BDS-3-Clause-2025-06-04

The 3-Clause BDS License – June 4, 2025

Note: This license can also be referred to as the “New BDS License” or the “Modified BDS License”. See also the 2-clause BDS License.

Copyright <YEAR> <COPYRIGHT HOLDER>

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer and information about BDS

2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer and information about BDS in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

3. Neither the name of the copyright holder nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

In addition to providing a standard permissive open source license, the BDS 3-Clause License also intends to raise awareness of the BDS movement while also satisfying every condition to be considered open source according to the guidelines provided by the Open Source Initiative (https://opensource.org/osd). As such, the following information should be considered part of the license which must be retained with distributions of the licensed software, with only the following exception:

Users and distributors of software bound by the terms of the BDS 3-Clause license may at their discretion update the license to a newer version of the BDS 3-Clause license from the OSS For Palestine Initiative (https://ossforpalestine.top/). Each version of the BDS 3-Clause License will contain the date at which it was produced, so the license **text** (including but not limited to current BDS priority targets) may change between releases, but all other rights and restrictions outlined above will remain the same.

While none of the FOLLOWING articles represent additional restrictions regarding the use, redistribution, or modification of the software, the OSS for Palestine Initiative encourages software authors to use our licenses as a statement of solidarity with Palestinians living under occupation.

Overview of BDS

Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) is a Palestinian-led movement for freedom, justice and equality. BDS upholds the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity.

Israel is occupying and colonising Palestinian land, discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel, and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes. Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the BDS call urges action to pressure Israel to comply with international law.

BDS is now a vibrant global movement made up of unions, academic associations, churches, and grassroots movements across the world. Since its launch in 2005, BDS has had a significant impact and is effectively challenging international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.

Ongoing injustice

Since 1948, Israel has denied Palestinians their fundamental rights and has refused to comply with international law.

Israel maintains a regime of settler colonialism, apartheid, and occupation over the Palestinian people. This is only possible because of international support. Governments fail to hold Israel to account, while corporations and institutions across the world help Israel to oppress Palestinians.

Because those in power refuse to act to stop this injustice, Palestinian civil society has called for a global citizens’ response of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice, and equality.

What are Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions?

**BOYCOTTS** involve withdrawing support from Israel’s apartheid regime, complicit Israeli sporting, cultural, and academic institutions, and all Israeli and international companies engaged in violations of Palestinian human rights.

**DIVESTMENT** campaigns urge banks, local councils, churches, pension funds, and universities to withdraw investments from the State of Israel and all Israeli and international companies that sustain Israeli apartheid.

**SANCTIONS** campaigns pressure governments to fulfill their legal obligations to end Israeli apartheid and not aid or assist its maintenance by banning business with illegal Israeli settlements, ending military trade and free-trade agreements, as well as suspending Israel’s membership in international forums such as UN bodies and FIFA.

The call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions

In 2005, Palestinian civil society organisations called for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) as a form of non-violent pressure on Israel.

The BDS movement was launched by 170 Palestinian unions, refugee networks, women’s organizations, professional associations, popular resistance committees, and other Palestinian civil society bodies.

Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the Palestinian BDS call urges nonviolent pressure on Israel until it complies with international law by meeting three demands:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall

Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall International law recognises the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Syrian Golan Heights as occupied by Israel. As part of its military occupation, Israel steals land and forces Palestinians into ghettos surrounded by checkpoints, settlements, watchtowers, and an illegal apartheid Wall. Israel imposed a medieval siege on Gaza and turned it into the largest open-air prison in the world. Israel also regularly carried out large-scale assaults on Gaza that are widely condemned as constituting war crimes and crimes against humanity.

2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality

One-fifth of Israel’s citizens are Palestinians who remained inside the armistice lines after 1948. They are subjected to a system of racial discrimination enshrined in more than 50 laws that impact every aspect of their lives. The Israeli government continues to forcibly displace Palestinian communities in Israel from their land. Israeli leaders routinely and openly incite racial violence against them.

