Inspired by the boycott of South African goods and apartheid-affiliated institutions in the St. Paul’s neighbourhood of Bristol, people in our city today are opposing the Israeli genocide by organising a community boycott of all Israeli fresh produce.
The Bristol Apartheid-Free Zone was launched at last year’s Bristol Transformed festival with a call for local people to take action for Palestine and help sever every possible link between Bristol and Israeli apartheid and genocide.
The momentum is evident and can be attributed to the dedicated scores of people involved who have helped secure the signatures from thousands of local residents to support an Israeli consumer boycott in Bristol — as well as committing over 60 businesses and institutions to remove Israeli goods from their shelves. The Bristol Apartheid-Free Zone is harnessing the power of a community to try to oppose genocide, and here it is a feeling which grows stronger by the day.
An Apartheid-Free Zone is part of the global Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement that targets Israeli goods, specifically fresh produce, encouraging customers and business owners to cease doing business with Israel while it continues to persecute Palestinians and breach international law. Apartheid-Free Zones can be made up of areas or entire towns and cities where local businesses and institutions have pledged to join the boycott. They serve as sites of solidarity with Palestine, rejecting apartheid and advocating for justice and equality. This isn’t just about politics — it’s about positive practical action that anyone can take.
Apartheid-Free Zones are one way that people around the world can contribute to the global BDS movement, using local knowledge and networks to build meaningful change within their communities. One of the key features of the campaign — and what makes it such a good tool for organising — is its simplicity and clarity of purpose. It gives people who want to do something, but don’t know what or how, a way to get involved and grow something within their own neighbourhoods.
While attending marches and raising money are vital aspects of the movement, we believe campaigns such as ours add another dimension. Through doorknocking and chatting with neighbours, we reach people who aren’t politically active; our campaign gives people who are not part of any political ‘scene’ a real way to get involved and help express concrete solidarity in their neighbourhood.
Beginning the Commitment
Alongside the wider BDS movement, our thinking behind the campaign is that by focusing on tangible, achievable steps like the simple act of boycotting Israeli fresh produce, the campaign empowers communities and individuals to make a meaningful act of resistance against Israel’s genocide.
We started with a series of assumptions. Bearing in mind our objective to create an Apartheid-Free Zone and support shops to remove fresh Israeli produce from their shelves, our assumptions looked like this:
- If there was enough support from the community to boycott Israeli fresh produce;
- If the shop owners knew their community was boycotting Israeli fresh produce;
- Then the shop owners would feel supported by their community and have the confidence to remove Israeli produce from their shelves.
We began to think about how best to achieve these steps. We looked at the material conditions of the area, and asked ourselves: what history does it have? Was the demographic of the area one which might welcome such a campaign? We chose to start in St Paul’s and Easton: St Paul’s, the site of the original South African Apartheid-Free Zone, for its rich history of political activism and struggle, and Easton for its demographic. Many of the shops in Easton were already boycotting Israeli produce — the beauty of our campaign is that we can show these shops that the community supports and upholds their values. With this in mind, we felt these areas were a natural fit for the movement.
As soon as we launched, volunteers quickly signed themselves up and mobilised. Leaflets were drawn up and conversations with shopkeepers started. A poster was designed by a Palestinian designer, ready to be pinned proudly in shop windows and households in support of the Apartheid-Free Zone. Campaigners promoted the boycott through their union branches, helping with funding. Speeches given at marches helped spread the word and recruit more volunteers. We were quickly ready to begin the bread and butter of our campaign — doorknocking.
On the Doorstep
For most volunteers, the campaign is primarily about going door-to-door and having meaningful conversations with neighbours. While the primary aims are to get people to pledge not to buy Israeli produce and to sign an open letter supporting shopkeepers who join the boycott, a further aim is to give people the opportunity to have deeper, meaningful conversations about Palestine. This is done through having intentional, meaningful conversations with people, in order to explore, explain, and potentially shift their views.
To help our campaigners, we organised training events with the Bristol branch of ACORN, the national community union that grew itself through community doorknocking, to help shape the sorts of discussions we’d want to be having on the doorstep, and in doing so are now equipped to deliver doorknocking training to people who might be interested in taking pro-Palestine action but have never done so before. This enables the campaign to bring new activists on board, keep them engaged, and upskill them at every opportunity; but as new active members are developed, the historic local organisations campaigning for Palestinian liberation have still been a hugely important force in building the Apartheid-Free Zone.
Sustaining the Campaign
Our campaign is about building a strong community boycott through local mobilisation: to do that successfully, sustainability is crucial. People involved in campaigns like this often face burnout, especially when the campaigns grow quickly and too much is expected too soon. This is why we are focused on slowly building momentum, starting in areas where supporters can establish a solid base of support before expanding further.
By keeping the pace manageable, the campaign still continues to grow weekly, with new energy brought by every new volunteer. Our doorknocking started in St Paul’s and Easton, but we now have sights on new areas south of the river in Bristol. Recently, St. Paul’s doorknocking has come to an end, as every door has been knocked twice. With signatures from 550 households and the majority of businesses committed, we are very close to declaring St. Paul’s an Apartheid-Free Zone, and campaigning has started in other neighbourhoods such as St. Werburgh’s and Bedminster.
Until Victory
As well as expanding to other areas in Bristol, we are also reaching other areas of the country. The campaign’s increased visibility through community events, social media, and collaborations with other groups has led to other cities and towns reaching out asking for support in setting up their own Apartheid-Free Zones. Sheffield Apartheid Free Zone has been active and growing for several months, with a strong volunteer base of several dozen people.
Just as we learnt before us, there is no reason for this practical campaign that reaches people beyond the usual confines of political activism to spread across the country. Our success isn’t purely based on the numbers of shops that agree to the boycott, but about building a visible, sustainable movement that allows entire areas to make statements and act about the world they wish to see, even if their government ignores them.
Every neighbourhood in Britain can stand up and not only show that they reject apartheid Israel and genocide, but are willing to take practical steps to ensure they don’t facilitate such crimes. In Bristol, we are trying to build our Apartheid-Free Zone: it is our hope that these suggestions of organising help you to do the same.