🇵🇸 About BDS
What Is BDS?
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is a global, Palestinian-led campaign for freedom, justice and equality. It was launched in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian civil society organisations as a non-violent response to decades of occupation, apartheid, and human rights violations by the Israeli state.
BDS urges people and institutions around the world to apply peaceful pressure on Israel until it complies with international law by:
- Ending its occupation and colonisation of all Arab lands
- Recognising the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality
- Respecting the right of return of Palestinian refugees
Why BDS Matters for UK Muslims
Many UK Muslims support humanitarian efforts in Palestine but remain unaware that their personal and institutional banking choices may be financially supporting the very systems they seek to oppose.
Banks operating in the UK — including those commonly used by Islamic charities, mosques, and community groups — often:
- Finance arms companies supplying the Israeli military
- Invest in corporations profiting from illegal settlements
- Provide loans and financial services to entities enabling apartheid policies
The BDS movement provides a clear ethical framework to evaluate and avoid these relationships — helping Muslims act in line with Islamic values of justice and solidarity.
What We Do
We focus on research, advocacy, and community mobilisation, especially at the institutional level, where change can have large-scale impact.
Our work includes:
- Publishing research on banking relationships of Islamic organisations
- Providing banking guidance based on BDS criteria
- Advocating for divestment from institutions complicit in apartheid and genocide
- Increase friction with complicit financial systems
The Role of Financial Boycott
Financial boycott is one of the most impactful tools of the BDS campaign. It targets banks, corporations, and institutions that are:
- Directly involved in the occupation or military violence
- Supporting or profiting from settlement infrastructure
- Complicit in apartheid or surveillance of Palestinians
By choosing where not to bank or invest, individuals and institutions can reduce complicity in injustice and increase pressure for meaningful change.
Our Approach
At Boycott Banks for Palestine, we use the BDS framework as a minimum ethical standard in our research and advocacy. Our goal is to:
- Make BDS principles accessible and actionable for UK Muslims
- Translate global solidarity into local financial decisions
- Focus on institutional accountability as a strategic priority
This is not about symbolic action — it’s about withdrawing support from the structures that uphold occupation and violence.