On July 14, a fresh boycott campaign was launched by the Palestine National Initiative party to the Palestinian street. Posters decorated lamp posts and city squares, with three slogans highlighted:

• Don’t have a hand in maintaining the occupation
• Don’t become an accomplice in the building of settlements
• Don’t support the Israeli prison warden

In previous campaigns, general-secretary of the PNI Dr Mustafa Barghouti has reiterated that the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement should be taken up from within the occupied territories as a tactic to not only emphasize the atrocious Israeli occupation policies, but also to absolve the Palestinians from unwittingly perpetuating these same polices against themselves.

“It has been recorded that Israel sells nearly three billion dollars worth of goods in the occupied Palestinian territories,” Dr Barghouti once stated in a press release. “This means Palestinians constitute the second largest market in the world for Israel. The Israeli profits that we contribute to inevitably are used to further suppress Palestinians and expand the illegal settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem.”

For example, as the holy month of Ramadan unfolds, there are growing concerns that Palestinians will fall into the trap of buying dates- which are used to break one’s fast- that were cultivated on illegal Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley.

Just before the first day of Ramadan, a twitter campaign spread worldwide with the hashtag of #JusticeDates, to underline the exporting of one popular date, called Medjool, cultivated on stolen land and through exploitative measures.

Since the BDS call in 2005, the movement has grew dramatically all across the world, but the notable lack of action and failure of many political parties to adopt the call is reflected in the supermarkets all over the West Bank stocked and shelved with many Israeli products. Since 2009, the PNI has taken the initiative, derived from its Arabic name of “Mubadara” to actively boycott all Israeli goods.