began, but the us is really genocidal war in through that movement, it's a high gear, to the point that companies even began suffering when it came to the bottom line and their profits, well here's a look at the efficiency of this movement and whether it has changed course for companies that profit from the occupation. as the war on gaza rolls into its second year, global calls for accountability grow louder, the one movement that has surged into influence during during this time is the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign (bds) a grassroots people's initiative aimed to pressuring israel to comply with international law through economic and cultural boycots. since its launch in 2005, the bds has involved into global force and amed the ongoing assault on gaza, its relevance and impact have become more profound. this approach is crucial in isolating and weakening israel, stripping it of legitimacy and... curbing its regional

ambitions. israel seeks dominance in west asia through diplomacy, technology and industry, but boycots and sanctions can of of hinder its move. recently, israel allocated over $500 million dollars to counter the international impact of the boycott movement. as a peaceful resistance, boycott unites justice seeking people from all backgrounds, making it a key tool which can be exercised by average individuals across the world against. the israeli aggression in 2023, the bds campaign targeted companies like puma and helued paccord for profiting from the occupation. over 200 organizations called for puma's divestment and 22% of european universities backed bds pulling millions from companies involved in israeli settlements. major firms like ben and jerry's and g4s of ended operations in the occupied territories and european pension funds divested billions from israeli back. there has been progress in

the boycott movement, but the occupation persists, because it remains profitable with little international accountability or effective sanctions. while improvements are noticeable, more effort is needed. the of boycott was once more widespread, but now there's a growing popular boycott in arab and muslim countries, which we hope continues as the true nature of the occupation becomes clearer, but despite its growing momentum. "the bds movement has not been without opposition. governments, including the united states and germany, have passed anti-bds of legislations, labelling the movement anti-semitic and accusation denied by its supporters. as israel's military operations in gaza escalate, the influence of the bds movement has reached new heights. it's no longer just a protest, it's a global response to what many see as human rights violations, and the pressure is mounting on companies and..." governments alike. reporting for

press tv. ramallah. well, this bring ahmed, the reporter who uh made that report, she joined just now. thanks for taking the time to talk to us, it's been a busy day for you, i'm sure. um, at the same time, i'd like to find out from you, um, the reason why you chose this particular topic when it came down to covering it, and uh, whether that really. has had the impact um when you spoke to the people uh that you went out to, in particular if uh there are palestinians who are shying away from obviously buying products that in of one form or another may be related to either the israeli regime or it profiting from it? of yes, well this topic is actually very important in the palestinian context, as we are to as the pds movement is not only about b cutting economic economic aspects, it's

about creating a state of isolating the occupation and making the the international community and making an idea for the world to know that this uppertide system and this is not a very friendly state as they have as they have announcing about themselves, this is not just a state that is making making a techn tech ological progress and medical progress and it's like a thriving thriving atmosphere and environment for businesses, it's a it's a it's a system and it's a regime where it has been built over blood and limps and on the on the pains of a of the palestinian people, this is from one side, from the other side we have been talking lot to people over here and each one wants to do something, they say okay we don't have arms, we we are not, "we don't have the power to

participate in armed in armed conflict or in armed resistance, so the bds and the the boycot movement over here comes as an answer for everyone who wants to party." participate any civil action against the occupation and against the apartized system, against the regime, but with no with no weapon, but the but the the a weapon that has proven to be very efficient actually over here, so this is actually something that everyone can do, the mother can do it with their can do this with their with her children, the the parents can do that do that, do this also everyone is able. to boycott and to accept the the things and the ideas of the uh of the bds movement which is to make sanctions against the uh the israeli regime not only economically but also in the way of thinking and also in many aspects like like industries, economy like

and tourism and many aspects that are thriving over here. very well, thank you so much for that, we do appreciate it and thank you for picking that topic, that's uh corresponded there talking to us. from alcubad roma. let me to do our guests for um this uh program. we have uh the pleasure of having sarah wilkinson, human rights activist joining us from midlands the uk and also jonathan chadwick is a writer and activist who joins us from london. i like to welcome you both. october 7th is upon us here um and it's really shocking and sad that we have to uh be witnessing this one year of this us islaly genocide um that may be spreading now to another country like lebanon. not maybe it has in a sense. but let's focus on this uh boycutting. all together and the notion that i like to ask from you sarah wilkinson, when it comes to this notion, given what has happened, especially in this uh past year, um, do you think that enough is being done when it comes to the whole boycott notion, whether it's products or in the bigger picture, um companies um or or countries that

