This piece provides a bit of history and perspective on AFSC's position on BDS. For more information, please take a look at AFSC's principles for a just and lasting peace in Palestine Israel and the links that follow this post.- Lucy There have been many questions recently about AFSC’s support for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) in the Palestine-Israel context. This short piece outlines both how we came to support BDS and the values and beliefs that undergirded our decision.

AFSC has maintained connections to Israel and Palestine since 1948, when AFSC was asked by the United Nations to respond to the needs of Palestinian refugees in Gaza and displaced persons in the newly formed state of Israel. AFSC continued to implement programming in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza during the 1950s and 1960s, and in the 1970s established offices in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. Starting in 1970, AFSC also began supporting advocacy work in the U.S. with the goal of changing policies that sustain violence while building support for a just and lasting peace.

In 2007, AFSC staff and partners working in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory asked AFSC to look at its investment portfolio and, if needed, take action to ensure that it was not investing in companies engaged in business practices that violate its “Principles for a Just and Lasting Peace in Palestine and Israel.” Their request led to an extended conversation by AFSC’s board and eventually resulted in AFSC adopting an internal investment screen in 2008. That investment screen committed AFSC to not invest in companies that:

Provide products or services that contribute to violent acts that target either Israeli or Palestinian civilians.

Provide products or services that contribute to the maintenance of the Israeli military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Provide products or services that contribute to the maintenance and expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Provide products or services that contribute to the maintenance and construction of the Separation Wall.

The adoption of this internal investment screen led to a larger conversation about how AFSC’s internal position should be viewed in light of the Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions call. That call was made in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations and included three goals:

Ending Israel’s occupation and dismantling the Wall.

Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality.

Respecting, protecting, and promoting Palestinian refugees’ right of return.

After nearly two years of research and deliberation, AFSC’s board of directors decided that AFSC can support BDS in the Israel-Palestine conflict as a nonviolent social change tactic that is in line with both Quaker values and AFSC’s Principles for a Just and Lasting Peace in Palestine and Israel. Those principles uphold the right of both Palestinians and Israelis to self-determination, emphasizing that realizing both peoples’ right to self-determination necessarily means ending Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory and addressing refugees’ right of return.