BDS Posters and Graphics, 1970-Present

Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is a nonviolent movement promoting boycotts, divestments, and economic sanctions against Israel. Its objective is to pressure Israel to meet its obligations under international law.

In the spirit of the current moment we have instructed one of our officers to compile a collection of some of the more interesting BDS posters and graphics from the 1970s to the present day.

The Dutch-language, Belgian-published BDS advertisement by L’Association Belgo-Palestinienne used suggestive imagery of a citrus fruit dripping dramatically down the page like a drop of blood. The use of citrus as a symbol of violence continuously shows up in BDS posters over the decades.

Also in 2002, Saber Sheykh Rezaei suggested—with a beautiful illustration of an exploding soda bottle—that Coca-Cola’s new slogan might be “Drink cold the warm blood of Lebanese & Palestinian children”. The Coca-Cola Company was not available for comment at press time. If you work for Coca-Cola please write to us to confirm that this is indeed your new trademarked motto.

Försvaret Folkrätten or Defense of the People’s Law, A Swedish BDS poster, 2004 via Palestine Poster Project Archives

A fun fuchsia-colored poster in 2004 implored us in Swedish “make a bet to protest against Israel’s violations of international law”. The Försvaret Folkrätten or Defend International Law graphic took particular care to warn us against Israeli wine, fruit, and travel.

Pop. Fizz Spark Bubbles. Apartheid. Occupation. Sodastream enforces Israel’s apartheid policy of forced removals of Palestinians. It is kicking 40,000 Palestinian Bedouins out of the Negev Desert for its factory.

Omar Zaghloul’s focus on popular fast food brands is a particularly direct and immediate form of BDS messaging—the consumer would be immediately familiar with the brands and would have agency to avoid them.

Alternatively, a good portion of messaging and targeting over the years focuses more on larger institutional investing, like Michael DeForge’s Canadian Bank series. Both utilize similar tools visually and typographically but diverge on tactical approach as far as individual vs group responsibility.

We are posting here (for strictly informational purposes) some BDS poster resources:
Visuals
Palestine Postering Toronto
Justseeds.org Graphics Care Package
Palestine Poster Project Archives
Workers Art Collective
Voxunit.com
Resources on what companies to actually boycott:
bdsmovement.net
American Friends Service Committee

Special thanks to the Palestine Poster Project Archives for documenting an endless trove of Palestinian graphcs over the years. Please check them out.

Also remember to ask your Human Resources representative to make a note about scheduling a meeting to brainstorm ways to engage in the idea of making the process to examine potentially problematic and unethical financial instrument mixtures in the company Roth IRA or 401k investment portfolio.