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As the war in Gaza rages on, many residents and organizations around the world are calling for the “boycotting” of companies associated with the Israeli government.
Boycotting is a form of resistance that the Palestinian movement has used for many years, famously with the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement. But boycotting has been around for centuries, long before the Israel-Hamas war.
The Origins of Boycotting
Boycotting can be traced back to as long ago as the 1700s. But the first properly documented instance was in the 1880s and was used by the Irish movement to protest British landowners ousting Irish residents. The term boycott originated from that period and was coined after the movement successfully ostracized British estate manager Charles Cunningham Boycott.
Ever since, boycotting has been routinely used in all public activist movements. Historically, the most famous use of boycotting was the Montgomery bus boycott. It was led by famous activists Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King and called for the desegregation of public buses. After weeks of boycotting, a federal court eventually ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional and violated the equal protection provisions of the 14th Amendment.
Do Boycotts Work?
In December 2018, pro-Palestine activists called for the boycott of American HSBC bank, an investor in Israeli drone manufacturer Elbit Systems which sells weapons to the Israeli military that then uses them against Palestinian civilians. According to reports, more than 24,000 people emailed the bank asking it to end its investments. Eventually, HSBC severed its ties with the manufacturer.
Often references like these are given to prove that boycotts work, but such instances of success are usually the minority.
In a study for the Journal of Business Research, boycotts were found to “not inflict any financial loss on the target firms.” On the contrary, they were found to have increased the value of the targeted firms by 0.66%.
Another study by the Institute for Policy Research states, “The typical boycott doesn’t have much impact on sales revenue” but instead declares that their real effect is on reputation more than revenue.
Palestinian Boycotts
As the war in Gaza rages on, the BDS Movement has reappeared in the public eye, calling for the boycott of companies affiliated with Israel. These companies include corporate giants McDonalds, Burger King, Starbucks, HP, and the list goes on.
This is part of the Palestinians’ long-running campaign of nonviolent resistance. In 2015, a report by policy think tank Rand Corporation estimated that “Israel’s gross domestic product would lose about $15 billion due to nonviolent Palestinian resistance, which includes BDS.”
Moreover, Bloomberg recently reported that foreign investment in Israel had fallen “considerably” in 2023, another aim of the BDS Movement.
But it is often unclear if these losses are effects of politically driven boycotts or companies protecting their reputation. Either way, BDS often only cares about the results rather than the motivations.
