by Jonathan Kuttab
I just returned from an intense month in Occupied Palestine. The situation appears significantly worse, to the point where many consider what is happening now to be of an entirely different nature than before. Recalling the Nakba of 1948, people fear Israel will use in the West Bank the same tactics it has been using in Gaza. A recently issued report by B’Tselem, The Elimination Project, describes events since 2023 as part of a deliberate policy of eliminating the Palestinian presence in the West Bank by making it unlivable. It is a sobering viewing.
However, this week I choose to write about the changes taking place in the European context . For many years, Europe has supported the Two-State Solution but refrained from doing anything concrete in response to Israeli actions, which have systematically undermined and eliminated any possibility of a Palestinian state in the 22% of Palestine that remained following 1948 (the West Bank and Gaza). Recent pronouncements and actions by Israel and its leaders are finally convincing Europeans that Israel is not interested at all in a two-state solution but is actively doing all it can to make a Palestinian state impossible. The announcement calling for tenders to build 2400 units in the E1 corridor—with the expressed purpose of physically preventing any possibility of Palestinian statehood by severing the geographic continuity between the northern and southern halves of the West Bank—together with the outrageous behavior of settlers and the electoral rhetoric of Israeli candidates (from the Government and the Opposition alike) seems to have finally woken the Europeans to the reality that supporting a two-state solution actually requires them to take some concrete action against the settlers and the Israeli organizations that assist them.
The initial steps announced by several European countries to impose sanctions on specific Israeli settlers and to prohibit trading with Israeli settlements appear to be very mild, and a healthy level of cynicism is warranted. Yet, I believe the new sanctions break a long-standing taboo and could open the floodgates to much more serious sanctions. There are two reasons for this. The first is in the nature of the European Union. Under its structure, no policy change can be made unless it is unanimous. There are a few countries, including Germany and Slovenia, that have blocked any change in policy towards Israel, which includes any sanctions with real teeth. Now, action has moved to the individual states, starting with England but followed by many others. These individual countries are going to be imposing specific sanctions (albeit while still denouncing BDS) on settlements, settlers and organizations which operate in the Occupied Territories. Activists in each country can now lobby for concrete actions by their individual states, whereas in the past they had to deal with country vetoes over changes in pan-European policy towards Israel. Italy, for example, is considering legislation making it a criminal offense, punishable by 3 years in prison, to do business with the Israeli settlements. Such actions actually implement EU policy of a two-state solution and do not require unanimous support from all members of the European Union.
The second reason is that settlements have been so thoroughly integrated into the Israeli system that it is next to impossible (and will certainly be resisted by right-wing Israelis) to distinguish between “settlement” goods, services, or organizations and “Israeli” goods, , services, or other entities, like banks. That battle will start over the “certificate of origin” labelling of settlement goods as Israeli goods, but it can potentially affect all Israeli institutions that currently operate in the Occupied Territories as if they were Israeli territories. I think of banks, especially, as well as construction companies, franchise services, sports teams, and so on. For all intents and purposes, Israeli settlers think of themselves as Israelis and oppose any effort to distinguish between them and pre-’67 Israel as being false and discriminatory. This discrepancy, for those who take the two-state paradigm seriously (as do the European governments) will provide a fertile field for boycotts, divestment and sanctions, even for those who do not like the terminology of “BDS.” They would also provide ample opportunity for those who marched in the millions against the genocide in Gaza and who failed to see any effective changes in the policies of their governments.
The task then becomes: how to translate the overwhelming popular support Palestinians have into concrete action, in the face of the power of the billionaires who command the top 1% in most fields of policy. An example of the power of the people, and a possible indicator of how the struggle will now proceed, comes of all places from the United States: When songwriter Macklemore used his visibility as an opening act on Ed Sheeran’s latest tour to sing a song about Hind Rajab, and to shout “Free Palestine,” Sheeran came under great pressure from the Zionist billionaire Robert Kraft, who engineered a successful effort by venue owners to cancel Sheeran’s additional tour dates unless he fired Macklemore. Sheeran submitted to this pressure and fired Macklemore. In protest , all the other opening acts as well as Sheeran’s backing band, withdrew from the tour in solidarity with Macklemore, citing either freedom of speech for Macklemore or outright support for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
This was a classic confrontation between Zionist pro-Israeli billionaires attempting to silence any support for Palestinians through financial pressure and intimidation and the mass movement of ordinary people, artists and fans who insist on supporting justice for Palestine and are willing to pay a price for their principles. The final outcome of this particular confrontation is still unclear, but the effect on Israel’s image is tremendous. People are being asked whether they stand with the billionaire class or with justice for Palestinians. I fear also that, win or lose, the heavy-handedness of Robert Kraft and his wealthy colleagues is going to feed into anti-Jewish animus and provide fodder for antisemitic tropes about “Jewish control” over the industry. I fear for my Jewish siblings, even as I glory in the power of ordinary people to confront the powerful who currently support the Zionist enterprise.
