On the BDS movements against Russia and Israel

Russia began its full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. On March 8, a poll conducted by independent survey organisations in Russia among a randomly selected cohort of 1,640 people reported around 46% supported the war, 13% supported it somewhat, 23% opposed it, and the rest were undecided or didn’t answer. But also by March 9, the Vladimir Putin government detained more than 13,000 anti-war protestors, with police brutally assaulting many of them and even persecuting some of their children.

In October 2023, Israel began its ongoing reprisal against Hamas by launching what quickly became the deadliest conflict in the history of Palestine. The Hindu reported on April 9 that surveys in Israel have found fewer than half of all Israelis support the Benjamin Netanyahu government’s military actions.

Both Russia’s and Israel’s wars have been asymmetric, protracted, and met with accusations of human-rights violations. They also highlight an issue with the instruments available for other countries to pressure them into drawing down.

Following Russia’s invasion, more than 4,000 scientists and science journalists in the country addressed a letter to Putin asking him to reconsider:

“Having unleashed the war, Russia has doomed itself to international isolation. … This means that we … will no longer be able to do our job in a normal way because conducting scientific research is unthinkable without cooperation and trust with colleagues from other countries. The isolation of Russia from the world means cultural and technological degradation of our country with a complete lack of positive prospects.”

Countries that don’t clearly and routinely demarcate their military and civilian enterprises — especially in research as well as in inchoate ‘sunrise’ sectors like spaceflight — are more liable to experience the consequences of their military aggression across both domains. Thus, Tel Aviv University has been criticised for helping develop defence technologies deployed by the IDF in Palestine and the Radzyner School of Law for helping develop legal justifications for Israel’s military excesses, so their international reputation is lower than that typically reserved for academic centres.

In another example, misplaced suspicions of an absence of demarcation prompted the US to impose an embargo on ISRO under the Missile Technology Control Regime in the 1980s when the organisation received a tranche of cryogenic engines from the Soviet Union. The action was perceived to be meritless and radicalised public opinion so much so that, as former ISRO chairman UR Rao wrote, “even voluntary organisations, private individuals and newspapers started expressing their outrage.”

The incident is recognised as an early impetus for Indian self-sufficiency in space technologies. While it's behind us, industry leaders and policymakers have liked to cite the incident as an example of what India risks as long as it isn’t self-sufficient. Just as well, similar sanctions by foreign governments against the civilian populations of Israel or Russia could sow public resentment and this may either weaken domestic opposition to war — or it could lead to democratic dissent that forces the government to withdraw from the conflict.

But Putin is an absolutist in all but name and has responded to opposition to his foreign policies by curtailing civil rights and using physical violence. In Israel, as journalist Gidi Weitz has written, “It will soon be five years since the 11-0 court decision that allowed Netanyahu to be prime minister despite his criminal trial — and Netanyahu is closer than ever to overpowering the state that put him on trial.” If a state is no longer swayed by public opinion, no matter how overwhelming, and in fact threatens debilitating violence against dissidents, is it worth reconsidering what sanctioning non-combatants can be expected to achieve?

In mid-April I tried to argue that the answer is ‘yes’. But I’ve since changed my mind to ‘no’. The text that follows is my attempt to argue the ‘yes’, concluding with an explanation of what changed.

Shortly after Russia’s invasion, some science journals stopped accepting papers authored or co-authored by Russian scholars. One editor of a journal that instituted a temporary ban had said:

“Let me insist, the decision is not directed to Russian scientists … but to Russian institutions, which support (and are funded by) the Russian government. Besides, the Russian Academy of Science has not given any official message in support of the innocent victims nor against the violation of international law by the Russian government.”

The vast majority of scientific research in the world is funded by governments. Is this sufficient reason to censor research institutions in the event one of them goes to war?

