One afternoon in late August, in a quiet Irish seaside town, a supermarket worker decided he could no longer separate his job from what he saw on his cell phone.
Footage from Gaza showed his neighborhood destroyed and his family buried, following him as he made his way to the checkout counter.
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At the time, Israel’s genocidal onslaught killed more than 60,000 Palestinians.
His first act of protest was to quietly warn customers that some of their fruits and vegetables were from Israel. Later, he refused to scan or sell Israeli produce as Gazans starved.
“My conscience doesn’t allow me to do that,” he said.
Within weeks, Tesco supermarkets suspended him.
He requested anonymity on advice from the trade union.
Customers protested outside shops in Newcastle, County Down, a town better known for summer tourists than political protests.
Local disputes served as a test case: Can individual employees translate moral outrage into action at work?
In the face of growing backlash, Tesco reinstated him in January and moved him to a role that did not require him to handle Israeli products.
“I would encourage them to do that,” he said of other workers. “They have union support and there is precedent. They didn’t fire me. They shouldn’t be able to fire anyone else.
“And once they get enough people to do that, they won’t be able to sell Israeli goods.”
“The genocide is still going on, slowly killing and starving people. We still need to go out and do what we can.”
From the field to national policy
Across Europe, there is a Labor-led push to halt trade with Israel.
Unions in Ireland, the UK and Norway passed a motion saying workers should not be forced to work with Israeli products.
Retail cooperatives such as Coop UK and Italy’s Coop Areanza 3.0 have removed some Israeli products in protest of the Gaza war.
The campaign raises questions about whether a worker-led refusal could lead to a state-level boycott.
Activists argue that this strategy is rooted in history.
In 1984, workers at the Irish retail chain Dunn’s Stores refused to carry goods from apartheid South Africa. This action lasted nearly three years and contributed to Ireland becoming the first country in Western Europe to ban trade with South Africa.
“We can do the same with Israel, which is an apartheid, genocidal state today,” said Damian Quinn, 33, from BDS Belfast.
The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement is a Palestinian-led campaign launched in 2005 that calls for an economic and cultural boycott of Israel until it complies with international law, including an end to the occupation of Palestine.
“When states fail in their obligations to prevent and punish crimes of genocide, citizens and workers around the world must reject Israel and pressure governments to introduce legislation,” Quinn said.
That pressure, he said, takes the form of boycotting “Israeli sports, academic and cultural institutions that are complicit,” as well as Israeli and international companies “involved in human rights violations of Palestinians.”
The campaign also aims to “apply pressure on banks, local councils, universities, churches, pension funds and governments to do the same through divestment and sanctions,” he added.
Supporters say these pressures are beginning to shape national policy across Europe.
Spain and Slovenia have moved to restrict trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank following sustained public protests and growing political pressure. In August 2025, the Slovenian government banned the import of goods produced in Israeli-occupied territories, becoming one of the first European countries to adopt such measures.
Spain followed suit later that year, issuing a decree banning the import of products from illegal Israeli settlements. The measure officially came into force at the beginning of 2026.
Center-left governments in both countries have been outspoken critics of Israel’s actions during the war, helping to create the political conditions for legislative action.
In the Netherlands, a wave of pro-Palestinian campus protests and public demonstrations in 2025 led to a shift in political discourse. Students’ demands for the separation of study and trade became part of broader demands for changes in national policy.
Later that year, Dutch members of parliament called on the government to ban imports from illegal Israeli settlements.
Meanwhile, Ireland is pushing ahead with the Occupied Territories Bill, first introduced in 2018, which bans trade in goods and services from illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including the West Bank.
But progress has stalled, despite unanimous support in the Dail, the lower house of the Irish parliament.
Paul Murphy, an Irish pro-Palestinian MP who attempted to invade Gaza in June, told Al Jazeera that the delay amounted to “indirect pressure from Israel via the US”. He accused the government of “going astray” in seeking further legal advice.
Pro-Israel groups are working to oppose efforts aimed at putting economic pressure on Israel.
B’nai Brith International, a US-based group that claims to strengthen “global Jewish life,” combat anti-Semitism and “work unequivocally with the state of Israel,” has condemned the BDS movement. In July 2025, it submitted an 18-page memo to Irish lawmakers warning that the bill could pose risks to U.S. companies operating in Ireland.
The memo argued that if passed, the bill could create a conflict with U.S. federal anti-boycott laws that prohibit U.S. companies from participating in certain foreign-led boycotts, particularly those targeting Israel.
B’nai B’rith International also “strongly condemned” Britain’s recognition of a Palestinian state and donated 200 softshell jackets to Israeli military personnel.
Critics argue that this type of intervention goes beyond advocacy and reflects a coordinated effort to influence European policymaking toward Israel and Palestine from abroad.
While lobby groups have publicly aired their claims, leaked documents based on material from the whistleblowing website Distributed Denial of Secrets suggest that the Israeli state is also directly involved in countering BDS campaigns across Europe.
The secret scheme, jointly funded by Israel’s Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Strategy, reportedly hired a law firm for 130,000 euros ($154,200) on a mission aimed at monitoring boycott-related movements.
Former Sinn Féin MP Martina Anderson, who supports the BDS movement, has previously accused Israeli advocacy groups of trying to silence critics of Israel through legal and political pressure.
According to leaked documents cited by Irish news outlet The Ditch, Israel has hired a law firm to “examine the avenues open to Israel against Martina Anderson.”
She told Al Jazeera that she stands by her criticism.
“As Chair of the Palestinian Delegation to the European Parliament, I worked as diligently as those who know me would expect from me.
“I am proud to have been a thorn in the side of the Israeli state and its extensive lobbying machine, which works relentlessly to undermine the voice of the Palestinian people and legitimize a brutal and oppressive rogue state.”
Backlash across Europe
In 2019, Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, adopted a non-binding resolution condemning the BDS movement as anti-Semitic and calling for the withdrawal of public funding from groups supporting it.
Observers say the vote was later used to confuse criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.
The European Leadership Network (ELNET), a prominent pro-Israel advocacy group active across the continent, welcomed the move and said its German branch had urged further legislative action.
Meanwhile, in the UK, ELNET funds visits to Israel by Labor politicians and their staff.
Bridget Phillipson, currently the Secretary of State for Education, announced a £3,000 ($4,087) visit funded by ELNET for members of her team.
Wes Street’s colleague Anna Wilson also accepted an ELNET-funded trip. Street himself visited Israel on a mission organized by the Labor Friends of Israel (LFI) group.
ELNET’s UK branch is headed by former Labor MP and former LFI chair Joan Ryan.
During the passage of a bill aimed at preventing public bodies from pursuing their own boycott, divestment and sanctions policies, Labor imposed a three-line whip instructing MPs to vote against it. Phillipson and Street abstained.
The Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Affairs) Bill was widely seen as an attempt to prevent local councils and public authorities from adopting BDS-type measures.
A vocal supporter of the bill was Luke Akehurst, then director of the pro-Israel advocacy group We Believe in Israel. In a statement reported by ELNET, he said it was “absurd” that local councils could “undermine the good relationship between Britain and Israel” through boycotts and divestment.
“We need to change the law to close this loophole,” he said, arguing that BDS initiatives by local authorities risked “introducing conflict into UK communities”.
The bill was ultimately shelved when a general election was called in 2024. The bill was part of broader legislative efforts in some parts of Europe to limit BDS-related boycotts.
Mr Akehurst went on to serve on the party’s national executive committee and was elected Labor MP for North Durham.
