Educators: Support Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions

Dear Educators,

We live in a world where everyday people are often convinced they have limited power to change their conditions, or to shape the future. History itself teaches us something very different. In every major movement for justice, collective mobilizations to raise awareness, disrupt business as usual, advocate for policy changes, and challenge existing power structures are what created the changes we often celebrate today. From the Montgomery Bus Boycotts, early abolitionists boycotting products produced by enslaved people, Gandhi’s Salt March, the United Farm Workers grape boycott, to the anti-apartheid movement of South Africa, these collective actions remind us of what is possible today.

The power of workers through the utilization of tactics such as boycotts, divestments, and sanctions has often been the tipping point for change. Labor power can interrupt systems of harm, and potentially transform them. It deepens the wedge between the corporate elite, and all working people, and provides us with avenues to not only put pressure on decision makers, but also move the masses toward a shared vision and project where all people can live free of exploitation. In the case of Palestinian solidarity, as was the case with the movement against apartheid South Africa, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movements offer everyday people a vehicle to engage in the work of social change.

In 2005, 170 Palestinian civil organizations, including teacher unions, issued a historic call to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel. The Palestinian call for BDS is inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement that, through international cultural, economic, and political boycotts, helped isolate apartheid South Africa, and aided in the ending of the apartheid regime. The successes of the movement spanned globally and had deep economic and political impact — from governments banning South African imports, to ordinary people pressuring supermarkets to stop selling South African products, musicians refusing to perform in the apartheid state, South African sports leagues being suspended from international competitions, and governments, including the United States, imposing economic sanctions on the country. Today, people in the United States not only have an opportunity to build on this history and contribute to the movement for Palestinian freedom, but we also bear a responsibility to do so as the U.S. government facilitates the ongoing genocide through its financial and political support of apartheid Israel.

We are witnessing the largest movement of trade unions in solidarity with Palestine in U.S. history. In late July 2024, a coalition of unions representing more than half of organized labor called for the United States to stop arming Israel. From local teacher unions passing resolutions in support of BDS, to national unions of educators calling on the government to shift foreign policy, there is potential and a critical need for educators today to translate this solidarity into material action. Everyone should examine their pension funds, and organize to divest from corporations with direct ties to apartheid Israel and military contracts profiting from war. Doing so is not only a gesture of solidarity with Palestine, it is also a teaching gesture, demonstrating to students that we do not only educate about social justice in the classroom, we do not only encourage our students to be agents of change, but we too practice those values outside the classroom. And after all, divesting from genocide, racism, militarism, and violence is not only a moral imperative, it is necessary for the future of humanity. 

In struggle,
Lara Kiswani