Boycotts Divestment Sanctions Committee

YUGSA’s “Boycotts, Divestment, Sanctions Committee” (BDSC) was created upon the mandate of YUGSA’s General Membership motion in February 2024 to renew its support for “the International BDS Movement to end Israeli settler colonial occupation, apartheid, and genocide”. Soon after, YUGSA Council gave the newly established committee a clear direction to launch campaigns boycotting businesses on campus that are listed by the BDS International including “Aroma Espresso Bar” for its participation in occupation and genocide!

What is BDS?

In 2005, 170 Palestinian civil society organizations called for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) as a form of non-violent pressure on Israel until it 3 demands are met:

  1. An end to Israel’s occupation of all Arab lands and dismantling the illegal apartheid Wall;

  2. Full equality for Palestinian citizens of present-day Israel; and

  3. The right of return for Palestinian refugees.

  • BOYCOTTS involve withdrawing support from Israel's apartheid regime, complicit Israeli sporting, cultural and academic institutions, and from all Israeli and international companies engaged in violations of Palestinian human rights.

  • DIVESTMENT campaigns urge banks, local councils, churches, pension funds and universities to withdraw investments from the State of Israel and all Israeli and international companies that sustain Israeli apartheid.

  • SANCTIONS campaigns pressure governments to fulfill their legal obligations to end Israeli apartheid, and not aid or assist its maintenance, by banning business with illegal Israeli settlements, ending military trade and free-trade agreements, as well as suspending Israel's membership in international forums such as UN bodies and FIFA.

BDS is the most effective way for us to put our solidarity with Palestinian liberation into action. 

Israel is occupying and colonising Palestinian land, discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel, committing genocide in Gaza, and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes, all in contravention of international law. Israel is only able to maintain its oppressive regime over the Palestinian people and avoid accountability for its genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in the besieged and occupied Gaza Strip because of international state, corporate and institutional complicity.

BDS is rooted in decades of Palestinian popular resistance to British colonialism and Zionist settler-colonialism. It is inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, during which international boycotts and sanctions played a major role in bringing about the eventual fall of apartheid.  

Who is involved in the BDS movement?

BDS is an inclusive, anti-racist human rights movement that is opposed on principle to all forms of discrimination, including anti-semitism and Islamophobia.

The BDS movement is supported by unions, churches, NGOs and movements representing millions across every continent and there are vibrant BDS campaigns in communities across the world. Progressive Jewish groups play an important role in the movement. Public figures including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Naomi Klein, Roger Waters, Angela Davis and Judith Butler back BDS.

  • It seems like there are too many companies that are in some way complicit with Israel’s apartheid regime. How can we choose who to boycott?

    People of conscience around the world are rightfully shattered, enraged, and sometimes feeling powerless about Israel’s Gaza Genocide. Many feel compelled to boycott any and all products and services of companies tied in any way to Israel. The proliferation of extensive “boycott lists” on social media is a result of this. The question is how to make boycotts effective and actually have an impact in holding corporations accountable for their complicity in the suffering of Palestinians? 

    The BDS movement uses the historically successful method of targeted boycotts. We must strategically focus on a relatively smaller number of carefully selected companies and products for maximum impact. We need to target companies that play a clear and direct role in Israel’s crimes and where there is real potential for winning, as was the case with, among others, G4S, Veolia, Orange, Ben &Jerry’s and Pillsbury. Compelling large, complicit companies, through strategic and context-sensitive boycott and divestment campaigns, to end their complicity in Israeli apartheid and war crimes against Palestinians sends a very powerful message to hundreds of other complicit companies that “your time will come, so get out before it’s too late!”

    Many of the prohibitively long lists going viral on social media do the exact opposite of this strategic and impactful approach. They include hundreds of companies, many without credible evidence of their connection to Israel’s regime of oppression against Palestinians. Many do not have clear demands to the companies as to what we expect them to do to end the boycott, making them ineffective.


