A reminder:

 Israel is bombing Rafah but sure listen to Shinosawa Hiro and Kasturagi Lilia and analyze their MVs! It's not just going to the Met Gala, you can be distracted by Gakumas, or GummyGoo, or even schoolwork.

Gaza Global Strike Rules Redux

On March 9th, Israel plans to invade Rafah, so there will be a global strike from March 7th to March 9th. I'm updating my strike rules I gave to myself.

General

1. Minimize spending and banking, including cash, debit, and credit. This means don't get into any emergencies. /hj
   
2. No work or school (or any driving for that matter) unless it's for a protest or an emergency. Remember to email your professors/teachers or supervisors in advance, and don't lie about the reason.
   
3. Show activism in any way you can, including with clothing like keffiyehs or Palestinian flag shirts and verbal announcements. The May 17th strike says to wear red for Rafah, for example.
   
4. Use your social media account as a platform for Palestinian voices (and other voices facing genocide). Do not use it for anything else, including publicly liking non-Palestine tweets or mindlessly scrolling non-Palestine tweets.
   
• P.S. I don't recommend exclusively tweeting art, especially if it's only copyrighted characters being Pro-Palestine.
• It is highly suggested you retweet donation links, because you haven't been doing that at all unless it's linked to a megathread.
  
5. Strikes are not the time to leave social media unless required from the strike. See rule 4.
6. Entertainment streaming counts as spending, even if you already subscribed days ago!
7. Do not platform amoral people who are trying to strike but are failing to or are hesitant to strike. Both are examples of making it about themselves. Be a good example of a striker.
• People making the strike about themselves include people critiquing the strikes for being too unorganized because "oh how can we just pay taxes before the strike". Don't shoot the messenger.
  

 Not Just During Strikes

1. Keep boycotting! You have enough privilege to not limit yourself to BDS or the "big three" in terms of the boycott!
2. Donate to whoever you can, including the Daily Click at arab.org, any charities or organizations helping Palestine, or individuals in/with family members in Gaza.
3. This includes E-Sims to sites like Nomad, Holafly, or Simly.
4. Email and call your representatives about taking action to Gaza. Obviously, calls are more important than emails, especially during 9-5. You can do this daily.
5. The most important thing you can do is take to the street, march, chant, and anything you can do to publicly protest as a group. Our collective action is the best thing we can do.
6. Coffee Revolution. People are gonna be peeved if you don't participate.
   

Current Strikes

• The next strike called will take place from August 11th to August 18th.
• Note, if you decide not to participate in any "unorganized" or "optional" strikes, please still follow both the "General" and "Not Just During Strikes" rules every day (except for the minimize banking/go-to-work-and-school/social media talk about Palestine only rules).
• By the way, even if self-imposed, there should always be boycotts or strikes on days where "extremely major entertainment events", like the Superbowl, the Oscars, the Met Gala, etc. Awareness is crucial and all eyes on Gaza and Rafah is necessary. Israel is striking Palestine almost every day! 2 million people are at constant risk of death!
  

Previous Strikes

I'll update them if I miss any!

• August 3, 2024
  
• May 17, 2024
  
• May 10, 2024
  
• May 5 - May 11, 2024
  
• April 15, 2024
  
• April 1, 2024
• March 7 - March 9, 2024
  
• March 2, 2024 (some say it's extended until March 10, 2024)
  
• February 29, 2024
  
• February 19 - February 25, 2024
  
• February 17 - February 20, 2024
• K-Pop only: January 23 - January 28, 2024 (some extended it to the 31st, some to February 29th, some are doing it as a permanent boycott)
  
• January 21 - January 28, 2024
• December 29, 2023
  
• December 18, 2023
• December 11, 2023
• November 6, 2023
  
• October 20, 2023
  

Strike

Bisan made a smart move extending the global spending strike from the 21st by seven days more, until the 28th.

From what I heard, it means:

1. Minimize spending or banking to emergencies only
   
2. No work
3. No school, at least physically, but I suggest you completely avoid going to school altogether
4. Don’t go outside, except for protesting and emergencies (but even if it's for emergencies, show your support for Palestine physically and actively)
5. Even if you don't have Palestine badges, shirts, etc, or a keffiyeh, or anything in hand to make a peaceful protest item, show your activism verbally. Explicitly call out the west and Illegal Israeli Occupation and the IOF. Don't whisper, don't talk, you must yell.
6. I say don't go outside and don't spend money, except for emergencies. However, me, you should "boycott" the need of an emergency as best as you can. Take care of your health as much as you can as fast as you can.
7. No shopping, movie theater movies, or even streaming movies. That counts as spending. I'm putting those in front just in case I forget.
   