should boycott the regime itself, especially when it comes to things like arms? yeah, actually no, i'm one of these people who thinks that now that the bds movement was not... able to stop the genocide, it is important, we still boycott israeli products and the biggest boycott that everybody or every government could take part in is the boycott of israeli weapons and the israeli weapons factories that we have on british soil and american soil and across europe, so that's where the the biggest element of the boycot is needed is is in arms embargo where effectively you're boycotting is the israeli weapons industry um palestine. action, the direct action group actually came out really the the boycott movement, not being quite enough, what was needed was a little bit more, um, but in britain now we've got the uh no thanks, i think you you can get it all around the world, if you have a smartphone,

there's an app called the no thanks app, which you just download on your phone and and you scan every product you buy and you would be surprised how many of these products that you think are not... on the boycott list are actually made in israeli territory, so having this app is an extra one, it means i've cut out about 45 percent of my my shopping list, because i had no idea that for example pineapple chunks were made in palestinian territory, but you labeled as made in israel, i had no idea at all, so yeah the boycott movement is maybe a little bit outdated as far as the genocide is concerned, because it hasn't stop. it um, but it's still absolutely vital that we continue to uh adhear to it. well, johnson, i'd like to ask you what you think of the whole boycott movement in terms the progress that it has made, whether it has made enough progress and whether we're looking a movement that uh perhaps uh at this point it's has kind of been rebooted because

the genocide and uh more people are becoming aware of it uh even though the genocide has is now one year in duration. um yeah, thank you for inviting. on your program, um, i think that the boycot movement is active and it could be growing and it could be diminishing any given time due to the immediate circumstances in which it's carried out, it's a vital and massively important part of the resistance movement to the israelis in in the west and in the other parts of the world, so it's a part of the isolation of the israeli regime, and i think it's very, very import. important because it's the detail, i think that already sarah has pointed to, that people can actually look at the details of the products that they're actually um looking to buy and actually discern whether they actually come from israel or not, so i for example i have a friend who went to a pharmacy and picked up

load of of medicaments that he he'd been prescribed and and found that they came from israel and and started to investigate how much... and how many of these products are actually made um from components that come from israel and started to um kick back against that uh that that system and started to try to find other? products, so i i think that people can a a micro level um do lot at at that in in terms of the boycot movement, it takes a little bit of work, people need encouragement, and the overall ground now for that to happen, i think is very much more fertile, people are much more willing to look at israel critically, they're aware of what um israel has done, partly because of the... court rulings in the international court of justice and the international criminal court

and at the united nations, people are becoming aware of of that. i mean, as as sarah said, it's uh, it didn't prevent the genocide, but then i think that the bds movement was always going to be a part of the resistance rather than the major component in in the resistance. i'm not really going to be able look at what... that um what you know what the proportional kind of importance of it is, but i do think it can only be a part the movement. sure, well, any part counts uh when it comes to uh stopping this regime overall from profiting. uh, let's uh now uh take a look at an organization um and its head in particular uh the un secretary general is what i'm referring to um and like to um listen to what he has said in the forum and then get back to our guests and get a reaction as to the statement that he has made, namely antonio guteres, the secretary general of the un. let's take a listen, look

no further than lebanon, we should all be alarmed by the escalation, lebanon is at the brink, the people of lebanon and the people the world cannot afford lebanon to become another gaza. okay, that was the un secretary general. i don't know if you caught that uh sarah wilkinson in terms of uh how this uh genocidal onslot is not spreading to lebanon. it has already, i should say, when you're looking at 2,0 plus lebaneses to have been killed in the past days, really. i think in one go there were few hundred when they bombed uh dahaya with those uh mk, i think 84 200 pound bombs. what do you think about the statement there made by the un secretary general? um, now i have lot of anger towards antonio. as a un secretary general, he has lot more power to prevent what was happening

in gaza, and therefore what is happening in lebanon never needed to have started, the the is political cowardice, and i hear condemnation after condemnation, i hear how deeply concerned he is, but actually the un does have a platform, and it does have power to put an end to what was happening in gaza, so for him now and... 'i could see the palestinians in the audience sort of looking down and thinking, well, okay, yeah, you're you're um, sort of so concerned now about lebanon, but actually the the un, what is it doing, it's absolutely tousless at the moment, it has the power, it can veeto the veto, i mean it has done absolutely nothing, you know, like 42,00, and that is an underestimate number of people that have been killed in gaza have lost their lives because the united nations has not'. accepted any point apart from to condemn, and you, you're asking, it's like asking the israelis please,

