BDS movement makes significant strides across Europe

JVL Introduction

Fiona Ben Chekroun, European co-coordinator of the BDS National Committee, discusses the expanding movement for Palestine solidarity in Europe with Ana Vračar.

She refers to an “exponential growth” to activity, an increase in the number of groups and activities people are involved in and an increase in the sheer number of people taking part.

She stresses, too, the growing intersectional nature of the campaign – in Spain for instance Palestine activists work with trade unions, political parties, grassroots groups, feminist groups, queer groups, and parts of the climate justice movement, as well as the extension into new areas, for example the “No room for genocide” campaign on ethical tourism.

And increasingly the campaigns are centring not just the moral case for supporting Palestine but the complicity of people’s own governments in a wider system of imperialist oppression in which Israel is a key participant, and Palestine the key symbol of resistance to it.

But Ben Chekroun also warns of the growth of repressive responses to an increasingly successful campaign…

RK

This article was originally published by People's Despatch on Mon 11 May 2026. Read the original here.