Exciting news! Lake Erie Yearly Meeting, a regional Quaker organization encompassing Ohio, Michigan, and Western Pennsylvania, has become the first Quaker Yearly Meeting to officially endorse boycott and divestment targeting companies complicit in the Israeli occupation.

A court in Perpignan, south-western France on Wednesday found three pro-Palestinian activists not guilty of discrimination and hate crimes, after they called for a boycott of Israeli products during a protest at a shopping centre.

The court in Perpignan upheld a recommendation from prosecutors that the three be found not guilty for the boycott call, made during a protest at a shopping centre in the southern city in 2010.

The activists were charged following a complaint from the BNVCA anti-Semitism group, which launched a series of legal actions against activists calling for boycotts of items

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement directed toward Israel is eight years old. It was started back in 2005, when a coalition of Palestine-based social and economic organizations called for such a comprehensive effort.

At first the BDS movement appeared to be a long shot. Israel, with its worldwide coterie of Zionist supporters, both Jewish and Christian, seemed invincible.