can you stop? is not going to work, so for him now to be concerned and to condemn what's happening in lebanon must be very frustrating for all of the palestinians to hear, it certainly is for me, and i'm tired of hearing the same old stuff, and he he needs to to to get off his backside and do something, and he could stop, both it. it is extending into lebanon and syria and iraq and iran and then where else is it going to extending into yemen, basically you, if he doesn't make move and he didn't make move year ago, then why make move now? i think the palestinians would be furious, sure about all of their loved ones that they have lost, because he didn't act months and months ago when he had an opportunity. i'm going to, i'm going to do a history check on you and check your memory. if i can uh, jonathan, going back to uh, banky moon, if you remember him, he was standing in the gaza strip in front of a

burnt down uh building, rubbles all around him, smoke billowing from behind him uh, with his hair disheveled saying, we can't have this is during a gaza war, we can't have this happening, we can't have this disproportionate use of force by the israeli regime killing palestinians and this is going back over decade ago, nothing has changed, um, this is not about critiquing antoniout. but the inability to stop an organisation like his, when he has, as guest to, could just come out and say, we need to stop israel, we need to let's say sanction israel, because 40,000 plus lives have been lost at this point, many more uh obviously are buried alive or dead at this point under the rubble. yeah, i think that the united nations um is a dysfunctional organization, but it's a useful organization, and i think that when we looked at the recent general assembly, the 79th assembly of the of the nations of the world,

we could see that it was good at giving us an impression of the... isolation of israel and what the governments even and certainly the people of the world actually make of what's going on in the middle east and so i think it is to some extent a reflection of world opinion and and the movement that's going on in the world which is um opposed to um the the actions of the israeli israeli government but i think we also have to admit that it was set up in such a way that made it ineffective. taking action that was contrary to the wishes of the major um powers or any the major powers and that's to do with the relationship between the security council and the general assembly, it was left the general assembly it would be effective organization, but it borrowed from the kinds of organizations of european diplomacy and in

the institution of extra powers for the great powers and in this instance... it's hobble that the uh the the um ability of the un to actually um do anything about the the genocide because of american veto in the in the security council so of course it's very very frustrating and if we look and for palestinians of course they're going to look at the situation and feel quite rightly that the international community has failed it has failed and it shows us that these institutions at an international level need to be completely rebuilt from the bottom up along democratic lines according to the wishes and interests of the of the people of the world rather than the interests of the control of the world by the great powers, so i i think that yeah, mean i i'm not going to make any specific comment about good terrorism. all right, thank you for that, we

do appreciate it. well, at this point, and we're going to come back with some scenes from the un, that later on we're going to get reactions from you. in terms of what netanyahu did there, but at this point we go for a quick break here, which uh, after that we'll be back to give you some more information um, in terms of what the boycott movement as a whole has done and - the different advancements it has made in that regard.

boycting israel is notion that has been ongoing for quite some time, there are many who believe that this is feudal attempt to make israel stop its violation of palestinians, but with the israely genocidal war in full swing, boycots have increased both in strength and in numbers, something felt by the israeli regime, well when it comes to boycotting israel, the boycott divestment and sanctions movements, it's called bds, it's the largest movement and organization leading the global. movements, now it has the aim of boycotting what you see there ending all the state, corporate and institutional complicity, with israel's genocidal regime, the movements and its goals have gained momentum, as i mentioned, like boycotting some of the products that you see here, and it has worked, given that bds is tactic, it's not an organization, different

groups have actually taken up their own campaigns, we could take a look at trade unions as an example, you have: uh farmers union, you have students, academics, artists, climate justice groups, indigenous judges networks, just to name few as you see over here, well the top priority by the boycott uh movement and the targets of that are basically in four basic categories, these are the categories that you see there, consumer targets, divestments and exclusion targets, the pressure targets and also organic boycott targets, these include things like restricting exports, cancelling professional confabs, and that's an important one, and backing down on planned business transactions. that's right, and it is working with two. high profile companies that came into the stage on that, mcdonald's and starbucks, namely these are the just two examples: it was in february 2024 where

