These include companies that are official targets of the BDS movement. These companies have well-documented ties to the Israeli occupation, theft of Palestinian land and displacement of Palestinian people, genocidal violence against Palestinians in Gaza, and other oppression of Palestinians across occupied Palestine. These companies should be the top priority for boycott and divestment campaigns.
Boycott Targets
- Sabra Hummus
- Sodastream
- Hewlett-Packard
- Siemens
- Ahava Cosmetics
- Carrefour Markets
- Re/Max
- Illegal settlements’ produce
Divestment Targets
- AXA Insurance Company
- Elbit Systems
- Volvo
- JCB
- Chevron
- Barclays
- TKH Security
- HIKVision
- CAF
- CAT
- HD Hyundai
While evidence of each of these companies’ complicity in apartheid can be found at the BDS movement website, we point out ways certain companies may be especially significant for consumer boycott efforts in the US, and ways to boycott them:
Sabra Hummus
As an official boycott target of the BNC, Sabra Hummus has a direct relationship with the Israeli occupation forces, and namely the Golan military brigade which has been fundamental to Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza. The company could be the subject of stickering campaigns and efforts to get major retailers to de-shelve the brand due to its direct complicity. The brand is also vulnerable to boycott in part because of recent years’ losses due to health violations and outbreaks in its US factories, and citations from the Food and Drug Administration. It has been a decade since more concerted campus-based efforts surrounding Sabra, but some of those efforts were successful and renewed in 2022 by Students for Justice in Palestine chapters. The company was the largest hummus supplier in the US until 2021, but has taken major hits to its sales in recent years (its market share was halved from 61% to 31%), making it more vulnerable to boycott.
Sodastream
The Sodastream boycott has also been an effective campaign of the BNC, with the company, headquartered in Israel, forced to close its manufacturing plant on stolen land in the West Bank in 2015. However, it moved its plant to another region with major Israeli displacement campaigns against Palestinians: the Negev. While Sodastream machines are not an overly common purchase for individual consumers (a one-time purchase aside from gas refills), large institutions may purchase machinery for dining halls or similar. It can therefore be a better target for individuals around the holidays when sales go up, or for individuals at universities or companies with dining services—to ban or cease the use of Sodastream machines. In 2014, Harvard students were effective at ceasing the purchase of Sodastream machines in dining halls in favor of less expensive water carbonation machines, though the decision was critiqued thereafter by the university provost and president. Direct actions or protests at Sodastream factories in the US could also be a mechanism for raising awareness about the boycott and Sodastream’s complicity.
Re/Max
An international real estate company that originates in the US, Re/Max is complicit in the theft of Palestinian land and sale of that land in illegal Israeli settlements. The company has branches throughout the US, with particular concentration in Minnesota, New Jersey, California, New Jersey and a few other states. Boycotts of Re/Max could be a particularly strong focus for local campaigns that seek to amplify a few targets that have direct ties to the Israeli apartheid regime. Uplifting a Re/Max boycott now also helps to ensure the energy around boycotts for a ceasefire is translated into a campaign to end the occupation and apartheid long term.
Illegal Israeli Settlement Produce
Agricultural products grown on illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank have been targeted for economic boycotts for decades. However, the Trump administration reversed the US’s policy on labeling those products as made in illegal settlements—instead marking them “Made in Israel.” The change includes products that come from Palestinian farms in both the West Bank and Gaza as well. This makes the boycott difficult to adhere to in the US without a) a campaign to reverse this decision at the federal level and b) widespread knowledge of the specific products that come from illegal settlements. Stickering campaigns in the US may help with this. In Europe, the EU has determined that settlement produce must be labeled as such, but compliance is questionably enforced, leaving it again to the consumer to ultimately find, label, and boycott those products. However, this is a very direct way to economically impact the theft of Palestinian land, making it an important boycott target internationally. A core settlement product that AMP has led successful boycotts of is Israeli dates, particularly during Ramadan.
As for the other consumer boycott targets, Carrefour markets are not widespread in the US. HP is an important target as well for institutional boycotts in particular, such as for churches that have declared themselves HP-free. Mosques, schools, school districts, unions, and similar groups can do the same.
Among the divestment targets, companies that may be particularly strategic for boycott campaigns in the US include:
Elbit Systems is Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer. Volvo, and specifically heavy machinery and armored buses built by Volvo, is complicit in the decades-long occupation of the West Bank. Chevron is responsible (along with Siemens) for extracting natural gas off the shore of the Gaza Strip and maintaining the siege of Gaza—illegally depriving Palestinians of their sovereignty over their natural resources and fueling both environmental destruction and apartheid. In addition to direct divestment from these companies through endowments, pensions, and individual investment portfolios, major billionaire investors in these companies can be a target of public pressure.
Others on that list may also be divestment targets within broader security and military exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and mutual funds. For example, XLE, FENY, DRLL, and VDE are particularly exposed to Chevron, meaning Chevron is among their top 15 holdings across the ETF portfolio. Vanguard Corporation, Inc., a major pension manager, is also one of the largest investors in Elbit Systems.
Another target on that list, AXA insurance company, is much larger in Europe than the US (e.g. Britain and France); in the US, it makes up a considerably smaller share of the market for insurance companies. Barclays Bank is also much smaller in the US compared to the UK, roughly half the size in terms of revenue. In the US, Barclays is not among the top 15 largest banks that makeup about 74% of all US deposits and assets. HIKVision is already the subject of sanctions by the US federal government, but has a few US cities which still use tech that was previously procured (such as in Memphis, TN and Lawrence, MA police departments).