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194

Since its violent establishment in 1948 through the ethnic cleansing of more than half of the indigenous people of Palestine, Israel has set out to control as much land and uproot as many Palestinians as it can. As a result of this systematic forced displacement, there are now more than 7.25 million Palestinian refugees. They are denied their right to return to their homes simply because they are not Jewish.

BDS is an inclusive, anti-racist human rights movement that is opposed on principle to all forms of discrimination, including anti-semitism and Islamophobia.

A global movement

The BDS movement is supported by unions, churches, NGOs, and movements representing millions across every continent. There are vibrant BDS campaigns in communities worldwide, and progressive Jewish groups play an important role in the movement.

Public figures back BDS, including the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Naomi Klein, Roger Waters, Angela Davis, and Judith Butler. The slider below features just a small selection of the movement’s supporters.

— https://bdsmovement.net/what-bds

BDS Priority Targets

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition in Palestinian society that is leading the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, firmly believes that ending the complicity of states, corporations, and institutions in Israel’s ongoing, live-streamed genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza is the most effective form of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle to end the genocide and dismantle Israel’s 76-year-old regime of settler-colonialism and apartheid. 

Corporations that are implicated in the commission of international crimes connected to Israel’s unlawful occupation, racial segregation, and apartheid regime – within or beyond the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 – are all complicit and must be held accountable. The BDS movement’s Corporate Complicity Criteria are here. Direct complicity includes military, logistical, intelligence, financial, and infrastructure support. The corporations and their boards of directors and executives may face criminal liability for this complicity.

On 21 November 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) finally issued its long overdue arrest warrants against sitting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former war cabinet minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated in Gaza. In July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s entire occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is illegal and violates the prohibition against apartheid.

Targeted Boycotts vs. Non-Targeted Boycotts

People of conscience around the world are rightfully shattered, enraged, and sometimes feeling powerless about Israel’s Gaza genocide, armed, funded, and shielded from accountability by the colonial West, led by the US. Many feel compelled to boycott all products and services of companies tied in any way to Israel. The question is how to make boycotts most effective and impactful in holding corporations accountable for their complicity in the suffering of Palestinians. 

The BDS movement uses the historically successful method of targeted boycotts, inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the US Civil Rights movement, and the Indian and Irish anti-colonial struggles, among others worldwide. 

We must strategically focus on a relatively smaller number of carefully selected companies and products for maximum impact. We need to target companies that play a clear and direct role in Israel’s crimes against Palestinians, as well as in violating the rights of other peoples/communities, and where there is real potential for winning. This is how the BDS movement has successfully forced companies like G4S, Veolia, Orange, Puma, and Pillsbury, among others, to end their complicity in Israel’s grave human rights violations and crimes. 

Compelling large complicit companies, through strategic and context-sensitive boycott and divestment campaigns as well as well-thought-out shareholder strategies, to end their complicity in Israeli apartheid and war crimes against Palestinians sends a compelling message to hundreds of other complicit companies that “your time will come, so get out before it’s too late!” 

The fact that Israel’s economy has been in steady, at times drastic, decline also helps in showing that business with Israel is not only unethical and illegal but also financially irresponsible. Israel is quickly turning into what the BDS movement calls a #ShutDownNation, with the dramatic flight of capital, severe brain drain, drying foreign direct investments in high tech, and a generally unsafe, unstable, and “collapsing” economy. Ethics and international law aside, this should help us mobilize most shareholders to oppose any investment in Israel.

As an intersectional movement that connects Palestinian liberation with racial, indigenous, social, gender, and climate justice struggles, we also recommend prioritizing the boycott of companies that are targets of mobilizations in other struggles of the oppressed. We recommend, where applicable, adopting an ethical investment policy or a universal human rights-based investment screen to prevent investments in all companies complicit in human rights violations anywhere.

BDS boycott target-selection criteria:

  1. Level of complicity (based on accurate, convincing research that proves complicity)
  2. Intersectionality (cross-movement relevance of the target)
  3. Brand recognition and media appeal (helps reach a wider audience)
  4. Potential for success

BDS operational principles:

  • Gradualness (incrementalism in building power to achieve the ultimate goals)
  • Sustainability (sustaining victories and building on them to move forward)
  • Context-sensitivity (adapting tactics to suit the political-cultural context optimally)

Israeli Corporations & Banks:

As far as we know, no Israeli company meets these two conditions. Accordingly, the BDS movement has called for boycotting and divesting from all Israeli companies unless they meet the above two conditions.