8. No social media scrolling unless it's for Palestine. Do not like (some people like but don't repost but some don't), post, repost, reply, follow, etc. unless it is about Palestine, which in that case, like and retweet, and comment if you'd like. You may need to mute people who don't apply.
   
9. Don't get mindlessly sucked into social media.
   
10. Remember to keep boycotting! Primarily boycott the ones BDS say to boycott (including the grassroot boycott section), as well as the popular McDonald's-Disney-Starbucks boycott in the West. There's a reason there's a focus on Starbucks and their $11 billion dollar loss in December and their Stanley Valentine's Day cup collabs.
• There's a reason why the boycott focus is on those 16 companies (and Israeli produce). It's simple, it's easy (unlike some of BDS' pressure targets, which own tons of subsidiaries or are monopolies), and it's organized. There are more companies that support Israel than you think. Looking at the BDS boycott list, I think the hardest to boycott as a consumer might be Carrefour (Idk I'm stupid), Chevron/Caltex/Texaco depending on your area, and Teva if you take their medicine but still decide to boycott. It's definitely not McDonald's though.
  

For eight days in a row, you will send messages from the martyrs and living people of Gaza and Palestine, just like you did in November. Your priorities and ideals should lie there.

I heard it can also go for as long as it needs to, as it should.

Unfortunately I’m not sure if I can participate to an effective ability as 1, most of the stuff they’re asking for (besides social media scrolling and a Notion and Bard addiction) I don’t do much anyway, and 2, I just started going to in-person college classes last week. If I strike so early, especially if online studying is off the cards, I’m not sure what would happen.

I use an ad-blocker, but taking a break from entertainment social media period will be my biggest contribution to the strike.

 

Also Click to Help! I think it doesn't count as spending as much as real spending does, I seen it promoted among other fundraisers during the strike. I think Click to Help uses the money from the ads on the site, so turn off your ad-blocker!

Note (January 24): There is also a boycott on K-Pop streaming in tandem to Bisan's global strike. K-Pop in particular, as it's ran by the K-Pop community. It started late, but there are probably others like this. The original plan was to boycott YG, SM, JYP, and HYBE for five days, but it has recently been updated to include all K-Pop (because people were using the strike as an excuse to promote "underrated" groups), and, since it's a consumer boycott, it will last as long as it needs to. The global strike, for the most part, is economic. Music streaming is not a necessity, and it especially doesn't need to be legal. If you're really concerned about where your money's going on streaming services, boycott Spotify and download your songs to a private place.

Some say the K-Pop boycott has been extended to end on February 1st (though some people are saying the boycott creator is against that), but I don't think that will do anything as much as last week did. Some are saying the boycott has been extended to February 29th, let's see how it plays out.

Helping Palestine

 Note: Reposting and boycotting is good, but it is NOT the bare minimum.

Calling your reps ON A DAILY BASIS and protesting IN THE STREETS is the bare minimum as well.

Notes to self about boycotts

Because of the Gaza Genocide, the BDS Movement have decided to call for boycotts for these products:

Slightly outdated, no companies have been removed from the picture above, but Chevron was added to the consumer boycott, Intel added to the divestment targets, and Teva was added to the pressure targets.
The "NON-BOYCOTT" text is also removed from the new image, boycott the companies in the pressure targets if you can!

This is the official link: https://bdsmovement.net/Act-Now-Against-These-Companies-Profiting-From-Genocide

I will be copypasting it in alphabetical order.

Consumer Boycotts

The BDS movement calls for a complete boycott of these brands:

Ahava

Ahava Cosmetics (Israel) has its production site, visitor center, and main store in an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian territory.

AXA

When Russia invaded Ukraine, insurance giant AXA (France) took targeted measures against it. Yet, as Israel, a 75-year-old regime of settler-colonialism and apartheid, wages a genocidal war on Gaza, AXA continues to invest in Israeli banks financing war crimes and the theft of Palestinian land and natural resources.

Carrefour

Carrefour (France) is a genocide enabler. Carrefour-Israel has supported Israeli soldiers partaking in the unfolding genocide of Palestinians in Gaza with gifts of personal packages. In 2022, it entered a partnership with the Israeli company Electra Consumer Products and its subsidiary Yenot Bitan, both of which are involved in grave violations against the Palestinian people.

