m actually looking for a different job already, they’ve been cutting my hours, and one of my friends overheard the managers saying that they want to fire me because I’m “too slow” disregarding my disabilities
boycott activism is about inflicting economic loss on the business by abstaining from purchasing goods and services. while boycotts can sometimes entail employee action, it is never expected of you to take action that would result in harm to you or your family. take care of yourself first so that you have the power to fight for others ❤️
I believe in activism for important causes, but even I think it would be best to stay right where you are because your departure would, imo, have little impact. If I were there, I suspect I’d stay quiet and try to focus on what I must do to bring about my next upgrade at McDs, somewhere else, or something I made on my own. I imagine at McDs it’s possible to get in a “zone” where you and the tasks become one or something like that. I worked at Wendy’s, but never achieved the “zone” because I wasn’t there long enough to see how the operation’s various pieces came together to make the whole thing work. Best to you.
Maybe a dumb question, but what is the difference between a consumer and organic boycott?
not a dumb question, but it’s explained in the body text (click the spoiler to open the explanation) 😊
Thank you!!
An excellent question because “organic boycott” appears to have been “born” recently. My DDG search of the expression yielded seemingly nothing but results about this conflict. This bit from TIME appears to clarify:
Since the war in Gaza began, BDS has also endorsed new targets it did not initiate—like McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, and Burger King—calling them “organic boycott targets” because of the public support they have received after their brand franchises appeared to support Israel.
What if instead of a bunch of companies all at once, we just got a few million people to join a “strategic boycott club” or whatever we’d call it, and just go one company at a time, just for a month… Like, okay June 1st 100 million Americans say they are going to not buy anything from McDonald’s for a month unless McDonald’s immediately does xyz… I bet just the threat would tank their stocks. It’s easier for the average person to just think about and execute on one thing at a time. Then once McDonald’s gets the message, move on to the next company
that’s certainly a thought.
as a non-expert, my understanding is that the list posted here is one aiming to strike a meaningful balance between brevity and breadth across industries. from the linked article:
We must strategically focus on a relatively smaller number of carefully selected companies and products for maximum impact. We need to target companies that play a clear and direct role in Israel’s crimes and where there is real potential for winning, as was the case with, among others, G4S, Veolia, Orange, Ben & Jerry’s and Pillsbury. Compelling large, complicit companies, through strategic and context-sensitive boycott and divestment campaigns, to end their complicity in Israeli apartheid and war crimes against Palestinians sends a very powerful message to hundreds of other complicit companies that “your time will come, so get out before it’s too late!”
Many of the prohibitively long lists going viral on social media do the exact opposite of this strategic and impactful approach. They include hundreds of companies, many without credible evidence of their connection to Israel’s regime of oppression against Palestinians. Many do not have clear demands to the companies as to what we expect them to do to end the boycott, making them ineffective.
be sure to read through the linked article for a full breakdown of how it defines its strategy for maximizing effectiveness and each individual target.
I wonder if there is a online store that let’s you pick corporations you dont want to support and then it just doesn’t list them while you search.
I searched a bit and only found some UPC barcode scanner
there’s a browser extension :0
no idea if it’s good but that sounds like exactly what ur looking for
e: and here is one for firefox
No joke, I could totally see this as a tech bro startup
Any direct action ideas to take against some of these companies.
Anything from minor inconveniences to actual criminal acts I’m down for.
People of conscience around the world are rightfully shattered, enraged, and sometimes feeling powerless about Israel’s #GazaGenocide.
Pulled from the linked article… i can’t help but fucking laugh at how tasteless that # is
eh i dunno. social media has proved to be a powerful tool for mobilizing.
i get how on an aesthetic level if you are used to seeing tags used for “trends” or “drama” it can come off wrong, but i wouldn’t come down on them as tasteless.
oof, I didn’t know Carrefour was complicit in the Gaza stuff 😓
Are these companies doing something specifically to help the Isreali military, or is it just that they operate in large part in Isreal? (and therefore give money through taxes)
In some cases it seems a bit inconsistent, like Siemens is on the list because they’re working to build an undersea cable to allow Israel to integrate with the European electrical grid. Regardless of whether the land is called Israel or Palestine, it helps everyone to reduce dependency on fossil fuels.
Their linked sources talk about Siemens providing traffic infrastructure for Isreali-only roads through the West Bank and transit lines that pass through parts of the West Bank.
Honestly it seems like their sources have put in a lot more effort than they have, they sometimes mention the most trivial things when obviously bad (and internationally illegal) things are simultaneously being done that these companies support they don’t even mention.
the organization hosting the site from my understanding is nonprofit and likely depends on a lot of volunteer work. i think it wouldn’t hurt to send any unclear information or corrections to them so those changes can be made.
read through the linked article; they have individual summaries of each company as well as further sources
Disappointed to see both Alstom and Siemens on the list, I guess I’ll have to get my trains from Stadler from now on.
On an unrelated note, it seems Intel is only on the list because they operate in large part there and are making a new fab (with some support from government grants), but it’s inside the area that Isreal has had internationally recognized as its territory since 1949. Honestly I’m surprised that was all they could find on them - Isreal is known for its computerized surveillance systems and I’m sure a lot of it is powered (or has been in the past) by Intel CPUs.
Source: a tumblr post
🤓
Removed by mod
I kind of expected to see Starbucks here. Have they cleaned up their act?
it’s not on the official BNC list for now, though certainly a valid popular target for the shit it did to its union over a pro-Palestine post. i wouldn’t be surprised if it appears in that bottom right box sometime soon but for now i guess the BNC finds it is not as significant or likely to evoke change of a boycott as the others.
