Apartheid-Free Baltimore

Yes! The Rome statute of the International Criminal Court defines apartheid as "inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime." This is exactly the crime that Israel has an extremely well documented history of committing in Palestine. Countless of independent, international human rights organizations have reported on this, from Amnesty International to Human Rights Watch. The leaders of the South African anti-apartheid movement themselves have called what Israel does to Palestine an apartheid! In a 2014 Huffington Post piece, Desmond Tutu wrote, "I know first-hand that Israel has created an apartheid reality within its borders and through its occupation." To call it anything less than apartheid would be a great distortion of the truth.

Sources and More Information:

UN General Assembly, Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (last amended 2010), ISBN No. 92-9227-227-6, UN General Assembly, 17 July 1998, https://www.refworld.org/legal/constinstr/unga/1998/64553 [accessed 22 June 2026]

Tutu, Desmond. "Presbyterian General Assembly Biennial Meeting: My Message on Israel and Palestine." Huffington Post, Jun. 2014, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/presbyterian-general-assembly_b_5499395

El Ad, Hagai. "We are Israel’s largest human rights group – and we are calling this apartheid", Guardian. Jan. 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/12/israel-largest-human-rights-group-apartheid

"Israel/OPT: Israel is committing apartheid, says UN Special Rapporteur." Amnesty International, Mar. 2022, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/03/israel-opt-israel-is-committing-apartheid-says-un-special-rapporteur/

Amnesty International, Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel system of domination and crime against humanity. Feb. 2022, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/5141/2022/en/

Human Rights Watch, A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution, Mar. 2022, https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution

The accusation of antisemitism has often been lobbed at the Palestinian-led, international BDS movement. This is a deflection. Firstly, being Israeli is not the same as being Jewish. Not all Israelis are Jewish and not all Jews are Israeli. Secondly, equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism is dangerous. The implication that being against an ethno-supremacist colonialist project is somehow discriminatory against Jews is deeply antisemitic in itself. Our partners at Jewish Voice for Peace endorsed the international call for the BDS movement back in 2015. You can read their full statement on it here.

Finally, BDS targets complicity, not identity. According to the BNC, Israeli companies may be non-complicit if they are (1) not implicated in Israel's military occupation, apartheid, or settler colonialism; and (2) publicly recognize Palestinian rights under international law, primarily the right of refugees to return in accordance with UN resolution 194. The BNC further states, "As far as we know, no Israeli company meets these two conditions. Accordingly, the BDS movement has called for boycotting and divesting from all Israeli companies unless they meet the above two conditions."

The AFB campaign is a targeted boycott campaign, following the principles of the international Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. This means that, like with the BDS campaign, we focus on a limited list of products and brands to target our boycott on. This targets list is based on factors such as their level of complicity, their brand presence in Baltimore, and how much pressure they are already facing from similar boycott campaigns. The fewer targets there are, the more people are able to join the movement, and with more people comes greater pressure on these targets.

Image transcription: TARGETED VERSUS UNTARGETED BOYCOTTS / We focus our boycotts on a SMALL NUMBER of companies/products for MAXIMUM IMPACT. / BDS

Priority targets are our targets which must be boycotted completely with no exceptions, whereas pressure targets are difficult or sometimes impossible to boycott completely. With pressure targets, we ask signees to avoid them to the fullest possible extent, but we recognize that this is not entirely possible for everyone. For example, it is not possible to boycott Amazon completely, because they own so many of the web servers used across the Internet. You can still apply pressure on them by not ordering anything from Amazon and canceling any existing Prime and Audible subscriptions though.

No! Your pledge is a commitment to fully divest from Israeli apartheid, but we understand that not all businesses can make this change to their supply chain immediately. When you sign the pledge, you are making a commitment that you will start your efforts to divest completely. With your permission, we'll publicly announce your pledge on our social media. Then we'll work with you to find alternatives for any products or services you need to divest from.

Once you have divested completely, congratulations! We'll give you a free poster to hang in your store window and update our map to list your business as fully divested.