Hewlett-Packard (HP)

HP Inc (US) provides services to the offices of genocide leaders, Israeli PM Netanyahu and Financial Minister Smotrich. HP directly owns HyperX, so boycott them too.

Puma

Since 2018 BDS has called for a boycott of PUMA (Germany) due to its sponsorship of the Israel Football Association, which governs teams in Israel’s illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land. In a major BDS win in December 2023, PUMA leaked news to the media that it will not be renewing its contract when it expires in December 2024. We continue to call for #BoycottPUMA until it ends its complicity in Israeli apartheid.

RE/MAX

RE/MAX (US) markets and sells property in illegal Israeli settlements built on stolen Palestinian land, thus enabling Israel’s colonization of the occupied West Bank.

Siemens

Siemens (Germany) is the main contractor for the Euro-Asia Interconnector, an Israel-EU submarine electricity cable that is planned to connect Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory to Europe. Siemens-branded electrical appliances are sold globally.

SodaStream

SodaStream (Israel) is actively complicit in Israel's policy of displacing the indigenous Bedouin-Palestinian citizens of Israel in the Naqab (Negev) and has a long history of racial discrimination against Palestinian workers.

Israeli produce

Fruits, vegetables, and wines misleadingly labeled as “Product of Israel” often include products of illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land. Israeli companies do not distinguish between the two, and neither should consumers. Boycott produce from Israel in your supermarket and demand their removal from shelves.

 

BDS has also once called a boycott on Sabra, a hummus co-produced by Pepsi and Strauss Group, the latter being an Israeli company, but it's not part of this list.

It has also called for a boycott specifically of Marvel and its upcoming movie Captain America: Brave New World until it drops the character of Ruth Bat-Seraph/Sabra, an Israeli spy superhero. But it is also not part of this list.

Chevron, Caltex, & Texaco

As of January 5, 2024, Chevron (US) has been added to the BDS consumer boycott list as it is the main corporation extracting gas claimed by apartheid Israel in the East Mediterranean. Chevron generates billions in revenues, strengthening Israel’s war chest and apartheid system, exacerbating the climate crisis and Gaza siege, and is complicit in depriving the Palestinian people of their right to sovereignty over their natural resources. Chevron has thousands of retail gas stations around the world under the Chevron, Caltex, and Texaco brand names.

Divestment Targets

Barclays

Barclays Bank (UK) holds more than £1 billion in shares of, and provides more than £3bn in loans and underwriting to nine companies whose weapons, components and military technology have been used in Israel’s armed violence against Palestinians.

CAF

Basque transport firm, CAF, builds and services the Jerusalem Light Rail (JLR), a tram line that serves Israel's illegal settlements in Jerusalem. CAF benefits from Israel’s war crimes on stolen Palestinian land.

Chevron (and Chevron-owned Noble Energy)

US fossil fuel multinational Chevron is the main international corporation extracting gas claimed by apartheid Israel in the East Mediterranean. Chevron and Chevron-owned Noble Energy generate billions in revenues, strengthening Israel’s war chest and apartheid system as well as exacerbating the climate crisis.

Elbit Systems

Elbit Systems is apartheid Israel’s largest arms company. It “field-tests” its weapons on Palestinians, including in Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on Palestinians in Gaza. On top of building killer drones, Elbit makes surveillance technology for Israel's apartheid wall, checkpoints and Gaza fence, enabling apartheid. The US and EU use Elbit's technology to militarize their borders, violating refugee and indigenous peoples' rights.

HD Hyundai/Volvo/CAT/JCB

Machinery from HD Hyundai (South Korea), Volvo (Sweden/China), CAT (US), and JCB (UK) has been used by Israel in the ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of Palestinians through the destruction of their homes, farms, and businesses, as well as the construction of illegal settlements on land stolen from them, a war crime under international law.

HikVision

Amnesty International has documented high-resolution CCTV cameras made by the Chinese company Hikvision installed in residential areas and mounted to Israeli military infrastructure for surveillance of Palestinians. Some of these models, according to Hikvision’s own marketing, can plug into external facial recognition software.

TKH Security

Amnesty International has identified cameras made by the Dutch company TKH Security used by Israel for surveillance of Palestinians. TKH provides Israeli police with surveillance technology that is used to entrench apartheid.

Intel

As of January 5, 2024, Intel (US) has been added to the BDS consumer boycott list as it has recently announced that it will invest $25 billion in apartheid Israel as Israel’s #GazaGenocide continues, signaling its commitment to bolstering apartheid. The company’s first development center outside the US was opened in Haifa in 1974. For decades, Intel has invested in apartheid Israel. Its plant at “Qiryat Gat” is built on Palestinian land within the boundaries of the Palestinian village of Iraq al Manshiya, which was ethnically cleansed and razed to the ground and then replaced by the Israeli settlement of Qiryat Gat.