The European Broadcasting Union said “the inclusion of a Russian entry in [Eurovision] would bring the competition into disrepute.” The Royal Opera House in London cancelled the summer season of the Bolshoi Ballet while all the major Hollywood studios suspended the release of their films in Russian cinemas. The European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) suspended Russia’s ‘observer’ status and said it would cooperate with international sanctions against the country.

Similarly, Jhumpa Lahiri, Arundhati Roy, and many other authors have pledged to boycott Israeli cultural institutions while many scientists and social scientists have called for their peers to desist from collaborating with their counterparts in Israeli research institutes. Maldives said Israelis are banned from visiting the archipelago.

Israel has resisted almost all forms of intervention available to foreign states to tame its hand even as its aggression in West Asia scaled deplorable new heights (with considerable support from the US, of course). As a result, in 2005, Palestinian civil society organisations called upon their counterparts worldwide “to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel,” i.e. to declare their stance against institutions believed to be complicit in state violence and force a reckoning on their part, and to render reputational and/or economic damage to the state and force it to change policy.

Yet the question of defining complicity under an autocratic regime remains, as does the risk of further alienating these organisations’ natural allies within the country — e.g. pro-Palestine students and activists who already lack political power — and stinting academic collaboration.

Russia’s and Israel’s leaders are obviously aware of the contributions of various human enterprises, including culture, sports, and research, to the construction and maintenance of national identity and pride. As scholarly publishing commentator Joseph Esposito asked in 2022, “What is the meaning of academic freedom when the academy is itself put to work for the benefit of an imperial power…?” Yet it is an important detail because what a de facto total war response to these two unilateral aggressors achieves is unclear.

What changed?

As I wrote the post, I spoke to a bunch of people to understand the value of the boycott, divest, sanction (BDS) movement. Two of them made arguments I couldn’t ignore.

One, my friend R, said they couldn’t “dissociate the ethics from the value of these institutions”. They were right in a sense. In my foregoing arguments I was concerned about how BDS would affect the people that Netanyahu and Putin didn’t give two hoots about anyway but R indicated that it had to be that those people also had to speak up against Israel’s and Russia’s actions in Palestine and Ukraine. They couldn’t be in favour of their aggressor-governments’ actions and also enjoy the benefit of doubts as to their safety.

Another friend, S, who is also I think better informed in this matter, advocated for what they called “smart sanctions”, which helped me understand R’s conditionality argument better. Here’s what they said in full, shared with their permission:

We need smart sanctions. I am against fools who target, say, an Anna Netrebko or a David Shulman. In any case during apartheid, nobody boycotted Alan Paton, Joe Slovo or Nadine Gordimer. BDS will work — which is why Trump and Germany will make it a crime to advocate it. Starmer, too. Israel is petrified of it. But it has to be smart. One can’t say “oh, let’s boycott Amazon.”

Let’s boycott all direct Israeli products and institutions and apologists of genocide but not Israelis who oppose the genocide. Shulman’s and Netrebko’s cases are black and white. No one should sign agreements or MoUs with Israeli universities, but Shulman should not be boycotted even if he teaches at Bar Ilan or Hebrew University. I would not accept a speaking invite at an Israeli university today. But if Haaretz or +972 magazine run a seminar I would attend.

Let’s take a grey case. X isn’t vocally anti-genocide but not pro either. Is boycotting X okay? I would do some research before I decide. Of course the media can’t do the boycotting. The media can say ‘we will not run defences of genocide or racism’. But if the Israeli ambassador agrees to give an interview then the media would have to really put him through his paces, Karan Thapar-style.

"How would you decide in X’s case if they’re noncommittal down the middle?," I asked.

I will probably avoid having anything to do with them.

"The Hindu recently did a data story on an independent survey in Israel finding around 60% of people were against its war in Palestine," I said. "This government isn’t swayed by public opinion and those who oppose/disagree are met with police violence. My misgivings about BDS arose in this context."

Yes, so smart boycotting is needed. BDS as a blunt instrument is pointless. Let’s use an analogy: the world should find a way to boycott Hindutva — but obviously not Hindus!