Description
Since 2005, Israel has faced a concerted campaign to delegitimize it as a member of the international society due to its treatment of Palestinians and continued occupation of the territories it conquered in 1967. This campaign is led today by the BDS movement which calls for Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel until it ends the occupation of “all Arab land” (including what is recognized as Israel’s borders) and allow for the full right of return of Palestinians. Israel sees these demands as an existential threat since it would effectively end its Jewish character—a character that is seen as vital for the security of its people. Israel has responded aggressively to the delegitimization efforts, often adopting illiberal action that undermines its democratic character (Olesker 2019).
Prior to this movement, however, Israel faced other boycott campaigns, namely the Arab boycott led by the Arab League which initiated in 1946. This paper compares between Israel’s construction of the BDS movement as an existential threat requiring extraordinary and often illiberal responses, and its response to the Arab boycott. The paper asks—why did Israel construct the BDS movement as an existential threat to the state but not the Arab League boycott? How does this construction impact its response to BDS and how does its response to BDS differ from its response to the Arab boycott in the 1940s through the 1960s?
I argue that Israel has securitized BDS as an existential threat to the state. Securitization is achieved when political actors speak about an issue as posing an existential threat to a referent object. For example, the construction of BDS as posing an existential threat to the Jewish state by referring to it as such through speeches, legislation, and policy papers. This has allowed Israel to adopt extraordinary and illiberal actions in response to BDS, often in violation of its democratic principles. Through archival research of documents pertaining to Israel’s response to the Arab Boycott, I will demonstrate that while attempts were made by some actors in the Jewish Agency (which was responsible for responding to the Arab Boycott) to securitize the Arab boycott, those attempts were ultimately unsuccessful. Whereas in the case of BDS those securitization attempts were successful. This can explain the difference in the response between the two boycott campaigns and in many ways, why the Arab boycott ultimately resulted in failure while the BDS campaign may succeed.
Through a historical comparison between Israel’s response to the Arab Boycott and its response to BDS we can better understand alternative policy options for Israel in the face of a growing BDS campaign; especially since some of its actions in response to BDS contribute to further erosion of its international legitimacy.