Pressure Targets

The BDS movement calls for pressure against these companies, including boycotts, if reasonable alternatives exist.

 

Too big to fail, but if possible, you should do an individual boycott of the following companies.

Airbnb/Booking/Expedia

Airbnb (US), Booking.com (Netherlands) and Expedia (US) all offer rentals in illegal Israeli settlements built on stolen Palestinian land. While the campaigns targeting these corporations have not called for boycotts, yet, other forms of pressure have been adopted to force them to end their complicity.

 

Disney

The Disney-owned Marvel Studios (US) is promoting in the next Captain America film a "superhero" that personifies apartheid Israel. Both companies are therefore complicit in "anti-Palestinian racism, Israeli propaganda, and the glorification of settler-colonial violence against Indigenous people," as Palestinian cultural organizations have stated.

Note there is an actually boycott placed for the new Captain America film until they drop the character of Ruth Bat-Seraph/Sabra from the movie. I think it goes for all of Marvel, actually, so no Beyond the Spider-Verse.

Google and Amazon (US)

As the Israeli military bombed homes, clinics, and schools in Gaza and threatened to push Palestinian families from their homes in occupied Jerusalem May 2021, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud executives signed a $1.22 billion contract to provide cloud technology to the Israeli government and military. By supporting Israeli apartheid with vital technologies, Amazon and Google are directly implicated in its entire system of oppression, including its unfolding genocide in Gaza. Join the #NoTechForApartheid campaign. While the campaigns targeting these corporations have not called for boycotts, other forms of pressure have been adopted to force them to end their complicity.

Teva

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (Israel) is an Israeli pharmaceutical company and the world’s largest generic drug manufacturer. Teva benefits from Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands allowing the company to exploit the captive Palestinian market. I believe this company, as well as Chevron and Intel, were added to their respective categories of the list on January 5, 2024.

Organic Boycott Targets

Boycotts not started but supported by BDS.

 

McDonald’s (US), Burger King (US), Papa John’s (US), Pizza Hut (US), WIX (Israel), etc. are now being targeted in some countries by grassroots organic boycott campaigns, not initiated by the BDS movement, because these companies, or their branches or franchises in Israel, have openly supported apartheid Israel and/or provided generous in-kind donations to the Israeli military amid the current Israeli offensive against 2.3 million Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip–described by leading international scholars of international law as an “unfolding genocide.” If these grassroots campaigns are not already organically active in your area, we suggest focusing your energies on our strategic campaigns above.

 

Note 1: I'm not sure what the others companies' subsidiaries are that don't have their name plastered on them (ex. CosMc's or Ronald McDonald House Charities), but Wix has owned DeviantART since the mid-2010s.

 

Note 2: In the US, there is a popular campaign boycotting McDonald's, Starbucks, and Disney, particularly Disney+. That is what you should be boycotting as well.

 

Note 3:  McDonald's has said it will buy back its 225 restaurants in Israel because of boycotts, but it seems to not have happened yet. Also, there's this.

 

Don't just follow this list! These are what BDS listed out, but do what you can! Squishmallows is being boycotted because their parent company's owner is very visibly pro-Israel and pro-IDF (this also means the Miraculous dolls, the Fortnite minifigurines, and the sleepy Pokemon plushies are also being boycotted). Canva and Archive of Our Own are being boycotted for removing pro-Palestine posts, bios, etc. K-Pop as whole is being boycotted because of things like the NewJeans x McDonald's collab, showing that companies like HYBE still work with pro-Israel companies. If you're a BDS list purist telling people to stick to one or two boycott lists, you're just saying you don't really care about Palestinian people, you just like being told what to do and telling others what to do in order to look progressive.

Note 3: From February 18 to February 25, there is a global strike! Mostly the same, but please donate if you can to Palestinian families, groups, and organizations!

Note 4: It looks like since at least March 20, 2024, BDS has been calling for a consumer boycott of Intel. It's not on the image yet, but the image doesn't matter. I heard AMD and most if not all tech companies support Israel, so if you want a PC, buy it secondhand, but Intel is one of the biggest Israel supporters in the tech industry along with HP.
Also, BDS has called for a boycott of Eurovision.

Note 5: As of July 26, 2024, BDS supports boycott calls for Adidas after dropping the Palestinian model Bella Hadid, for speaking up about Palestine.