BDS Protesters Using Banners Made In Jewish Settlements

“It was a last-minute choice between standing by our principles and making our voice heard. So of course we used the signs.”

Berkeley, March 10 – Advocates of a boycott against Israel have been using placards, signs, banners, and other protest materials manufactured by Israelis living in controversial settlements, PreOccupied Territory has learned.

At a rally calling for the boycott of, divestment from, and imposition of sanctions against the Jewish state, protesters waved or held aloft the various implements, evidently unaware that the very materials they were using were obtained by an act of supporting Israeli economically. Even more disturbing, said organizers, the enterprise that actually produced the goods is located in a Jewish area beyond the Green Line, areas that even many not advocating for BDS maintain should not be under Jewish sovereignty.

Jewish Voice for Peace activist Aliex Press said she placed the order for the placards, banners, and several dozen T-shirts from an online retailer three weeks ago, in anticipation of an address on the University of California at Berkeley campus by an Israeli. What she apparently did not notice, however, was the labels on the packages of the goods, which indicated that the materials were made in the Mishor Adummim Industrial Zone, part of the West Bank.

“I didn’t know what that meant at first,” admitted Press, 20. “I thought everything was made in China,” a country with a horrific human rights record that she would never think to boycott. “Isn’t everything made in China now?” She described being rendered speechless when a fellow student asked whether Mishor Adummim wasn’t the same area where SodaStream had closed its factory employing hundreds of Palestinians.

“You could have knocked me over with a feather,” recalled Press. “I suddenly remembered that whole story, which was a victory for our movement. But I must have forgotten. But this was right before the protest, and we didn’t have any alternatives. It was a last-minute choice between standing by our principles and making our voice heard. So of course we used the signs.”

The JVP chapter’s decision to use the Israeli-manufactured goods anyway recalls a similar event every second of every day, as BDS activists continuously use computer and communications technology developed or manufactured in Israel. “It’s about the idea, not the actual practice, which might demand we change our lifestyle in some way,” explained Press. “It’s hard enough to gather a dozen people together to throw things, shout down people who disagree, and intimidate supporters of Israel into silence without also having to be ethically or morally consistent.”

“Morals are probably manufactured in Israel anyway, so who needs them?” she added.