    We have split these targets into four sections:

    1. Consumer boycott targets - The BDS movement calls for a complete boycott of these brands carefully selected due to the company's proven record of complicity in Israeli apartheid.

    2. Divestment and exclusion targets - The BDS movement works to pressure governments, institutions, investment funds, city councils, etc. to exclude from procurement contracts and investments and to divest from, as the case may be, as many complicit companies as practical, especially arms companies and banks. We rely on the following authoritative sources:

    • AFSC list of companies that have provided Israel with weapons and other military equipment used in its #GazaGenocide.

    • AFSC Investigate database of companies enabling the occupation.

    • UN database of businesses involved in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise.

    • WhoProfits database of Israeli and international corporations profiting from the ongoing Israeli occupation.

    • Don’t Buy Into Occupation list of businesses involved in the illegal Israeli settlement enterprise in the OPT in which European financial institutions have investments.

    3. Pressure targets - The BDS movement actively calls for pressure campaigns against these targets. This includes boycotts when reasonable alternatives exist, as well as lobbying, peaceful disruptions, and social media pressure.

    4. Organic boycott targets - The BDS movement did not initiate these grassroots boycott campaigns but supports them due to these brands’ complicity in Israel’s genocide and apartheid against Palestinians.

Why target Aroma Espresso Bar?

As mentioned above, BDS relies on the proven effectiveness of targeted boycotts. Targeted boycotts stand a better chance of maintaining momentum and effectiveness, and resulting in meaningful change. Within the context of York University, we believe that Aroma Espresso is a strong target for an initial boycott. 

Aroma Espresso Bar is an Israeli coffee chain that was established in Jerusalem in 1994 and expanded to almost 200 locations worldwide. The company’s largest presence outside of Israel is in Ontario with about 40 locations, mainly in the Greater Toronto Area.

Aroma proudly operates a café located in a mall in the illegal Israeli settlement of Ma'ale Adumim in the occupied West Bank.  Ma’aleh Adumim, a city with a population of 40,000 settlers, was established in 1975 on land expropriated from Palestinians, and its construction involved the forced relocation of a Bedouin community. It is strategically located next to Jerusalem and in the middle of the West Bank, an area that Israel intends to annex permanently.

In addition to its location in Ma’aleh Adumim, Aroma’s broader supply chain has also come under scrutiny for being linked to illegal Israeli settlements. The milk supplier for their cafés, Tnuva, sources raw materials from Israeli settlement dairy farms across the occupied West Bank and occupied Syrian Golan. This means that Aroma benefits from the exploitation of Palestinian and Syrian natural resources in occupied territory, which is prohibited under international law.

Furthermore, the Israeli dairy industry benefits from Israeli government policies that hinder Palestinian farmers' initiatives in the West Bank and Gaza, destroying farms, undermining the local economy, and keeping the Palestinian markets dependent on Israeli goods.

There have also been reports of discriminatory practices within one of Aroma Espresso Bar’s branches in central Israel, in which Palestinian employees were forbidden to speak Arabic at work, a request that the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) said violated employment laws prohibiting discrimination based on nationality, origin, or religion.

Finally, the coffee chain materially supports Israel’s war efforts in Gaza, with a portion of its profits going to support the Israeli military. Following the start of Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza in 2023, Aroma Expresso Bar claimed to be “supplying 10,000 sandwiches each day to soldiers throughout the country,” with its location in Bet Shemesh operating as a factory for the army.

All Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory are illegal under international law. This was reaffirmed by the UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which clearly states that “the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law.”

Moreover, Israeli settlements amount to the theft and exploitation of Palestinian land, resources, and labour, and businesses profiting from economic activity in these settlements are therefore complicit in these crimes. The United Nations Human Rights Council has called upon businesses to comply with international law and “avoid contributing to the establishment or maintenance of Israeli settlements or the exploitation of natural resources of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” 

In July of 2024 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared Israel’s occupation and annexation of the Palestinian territories unlawful, and its discriminatory laws and policies against Palestinians as violating the prohibition on racial segregation and apartheid. The decisions also included the obligation of other states not to aid or assist in maintaining Israel’s presence in the OPT.

