Press Release: BDS movement launches #BoycottIntel global campaign

19 March 2024 – The Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement today launched an ambitious global #BoycottIntel campaign targeting the US chipmaking giant (INTC) due to its decision in December to invest $25b in Israel despite its ongoing genocide in Gaza. The International Court of Justice in January decided that Israel is plausibly committing crimes in Gaza that violate the Genocide Convention.

The #BoycottIntel campaign calls for a boycott of computers with Intel chips, and it urges investors to divest from Intel stock and major institutions to exclude Intel from tenders.

Calling Intel a manufacturer of “apartheid chips,” a BDS spokesperson said:

“Intel has been aiding and abetting Israel’s apartheid for decades, feeding its war chest, and now it is directly feeding its war chest while it continues its unspeakable genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip. Intel is complicit in Israel’s genocide and its underlying system of apartheid. Intel’s M.O. seems to be, ‘Make Apartheid Great Again!’”

Since Israel launched its war on Gaza last October, its economy has shrunk by a whopping 20%. On 9 February 2024, Moody’s downgraded Israel's credit rating, for the first time in the state’s history, lowering its outlook to “negative.” Days later, Moody’s downgraded the deposit ratings of Israel’s five largest banks. 

This follows major economic setbacks for Israel throughout 2023. International investment in Israel’s once thriving hi-tech sector, for instance, plummeted in 2023 by 74%. Well before October, recognizing this downward trend and the exceptionally high risk of investing in Israel at a time of “armed conflict,” some large Israeli and US companies have moved operations outside of Israel and cut investments in it. More recently, Tower, an Israeli chipmaking company that Intel has tried (and failed) to acquire, announced that it “will not build a new chip factory in Israel,” opting for investing in India instead.

Commenting on this, the BDS spokesperson said:

“Ethical responsibility and international law aside, by insisting on investing tens of billions of dollars in Israel, a ‘war zone,’ only miles away from occupied Gaza, Intel is putting its leaders’ fanatic ideological commitment to Israel over financial and fiduciary responsibility. Why else would Intel freeze plans to expand its chipmaking manufacturing in Ohio while throwing those billions into Israel, a state committing genocide? 

“We call for a global boycott of Intel, for divesting from it, and for excluding it from tenders until it drops its bloody investment in genocidal Israel.”