Moral-historical questions of the anti-Israel boycott

This chapter considers how post-war developments – decolonization, and the shift in international opinion regarding settler states, the displacement of original populations or their relegation to inferior status – have created fertile soil for the anti-Israel boycott movement in the West. A parallel is drawn with the changes in international civil society associated with the anti-slavery campaigns. Drawing on a number of historical examples, the paper also identifies the extreme outcomes to which boycott movements can subscribe when they are associated with nationalism, and how this poses ‘moral-historical questions’ for the anti-Israel boycott movement. In this and other ways, the analysis probes a boycott movement in the contemporary world in terms of the history to which it relates, directly or comparatively.