As air strikes and rocket fire rained down on the Gaza Strip and southern Israel last December, a different kind of battle was set off on this side of the Atlantic. These combatants, armed with words in the place of weapons, wield rhetoric fraught with political baggage to burnish their arguments and discredit those of their rivals.

Likening Israeli control over Palestinian territory to the conditions found in South Africa under apartheid has become increasingly widespread, and student campaigns calling for divestment from companies that supply and support Israel are popping up at academic institutions. And last month, over 40 cities worldwide reportedly held events commemorating the fifth annual "Israeli Apartheid Week."

Using the word "apartheid" is controversial, but that's the point. Jimmy Carter used it in his 2006 book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has long compared the plight of Palestinians to that of black South Africans under the notorious regime.

"Language can be used in a political context just as it can in a marketing context," says Burt Alper, strategy director of Catchword Branding in Oakland, CA. Political branding, with its use (and misuse) of language and spin - once the purview of advertising - has now migrated to activism.

The goal of both advocates and critics of Israeli policy is to "get people out of the fog," Alper says. "When you use a loaded term, you are encouraging people who are in the middle to not just take a stance but take a stance against conventional wisdom, which tells us in this case in the US that Israel is the victim."

Comparisons, however, are seldom clear-cut: Arabs in Israel, for example, can vote and hold seats in parliament – unthinkable achievements for blacks living under South Africa's apartheid regime. Yet just as '70s-era laws in the US mandating police officers to meet certain height and weight requirements were not overtly sexist but excluded women in practice, realities on the ground reflect stark distinctions between Jewish and Arab counterparts.

If it is technically inaccurate, employing the word "apartheid" could be self-defeating, warns Johan D. van der Vyver, a South African-born professor of International Law and Human Rights at Emory University in Atlanta. "There is a political stigma attached to this word comfortably recognized in international law as a crime against humanity," he says, and it could turn people off instead of luring them to join the cause. Carter's use of the word may have even been detrimental to his message, as attention focused more on his terminology rather than the book's content.

The rhetorical battle has also manifested into action. A student group at Hampshire College in Massachusetts made headlines in February when it claimed victory in getting the school's board of trustees to change its investment policy in companies – such as Caterpillar, Motorola and General Electric – that the group identified to directly or indirectly "contribute and support Israel's military occupation."

While school officials quickly fired back that the divestment decision "was not made in reference to Israel," the students received a flood of requests from other universities across the country to help launch similar campaigns. In 1977, Hampshire College became the first institution of higher education in the US to divest from South Africa, and the group hopes its actions – or at least the publicity it produced – will set forth such a precedent again.

Comparing the Israeli government to the South African apartheid regime is "one sided anti-Israel propaganda," says Roz Rothstein, International Director of StandWithUs, a pro-Israel organization based in California. Others argue that it is unfair to single out one country when atrocities are committed everyday by a multitude of governments.

Divestment, the extraction of investments from one entity in order to pursue profits elsewhere, is at its core a neutral business term. Apartheid literally means separateness in Afrikaans. While these words may have signified little to the American public before 1948, they now hark back to the legally sanctioned and deliberate institutionalized racism that ruled South Africa for decades.

Divestment campaigns may end up doing little to change policy anyway; "If you boil it down, divestment campaigns occur because they make people feel good," says Usha C.V. Haley, a divestment expert and Asia Programs Fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Though they are widely praised as dismantling the South African apartheid regime, Haley's survey of 322 American companies operating in South Africa over seven years found that most companies left the country because of a direct hit to their earnings – not political pressure. "Sanctions and boycotts unfortunately take a shot-gun approach to influencing multinationals," she says. "But it takes the ability to wield a scalpel to affect [their] profits directly." Economic tactics will not likely have an effect of influencing operations in Israel, she contends. "They will instead deflect the opposition to some symbolic measures and continue as before."

Whether the situation on the ground in Israel and Palestine reflects that of South Africa under apartheid will likely remain a point of contention for years to come. Ultimately, to what degree the divestment campaigns economically impact Israel and the companies that support it may be less important than what the labels of this conflict are able to produce in the minds of the American public and international community. If the rebranding attempts are successful, half the battle may already have been won.

Esmé E. Deprez is a New York-based journalist with a passion for covering foreign policy, business and politics, www.esmedeprez.com.

