The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is a campaign perpetrated by various non-governmental agencies against Israel supporting the Palestinian cause. 

Its basic argument is that economic barriers are needed against Israel in order to put pressure on the country to end its illegal occupation of Palestine and to protect and promote the rights of Palestinians. 

Those against BDS argue that this campaign is unfairly targeted at Israel, that the occupation of Palestine is not illegal and that the BDS movement harms Palestinians just as it harms Israelis. But my argument against BDS has nothing to do with these two groups in particular. I am against boycotts, divestments and sanctions because of the political and economic impact—namely the reduced wealth of all parties and the increased likelihood of war—that this movement causes. 

The central idea behind all divestment movements is to limit trade and put economic pressure on a group in order to influence them to take some course of action. These movements ultimately arise because there is a conflict between two entities, and some in the international community believe that by putting economic pressure on one group, they can sway actions to cause one side to have leverage over the other. 

By eliminating trade either between the two entities or with one of the entities, this leverage can be obtained. The problem with this thinking is that this views trade as a zero-sum game in that someone must lose in order for someone else to gain. They believe that by eliminating trade, it will only harm the one side they want to put pressure on but will not harm others. However, trade is always a positive-sum game because if the party had nothing to gain from making the trade, it would not occur. Trade necessitates both sides gaining. Those who support boycotting, divesting and sanctioning an entity are not only harming the entity they are targeting but also other entities that they may not intend to harm. Even if the potential political gains are taken into account, it is ultimately the Palestinians who are financially harmed by these barriers. It seems like BDS supporters see this harm as merely collateral in achieving their goals when it is actually significant, because, if they are trying to improve the lives of the Palestinians through BDS, how can reducing the well-being of those people through a reduction in trade improve their livelihood?

An example of this is the pressure applied by the BDS movement on the Israeli company SodaStream to get them to close one of their factories in the West Bank. This action was hailed as a massive victory for those in support of the BDS movement against Israel. While this did harm Israel economically, in that SodaStream was no longer producing as much as it was before, it also harmed Palestine economically because the Palestinian employees working at the factory no longer had well-paying jobs. StandWithUs published the account of Basel Ja’afar, a former SodaStream employee. While employed by the SodaStream factory in the West Bank, he earned NIS 6,000, after the factory closed, he now earns NIS 1,450, less than 75 percent of his previous income. In the words of Haaretz op-ed writer David Rosenberg, “Neither the company, nor the occupation, nor Israel lost much, but the hundreds of Palestinians employed at the plant lost their jobs.” While the BDS movement was successful in applying pressure to an Israeli firm, both Israelis and Palestinians were harmed. 

On top of all of this, there is one major, often overlooked consequence of limiting trade among peoples. These divestment movements are only established in areas of conflict. If there were no conflict, there would be no reason for a group of people to boycott, divest or sanction a country. Therefore, one of the goals of a BDS movement must be to use this economic power to influence their target to end a conflict. 

If a person attempts to solve or influence a conflict using trade as their tool, there are three options. The group can increase trading with a country or group, keep it the same or reduce trade. Since the person is trying to solve a conflict, keeping the level of trade the same would have no impact because the person wants to take an action to help the situation get resolved. This means the person can either increase trade or decrease trade with their target. Evaluating these two options will prove why decreasing trade is the wrong idea and increasing trade is the best solution for peace. 

If BDS were implemented, there would be less trade. Since there would be less trade, two things would happen. First, all parties involved with that trade would be less wealthy, since trade is not a zero-sum game. The gains they were making from trades would disappear. This means that the group as a whole would be poorer than before, and this economically harms both of the parties involved. 

Second, each side would become less dependent on others for income, investments and revenue. This means that the group that the person is trying to influence would become more isolated from the global community. Because this group would be more isolated, military action and conflict toward another country is not as costly as it would not be, in terms of lost revenue, compared to if there were ongoing trades between the two parties. 

This is because the loss in revenue that would occur from the conflict would no longer be there. Essentially, they do not have as much to lose if they go war. This means that conflict would statistically more likely to occur, because the costs would not be as high. 

If BDS is not applied but trade between the Israelis and Palestinians is increased through open borders, then the opposite happens. Both sides are richer because there are now more trades going on, which means that everyone is benefiting more than if the trades were not occurring. In addition, the prospect of conflict becomes much more expensive because this conflict would result in the loss of all the benefits of trade between both peoples. 

Not only does this argument work logically, but it also holds empirically. Research by the Asian Development Bank over the past 60 years shows that countries that traded more with each other were less likely to engage in military conflict. 

They reported that contiguous countries that increased bilateral trade by 10 percent, were 1.9 percent less likely to go to war. This may seem like a small number, but trade can continue to grow over time, establishing bonds and connections that will ultimately make the chance of war between any two nations basically negligible. 

If the true goals of those advocating for boycotts, divestments and sanctions is peace, then they must accept the words of French philosopher Frédéric Bastiat, “If goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.”