By allowing Aroma to operate on its campus, York is complicit both in the colonization of Palestinian land and the genocide in Gaza.

FAQs
(for DGSAs)

  • YES! 

    International companies aid and abet Israel’s violations of international law, including by operating in illegal Israeli settlements and acting as contractors for the Israeli military and government. The Israeli economy is especially dependent on international trade and investment, making it especially susceptible to international economic boycotts.

    BDS is rooted in decades of Palestinian popular resistance to British colonialism and Zionist settler-colonialism. The BDS movement uses the historically successful method of targeted boycotts inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the US Civil Rights movement, the Indian anti-colonial struggle, among others worldwide. 

    Campaigning has led to major companies such as Veolia and Orange selling up and leaving Israel altogether and a range of investors divesting from Israeli and international companies.The UN, the World Bank and other experts say that BDS is having an important economic impact on Israel and that this could well grow as the movement develops.

  • This motion may seem like an insignificant action, or beyond the mandate of grad student bodies we often think of as apolitical and concerned with academic and cultural events. However, apartheid and occupation are not only maintained by outright military and economic support, but by everyday complicity in maintaining the status quo, either through supporting companies profiting from occupation or choosing to remain silent. Past atrocities, including genocide, could only be maintained because so many people chose not to speak up.  Every decision we make has political implications, even as a small, seemingly insignificant DGSA  - to buy from Aroma is to take a political position, as is to not use whatever power we have to refuse complicity. Though it’s a small action, complicity in Israel’s occupation is so diffuse and widespread that targeting it in the space we exist in is part of chipping away at a larger system. The student movement for Palestinian liberation has been  a significant target of state repression in large part because of the power of students to enact change and build movements for liberation and justice.

  • This motion is part of a larger campaign to develop a grassroots boycott against Aroma both in the GTA and on campus. On campus we are urging individuals, unions, and student and faculty organizations and clubs to commit to not spending money at Aroma and therefore affect the cafe’s ability to make a profit in its York locations.  CUPE 3903 and YUGSA have passed motions to not spend their money on a cafe complicit in Israeli apartheid, occupation, and genocide, and having waves of DGSAs pass the same motion spreads and strengthens this institutional boycott. While DGSAs receive funding from YUGSA, the YUGSA motion does not automatically obligate DGSA’s to boycott Aroma, so these motions are not only necessary to widen the initiative but send a clear message about grassroots support for BDS. Motions are only one part of a larger campaign against Aroma at York, and York’s complicity in Israeli occupation more generally, including the ‘disclose, divest’ campaign recently launched by the YFS.

  • Individual DGSAs are welcome to pass motions to boycott other complicit businesses. However, at the moment, we are only calling for a boycott of Aroma in order to lay groundwork for future effective institutional boycotts. Our reasoning is that Aroma can be used as a test case which can be more easily scaled up compared to a more widespread boycott. If DGSAs can pass this motion, pressure can be applied to other campus unions. Gaining a small “win” in the form of a unified boycott of Aroma Espresso on York Campus lays the groundwork for future calls for boycott and divestment. 

  • Thanks to our strong student movement, there are plenty of options for students to have their coffee free of genocide in the Student Centers on campus! There are also apartheid free options in the York Lanes. Here is a list of places you can get your coffee without paying for Israeli genocide:

    • The Break Cafe (2nd Student Center)

    • YFS Wellness Center (2nd Student Center, Room 341)

    • Treats (1st Student Center)

    • Break Room (1st Student Center)

    • La Prep (York Lanes)

    • Cucina Italian Cafe (York Lanes)

    • The Great Canadian Bagels (York Lanes)

Get involved!

As a graduate student at York University, you can join your Departmental Graduate Students Association (DGSA) and support their BDS initiatives.
To learn how to join the BDS Committee, email YUGSA’s VP Equity via equity@yugsa.ca!