mcdonald's missed the key sales target would have reported its first quarterly sales miss in nearly four years, faced criticism for offering free meals to the israel regime forces. this is while starbucks was embroiled in legal dispute with the workers union over a pro-palestine statement. well, the arab league also agreed to boycot. companies affiliated with the israeli regime and declared a ban on companies that violate the rules of the arab boycott in investments in illegal jewish only settlements, so the arab league participating there, and now the milestone: on september 18th, the un general assembly overwhelmingly voted to impose sanctions on israel for the first time in his 42 years. this historic ruling meant that the global majority would have the legal obligation to actually... and complicity in israel's illegal occupation and apartide regime, including the illegal settlements, mind you. what the us has not stood still when it comes to boycotting israel, some us

states actually have passed resolutions that uh denounce uh boycoding since they call it antisemitism or antisemitic. they claim that it inhibits peace in west asia and that it threatens the relationship between the us and key ally. when the us went ahead and blacklisted uh foreign companies, which included banks, pension funds and supermarkets, these are some of the ones that you see here, and then you can see the action that they have taken in terms of uh, how they decided to move forward, um, you're looking at uh refusing to invest in companies operating in the west bank as one of them, such as this particular bank here, um, and also part of a responsible investment, all all actions that have been taken based on the boycott movement and its achievements.

the israel palestinian conflict should not have occurred if it weren't for the uk and what uh was called the balford declaration which then led to the jews to be placed on land belonging to palestinians and akba as it is called, the conflict has persisted throughout the years and throughout the decades without a solution to end it. some believe this conflict can only end if the

israely regime ends its apart policies, something that it's not going to do. since the establishment of the israeli occupation on the palestinian lands in 1948, the palestinian cause has been regarded as a central cause for the arab and muslim world. many believe that a resolution can only be achieved by ending the occupation and granting palestinians their right for rights. we stand with israel, however bstered by the american support, the israel icubation has managed to continue through normalizing relations with several arab regimes, often at the expense of palestinian bytes. it has been a year since this war began and we are still being. massacred by the israeli forces, we were waiting for a more robust reaction from arab countries to stop the flagrant massacres against us, because the palestinian cause is

not the cause of palestinians only. it's very clear that the weak position of arab countries emboldened israel to cross all red lines and commit more massacers against the palestinian people, and here is the result of this abhorrent silence: all of gaza's strip has been destroyed. the flagrant normalization of thaies. between the israel ocubation on those regimes is still seen as a stab in the back of palestinians, as it has given the israel occupation the green light to massacre the palestinian people. consequently, the real genocide of palestinians has started when those regimes agreed to shake the bloody stained hands of the israeli war criminals. i have lost my husband in the beginning of the war. we live catastrophic conditions. we will never forgive the arab regimes that stood in silence watching the bloodshed of our children. it is truly regrettable that those countries were even unable to facilitate the passage of humanitarian truck through the...

crossing into gaza, nothing could explain this silence but complicity. i want to say that despite all this, we will prevail. history will remember that the arab regimes watched as palestina and its children in gaza perished, offering nothing more than empty statements instead of meaningful assistance. for palestinians, nothing on earth could absolve the arab regimes of being complicit in the ongoing genocide which is zalander. away andabated for year as they have abandoned the palestinian people facing this unprecedented ordeal alone. press tv, the middle area of gaza strip. let's begin our correspondent from the gaza strip from khan unis in particular ahmad who joins us now uh to give us some um of the ongoings a day like today. we're looking at uh today being

october 7th and i'm wondering what you. have seen today uh what palestinians in the gaza strip have told you uh give us a quickly in a synopsis form um the past year as to what uh type of devastations uh you have seen uh that you deem to be important to bring to us here yes the palestinians here in the gaza strip on this day particularly the 7th of october 2024. or uh just describing how they can't imagine that it that it is actually october the 7th and the genocide is still going on and the aggression is and the onslot uh is still on hoping that uh some sort of uh uh end for for this for this unrelenting nightmare would have been achieved by now but

uh unfortunately and uh to the to the uh opposite of what they hope and what they uh aspire, they are still under the ongoing uh aggression, the intensity of the operations the massacers of the ground invasions and raids here in the ghaza strip has only been escalating since morning as it was uh the beginning uh of of this aggression uh over again here in in uh khan city uh the artillery, the israeli artillery is still indiscriminately shelling the eastern parts of khan unis, just 24 hours ago the israeli uh occupation has announced extending and expanding the so-called safe zones here.