Our top priority Israeli targets are the leading ones in the military-security, technology, energy, financial, diamonds, and agriculture, water, and agribusiness sectors that operate internationally, making them relevant targets for boycotts. 

The following are the BDS movement’s current top priority boycott and pressure international corporate targets. We have split these targets into three sections:

1. Consumer boycott priority targets – The BDS movement calls for a complete boycott of these brands carefully selected due to each company’s proven record of complicity in Israeli apartheid.

2. Organic boycott targets – The BDS movement did not initiate these grassroots boycott campaigns but actively supports them due to these brands’ egregious complicity in Israel’s genocide and apartheid against Palestinians.

The BDS movement targets complicity, not identity. When it comes to Israeli companies, being non-complicit entails a. not being implicated in Israel’s military occupation, apartheid or settler-colonialism; and b. publicly recognizing Palestinian rights under international law, primarily the right of refugees to return in accordance with UN resolution 194. As far as we know, no Israeli company meets these two conditions. Accordingly, the BDS movement has called for boycotting and divesting from all Israeli companies unless they meet the above two conditions.

3. Pressure targets—The BDS movement actively calls for pressure campaigns against these targets. This includes boycotts when reasonable alternatives exist, lobbying, peaceful disruptions, social media pressure, strategic litigation, etc.

Divestment & Exclusion from Contracts:

In addition to boycott and pressure targets, divestment and exclusion targets (covered in a separate document) are indispensable in the BDS movement’s tools against complicit corporations. The BDS movement works to pressure governments, city councils, investment funds, institutions (including universities), trade unions, etc., to exclude from procurement contracts and investments as well as to divest from, as the case may be, as many complicit companies as practical, especially arms companies, tech companies, and financial institutions. In our divestment priority list below, we rely predominantly on the following authoritative sources and their research with a few of our unique, well-researched targets:

  • AFSC list of companies that implicated in arming Israel’s #GazaGenocide.
  • AFSC Investigate database of companies enabling the occupation.
  • UN database of businesses involved in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise.
  • WhoProfits database of corporations profiting from the ongoing Israeli occupation.
  • Don’t Buy Into Occupation list of businesses involved in the illegal Israeli settlement enterprise in the OPT in which European financial institutions have investments.

1. Consumer boycott priority targets:

All the corporations whose business with Israel aids in its ongoing genocide, apartheid, or illegal occupation may be complicit in serious breaches of international law and, therefore, face liability for the company, its executives, and its board members. According to a legal expert opinion commissioned by Al Haq and SOMO, “A corporation or individual businessperson who knowingly assists a State in violating customary international law, including the prohibition of committing genocide, may be complicit in such a violation.” This is particularly true in light of the International Court of Justice’s determination that Israel is plausibly perpetrating genocide in Gaza, as well as its July 19 legally binding Advisory Opinion affirming Israel’s illegal occupation and apartheid system. 

Chevron (including Caltex and Texaco brands)

US fossil fuel multinational Chevron is the main corporation extracting gas claimed by apartheid Israel in the East Mediterranean. Chevron generates billions in revenues, strengthening Israel’s war chest and apartheid system, exacerbating the climate crisis and Gaza siege, and is complicit in depriving the Palestinian people of their right to sovereignty over their natural resources. Chevron has thousands of retail gas stations around the world under the Chevron, Caltex, and Texaco brand names. Groups around the world have joined the campaign to #BoycottChevron. For more resources, visit boycottchevron.info.

Intel

In December 2023, amidst Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Intel announced that it will invest $25 billion in apartheid Israel. In June 2024, following prolonged BDS pressure, and in response mainly to the financial risk of investing in a #ShutDownNation, the tech giant dropped the project, according to Israeli financial media sources. For decades, Intel has been the largest international investor in apartheid Israel. Its plant at “Kiryat Gat” is built on land within the boundaries of the Palestinian village of Iraq al Manshiya, which was ethnically cleansed, razed to the ground, and then replaced by the current Israeli settlement. Intel remains deeply complicit in feeding Israel’s genocidal war chest, so the #BoycottIntel campaign continues.

