Preface

by Andrea Legni, Editor-in-chief of L'Indipendente

What can we do to stop Israel and the ongoing genocide in Gaza? This is the question many of us have been asking during these seemingly endless months of the Israeli offensive inside occupied Palestine, as we stand by, witnessing the complicit silence of our governments. The political and media system, functioning as its transmission belt, does everything to convince us that citizens are powerless in the face of injustice and the violence of power. They push us to believe that democracy means simply casting a ballot when asked and then passively watching what happens. Fortunately, that's not the case. We can do much more to take concrete action and accelerate the push that, sooner or later, history will inevitably give to the last great colonial occupation on Earth: the Zionist occupation of historical Palestine.

The first time I interviewed Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was in November 2024, after the publication of her courageous report, “Genocide as Colonial Erasure”. In this report, she detailed in an incontrovertible and legally sound manner how Israeli actions in Gaza should be considered genocide under international law. Among her responses, the ones that struck me most – perhaps because we tend to think of legal scholars as attached to an idea based entirely on codes and legal clauses – were those concerning the importance of popular mobilization to end Israeli abuses. When I asked her if she believed boycotts were a legitimate and effective weapon, her answer was clear: "The system of apartheid and genocide carried out by Israel is nourished by deep and widespread economic and financial entites. Hitting these entities at their roots is one of the keys to ending the injustice suffered by the Palestinians."

The book you hold in your hands arises precisely from this need: to provide everyone with a simple, clear, and exhaustive guide on how to strike at the economic and financial roots that nourish Israeli crimes, and therefore contribute to stopping the flow of money that makes the occupation of Palestine and the massacre of its people possible. It is about making simple gestures to break the sense of impotence that pervades us all in the face of what is arguably the first live-streamed genocide in history. It calls for being active citizens, not just spectators, and exercising conscious choices in our daily lives: when we shop, when we browse the internet, when we look for a hotel for a vacation or business trip, when we fill up the car.

Detractors often argue that boycotting is useless. This is just another lie designed to demotivate people, like all the times they tell us nothing can be done to change reality. Concrete results have already been achieved that have inflicted losses of millions of euros for several multinational corporations, forcing them to revise their policies. These results are described within the book. Moreover, the authentic fear that the Israeli government shows towards the international Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement  also demonstrates its effectiveness. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defined the BDS movement as a "strategic threat" to the state of Israel. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has admitted that the boycott is reaching a "tipping point." The Israeli government has allocated at least $25 million to combat the BDS movement, in addition to allocating significant resources to its secret services to combat the movement abroad.

The list of products to avoid in order to concretely sanction the companies that profit from the occupation and make it “de facto” possible has been chosen with care, with the precious contribution of BDS Italy (the Italian branch of the organization that coordinates the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign against Israel) and of Francesca Albanese herself.  With her report, “From the Economy of Occupation to the Economy of Genocide”, she has contributed decisively to allowing us to identify the main nodes of the economic system that supports the genocide. To the entire group of BDS Italy and to Francesca Albanese, who also curated the introduction to the volume, I express my most heartfelt thanks from the editorial staff of L'Indipendente, because without them this work would certainly have been less complete, and probably impossible.

It is thanks to this synergy that we have been able to publish the first comprehensive guide of the products to boycott in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. The goal we have set for ourselves is to circulate it as widely as possible, making it available at an affordable price. To all of you who hold it in your hands, however, it is now up to you to act concretely, starting with daily choices. Because when governments do not act, it is up to the people to demonstrate that collective action can lead to change. The duty that all of us have, as worthy and conscious citizens, is to act consistently, refusing to finance the companies involved. And to do so not only until the end of the campaign of genocide that Israel has unleashed against the Palestinian people, but to continue until the achievement of the only goal that can really bring peace, which cannot exist without justice: the end of the occupation, the dismantling of illegal settlements, the return of refugees, and the liberation of Palestine.