A Tale of Two Sanctions: US Sanctions vs. BDS Why we oppose the one but support the other

Webster’s Dictionary defines sanctions as “a coercive measure, usually taken by several nations together, for forcing a nation considered to have violated international law to stop the violation…[including] withholding loans, limiting relations, imposing a blockade, etc.”

The US government has initiated many such sanctions, particularly against nations with whose leaders it disagrees, notably Cuba, Iraq, Syria, and Venezuela. Yet instead of upholding international law, this tactic is intended to foment regime change of existing governments. It has caused destruction of these countries’ economies and infrastructures, civil wars, and thousands upon thousands of deaths particularly among children, as access is denied to essential goods and services, including food, water, and medicine. US government sanctions are in and of themselves violations of human rights.

Other sanctions are citizen-led, with the sole purpose of forcing a nation to stop violating international law. One such successful international campaign was waged in the 1980s and 90s against apartheid South Africa. Since 2005, individuals and organizations around the world have joined a Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), a non-violent effort to press for changes in Israeli government policies which consistently violate rights of the Palestinian people. There is no intent to destroy or delegitimize the state or the people of Israel. Rather BDS utilizes academic, cultural and commercial boycotts to censure Israeli policy and stigmatize its supporters, targeting companies and institutions that collude with or benefit from government oppression of Palestinians.

In both of these instances, sanctions are meant to cause sufficient suffering in a population to inspire them to rise up and create the desired change. Their similarity ends there. Not only is there no comparison between the scope, power, and resulting suffering caused by US government sanctions and the BDS movement, but the goals are entirely opposite: US sanctions are meant to benefit solely US and international elite corporations, while Israel BDS is to free the enterprising but beleaguered people of Palestine from their brutal treatment by the government of Israel. The government’s repressions are in violation of the 1948 Israeli Declaration of Independence, of international law, of numerous UN Resolutions, and of basic human decency.

The same powerful forces imposing lethal sanctions against other nations are attempting to destroy the growing international BDS movement. Claiming that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic, most elected officials have taken a stand against BDS. They support legislation requiring state and local governments to divest from entities supporting BDS. State anti-BDS laws and the federal Israel Anti-Boycott Act can also penalize individuals who are unwilling to sign oaths opposing BDS. So far federal courts have blocked implementation of state laws in three instances, citing unconstitutional denial of First Amendment rights to participate in a boycott. But our country is moving dangerously back towards McCarthy-like censorship.

We oppose lethal blockades and sanctions, whether they be levied by our own US government on other sovereign nations, or by the Israeli government against the people of Gaza and the West Bank. We oppose the brutal occupation by Israel of Palestinian land, and the second-class status of Palestinian citizens of Israel. We support BDS as a peaceful means to register our opposition, and to move toward justice and peace.