DELL

Dell Technologies supplies the servers, maintains services and related equipment to the Israeli military as a part of a $150 million 2023 contract funded by US foreign aid. Dell is committed to Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinians by establishing research and development activity in Israel’s National Cyber Park that attempts to strengthen illegal settlements in the Naqab, displacing Palestinian Bedouin communities. One month into Israel’s Gaza genocide, founder and CEO Michael Dell donated $350million worth of shares to Israel, further solidifying the genocidal partnership between Israel and Dell Technologies.

Siemens

Siemens (Germany) is the main contractor for the Euro-Asia Interconnector, an Israel-EU submarine electricity cable that is planned to connect Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory to Europe. Siemens-branded electrical appliances are sold globally.

Hewlett Packard (HP)

Hewlett Packard (HP), including Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and HP Inc., is a significant enabler of Israel’s ongoing occupation. Through its partnerships with the Israeli government, military, prisons and police, HP provides critical technological and logistical support that facilitates war crimes and crimes against humanity, including illegal settlement construction and apartheid in the OPT. HPE supports Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority, a crucial pillar of its apartheid system, by providing technology for its databases and IT systems. HP Inc (US) provides services to the offices of genocide leaders, Israeli PM Netanyahu and Financial Minister Smotrich.

Microsoft

Microsoft is perhaps the most complicit tech company in Israel’s illegal apartheid regime and ongoing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza. Microsoft’s complicity in Israel’s apartheid and genocide is well documented, exposing its strong ties to the Israeli military, its collaboration with Israeli government ministries, and its involvement in the Israeli prison system, which is notorious for systematic torture and abuse of Palestinians. Microsoft knowingly provides Israel with technology, including artificial intelligence (AI), that is deployed to facilitate grave human rights violations, war crimes, crimes against humanity (including apartheid), as well as genocide. 

Microsoft provides the Israeli military with Azure cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) services that are crucial to empowering and accelerating Israel’s genocidal war on 2.3 million Palestinians in the illegally occupied Gaza Strip. Microsoft’s extensive ties with Israel’s military are revealed in investigations by The Guardian with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine, demonstrating how the Israeli military turned to Microsoft to meet the technological demands of genocide. The BDS movement, in collaboration with allied Microsoft workers (No Azure for Apartheid) are calling for pressure on Microsoft wherever possible when reasonable alternatives exist, including boycotting Microsoft’s Xbox and gaming, cutting institutional contracts with Microsoft and divesting from the company.

Carrefour

The France-based multinational retailer is involved in war crimes committed by the Israeli regime of settler-colonialism and apartheid over the Palestinian people. It started with the French group announcing a franchise partnership with Electra Consumer Products (ECP) and its retail subsidiary, Yenot Bitan, both active in the illegal Israeli settlement enterprise. During Israel’s genocidal assault against Palestinians in Gaza, Carrefour-Israel has supported Israeli soldiers partaking in the unfolding genocide of Palestinians in Gaza with gifts of personal packages. Evidence also shows that there is at least one Carrefour-branded branch in an illegal settlement in the OPT. 

Since its launch, Carrefour-Israel’s complicity has only become worse. Electra Retail Ltd., a subsidiary of Electra Consumer Products, has a partnership with Israeli bank Hapoalim, which is listed in the UN database for complicity in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise. Carrefour has also received loans from four major complicit Israeli banks, and it has established a partnership with six complicit high-tech Israeli start-ups on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, among others.

AXA

Insurance giant AXA (France) holds $150.43 million – US$78.87 million in shares and US$71.56 million in bonds – in eleven companies that are arming Israel during its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, including Boeing and General Dynamics. Both companies’ weapons have been directly linked to Israeli attacks on Palestinians in Gaza, including mass killings, such as the bombing of the Tel al-Sultan refugee camp in Rafah on 26 May, and the 10 September bombing of Palestinians sheltering in al-Mawasi, which Israel had designated as a “safe zone.”