Humanitarian intervention, either in the form of peacekeeping or the "responsibility to protect" doctrine, is widely supported by the international community as a means of conflict resolution. When a country is unable or unwilling to provide security for its citizens, those countries that have the means to help have a moral obligation to step in. In 1998, for instance, the deaths of 2,000 Albanians in Kosovo prompted a three month NATO bombing campaign. The ongoing crisis in Darfur, which has killed roughly 300,000 people, has led to international condemnation, constant media attention and charges against President Omar al-Bashir in the International Criminal Court. But the West remains silent as the deadliest conflict since World War Two rages in Central Africa, due in no small part to old colonial borders and new resource demands.

It is ironically named the Democratic Republic of Congo and often, more appropriately, called Congo-Kinshasa. Formerly the personal fiefdom of Belgium’s King Leopold and then the cash cow of the brutal Mobutu Sese Seko, the Congo is now entering its second decade of sustained civil war and ethnic conflict.

The numbers are absolutely staggering: 5.4 million people killed since 1998, nearly 50,000 more dead every month and as many as two million internally displaced peoples. Hundreds of thousands of women have been raped. Torture, forced labor and child soldiering are common. Borders have collapsed and forces from neighboring countries like Rwanda, Burundi, Chad, Uganda and Angola have joined Congolese warlords in bloody campaigns across the heart of Africa. Lacking the means and will to protect its citizens, Congo-Kinshasa is a prototypical failed state.

In spite of all this – in spite of the fact that even a medium-sized force with a NATO-like mandate could substantially alleviate horrific conditions and provide security for millions of people – developed countries have been loath to respond. The International Security Assistance Force has deployed over 50,000 troops across Afghanistan but MONUC, the United Nations mission in the Congo, is expected to police Africa’s third largest country with a force of less than 20,000. The United States, Canada and the United Kingdom have all contributed significant personnel in the war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, but have only been willing to send a dozen military observers to the Congo. In fact, there is not a single solider from a Western country in MONUC: a force comprised mainly of troops from India, Pakistan, Uruguay, Nepal and other developing nations.

The message is clear: the "responsibility to protect" only goes so far. When white people die, such as in Kosovo, the West is quick to respond. When Muslims are the villains, such as in Darfur, the Western media is given carte blanche. When an area has geopolitical significance, like Afghanistan, NATO is only too willing to devote dollars and power to a conflict that, realistically, it has little hope of winning in the long-term. Yet the turmoil of sub-Saharan Africa, the deaths of Africans at the hands of other Africans doesn’t elicit a peep. Our souls might be stirred just enough by infomercials to donate a few dollars to starving children but when it comes to making concrete and sustained efforts towards ending misery, we just can’t muster the resolve. They’re just Africans after all. As long as Africans are the only ones dying and as long as the conflict doesn’t disrupt our access to precious resources – like tin for circuit boards and coltan for iPods and cell phones – then the Congo is not worth paying attention to.

Seán O'Flynn-Magee

In a recent editorial in the Guardian UK, Naomi Klein called for a widespread Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel. She wrote that, "It's time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa... Every day that Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions cause - even among Israeli Jews. In the midst of the assault roughly 500 Israelis, dozens of them well-known artists and scholars, sent a letter to foreign ambassadors in Israel. It calls for "the adoption of immediate restrictive measures and sanctions" and draws a clear parallel with the anti-apartheid struggle. 'The boycott on South Africa was effective, but Israel is handled with kid gloves ... This international backing must stop.'"

Naomi Klein's assessment resonates with many people who are terribly upset by the injustice they see happening in Gaza. Now is the time that we should collectively act to simultaneously reject consumerism and the war in Gaza. Getting involved is easy:

First, visit the Boycott Israeli Goods website and begin actively refusing to buy any product made in Israel. You can also download a comprehensive guide of Israeli products.

And, if you have a website, you can promote this campaign by adding a small "Boycott Israel" banner to the top left of your website. To do so, put the following code anywhere on your webpage. For an example of how this looks, visit why-war.com

Do you think a boycott of Israel can end the occupation of Palestine? How can we spread this Boycott campaign more widely?

Update: The following websites have joined the Boycott Israel campaign. We will keep updating this list as more sites join!

• http://pasembur.wordpress.com/2009/01/12/boycott-israeli-goods/
• http://www.keyvan.net/
• http://www.antiwar.co.uk/
• http://www.why-war.com/
• http://www.incidentalmedia.com/navidah/
• http://silonius.blogspot.com/
• http://mypixelarts.com/blog/

Micah M. White is a Contributing Editor at Adbusters Magazine and an independent activist. Micah is currently writing a book of philosophical meanderings into the future of activism. He lives in Binghamton, NY with his wife and two cats. www.micahmwhite.com