The South African boycott, divestment and sanctions movement recently started a Facebook campaign to boycott the supermarket chain Woolworths. The move comes as another phase in the movement's battle against Woolworths, which sells products from the Israeli settlements. On May 15, thousands of South African students, including high-schoolers, demonstrated at the Free State province against Woolworths, in a mass rally organized by the Congress of South African Students “in solidarity with the people of Palestine, who continue to experience the harshest form of apartheid by the Israeli regime.”
South African activists are certainly not on their own in their boycott efforts. Stephane Richard, CEO of French telecommunication giant Orange, said in Cairo June 3 that he would have liked to relinquish his company's ties with its Israeli brand representative Partner, if not for the risk of severe financial penalties. His remarks are a sign of the momentum this movement has gathered internationally. Even if Richard tried later to dissociate himself from the BDS movement and actually retracted his initial statements, the Israeli media perceived his remarks as a clear boycott statement. Be that as it may, while the boycott call is spreading rapidly throughout Europe, South Africa is essentially alone among the non-Arab-Muslim countries of Africa.