Reebock

In early 2025, Reebok signed a sponsorship contract with the Israel Football Association (IFA), which includes in its official leagues teams in Israel’s illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land. The IFA actively advocates, together with the Israeli government, to maintain these teams. Palestinians are calling on Reebok to immediately withdraw from the contract, or face a global boycott campaign just as Adidas, PUMA, and Erreà faced before them.

Disney+

Cancel or don’t sign up for Disney+ subscriptions! Disney and its subsidiary Marvel are complicit in glorifying Israel’s regime of genocide and apartheid against Indigenous Palestinians. Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World and Disney’s Snow White star actors Shira Haas and Gal Gadot, respectively, that have consciously and irrefutably taken up roles as cultural ambassadors for Israel, directly representing genocidal Israel’s propaganda efforts. For Captain America, Marvel and Disney are reviving the racist character of Ruth Bat-Seraph, whose decades-old backstory includes working for Mossad. Disney+ is therefore clearly implicated in enabling Israel’s genocide by dehumanizing Palestinians. 

SodaStream

SodaStream is an Israeli company that is actively complicit in Israel’s policy of displacing the indigenous Bedouin-Palestinian citizens of present-day Israel in the Naqab (Negev) and has a long history of racial discrimination against Palestinian workers.

RE/MAX

RE/MAX (US) markets and sells property in illegal Israeli settlements built on stolen Palestinian land, thus enabling Israel’s colonization of the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Israeli produce and other products in your supermarkets

Boycott produce from Israel in your supermarket and demand their removal from shelves. Beyond being part of a trade that fuels Israel’s apartheid economy, Israeli fruits, vegetables, and wines misleadingly labeled as “Product of Israel” often include products of illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land, and most Israeli companies exporting these products are complicit in the illegal occupation and apartheid regime. Israeli companies do not distinguish between the two, and neither should consumers.

2. Grassroots organic boycott targets:

These are targeted in some countries by grassroots organic boycott campaigns, not initiated by the BDS movement. BDS supports these boycott campaigns because these companies, or their branches or franchisees in Israel, have openly supported apartheid Israel and/or provided generous in-kind donations to the Israeli military amid the current genocide:

  • McDonald’s
  • Coca Cola
  • Burger King
  • Papa John’s
  • Pizza Hut
  • Domino’s Pizza
  • WIX

3. Pressure targets:

The BDS movement actively calls for pressure campaigns against these targets. This includes boycotts when reasonable alternatives exist, as well as lobbying, peaceful disruptions, social media pressure, strategic litigation, etc.

Google and Amazon (US):


Project Nimbus, the joint $1.22 billion contract between Google and Amazon signed in 2021, provides cloud computing infrastructure, artificial intelligence and other technology services to the Israeli government and the Israeli military. Nimbus offers the platform for the Israeli military to run deadly AI programs such as Lavender and Gospel– crucial to the Gaza genocide. 

In April 2024, months after the ICJ ruled Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza, Google signed a new contract with the IDF, allowing military units to access Google’s automation technologies, data and AI services. By supporting Israeli apartheid with vital technologies, Amazon and Google are directly implicated in its entire system of oppression, including its regime of apartheid and its unfolding genocide in Gaza.

Use alternatives to Amazon when you can. Order products directly from companies instead of using Amazon. Boycott Amazon products such as Ring cameras, an Amazon subsidiary that partners with US police, using similar Amazon facial recognition technology used to surveil Palestinians.

Booking/Airbnb/Expedia:

All three travel services companies are listed in the UN database of businesses implicated in Israel’s illegal colonial settlement enterprise.
Airbnb (US), Booking Holdings (Netherlands) and Expedia (US) all offer rentals in illegal Israeli settlements built on stolen Palestinian land.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries:

Teva is an Israeli pharmaceutical company and one of the world’s largest generic drug manufacturers. Teva has supported Israel’s unfolding genocide since October 2023, but it has also benefited for decades from Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands allowing the company to illegally exploit the captive Palestinian market. Alternative generic pharmaceuticals are now much more available than before in most countries.

— https://bdsmovement.net/Guide-to-BDS-Boycott