Divestment can save lives, from Brazil to Palestine

We need a plan if we're going to get serious about transition. Concrete solidarity measures with Palestine can help with the conditions for real sovereignty and emancipation.

One of the main international solidarity campaigns with Palestine follows the tradition of the struggle against South African apartheid and calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions. The BDS campaign calls on civil society and states to cut off the flow of capital and symbolic legitimacy that feeds Israel in its cycle of colonisation and violence against Palestinians. Since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza, the BDS line has also inspired student movements and trade unions in the use of various tactics, such as physical blockades of ships bound for Israel, strikes and refusal to participate in labour activities connected trade with Israel, and campaigns for universities and pension funds to divest from companies that profit from the Zionist occupation. Although it is a non-violent form of organising, BDS poses such a threat to the apartheid funding system and Israel's war machine that activists linked to BDS are often censored, threatened with arrest or detained, and the campaign ends up the target of unfounded allegations of anti-Semitism.

Photo by Daniela Fajar

The discourse of criminalising BDS stems from the fear of the possible financial impact on corporations, the army and the Israeli government if the majority of the world were to heed the call for a boycott. The demand for a military embargo, once associated only with traditional support groups for the Palestinian cause, is now spreading around the world, with the participation of governments, parliamentarians and the humanitarian sector who finally understand that symbolic resolutions and judgements will not be able to establish a lasting ceasefire by Israel in the region. Considering the military support of more than 17 billion dollars from the United States to Israel between October 2023 and 2024, it is possible to speculate that the deaths of thousands of children, the suffering of millions of Palestinians and the continued destruction of a territory could have been avoided if the Biden administration had dared to turn off the tap that funds genocide.

The United States operates as a financier and instigator of the colonial state of Israel, going far beyond the status of ally. Its geopolitical role ensures that countries like Cuba and Venezuela suffer sanctions that directly affect the lives of the population - regardless of their political position - while Israel is shielded from any risk of blockade. This situation of diplomatic disagreement leaves each country to act independently in its reading of formal and commercial relations with Israel. In Latin America, in addition to the countries that did not have full relations with Israel from before, Colombia stands out due to President Gustavo Petro's ongoing denunciation of the Palestinian genocide. While governments empathetic to the situation in Gaza continue to appeal to failed UN resolutions or public repudiations with humanitarian overtones, Petro has gradually adhered to the demands of the BDS, suspending arms purchases from Israel, withdrawing his diplomats from the country and halting coal exports for the duration of the attack on Gaza. These actions have direct consequences for Colombia, since the country supplied more than 60 per cent of the coal consumed by Israel in 2023. By taking these decisions, the Petro government has shown that international solidarity requires more than words and verbal requests to stop the massacre: it also requires cutting off the flow of capital and commodities that feeds the genocide, which will also come at political and economic cost to those willing to make changes and set an example.

Trade and military relations between Brazil and Israel

Despite the direct commercial impact, Colombia also gained politically by breaking with Israel, making the case that the costs of solidarity can be outweighed by other strategic political benefits. The imperialist influence in the country, with the presence of Mossad, has marked the history of paramilitary violence in Colombian territory. In this way, Colombia is demonstrating an international repositioning of non-alignment, compatible with the search for alternatives in a world order so marked by the power of the US and Western Europe. The Brazilian case, however, is different.

The Brazilian government's diplomatic stance secured certain victories, such as the safe transport of Brazilians who were in Gaza in October 2023. However, as soon as Lula raised his tone with Benjamin Netanyahu, the latter wasted no time in declaring the Brazilian president persona non grata in Israel. Since then, there have been expectations on the part of the Palestinian community and those in solidarity with Palestinians that Brazil would harden its stance and stop co-operating with the Israeli state, especially in the military field, and stop exporting to the country, especially oil. Interviewed at the time by The Intercept Brasil, political scientist Dawisson Lopes estimated that the concrete loss for Brazil of a possible break with Israel would have little overall commercial impact. What's more, unlike in the US and Germany, support for Israel or not has no massive direct effect on the choices of the Brazilian electorate. In fact, in this sense, what might worry the left in government is the possible connection between firmer positions on Israel and the interpretations by part of the evangelical electorate that is mobilised by Zionism. In this respect, the best way forward would be to invest even more in research, dialogue and a better understanding of the diversity of the growing evangelical phenomenon in Brazil. This path makes it possible to escape from overly homogeneous readings of evangelical voters – both right-wing and left-leaning - and fruitless metaphors about fundamentalism and religion that obstruct a concrete strategy for connecting and winning over so many Brazilians to agendas dear to the left, such as the liberation of Palestine.

Therefore, even in a relatively comfortable institutional situation, two years before a forthcoming election, where Brazil is far from being a mere "diplomatic dwarf" (an expression used by the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman in 2014), there are no indications that our country intends to encourage a ceasefire by interrupting trade and military relations with Israel. Brazil is responsible for 9% of the crude oil that reaches Israel, making the country Petrobras' tenth largest recipient between 2019 and 2023. In fact, 260,000 tonnes of crude oil from fields jointly owned by Shell and Petrobras were exported to Israel between 13 October 2023 and January 2024. Detailed investigations have already traced the route of cargo ships leaving Santos, fuelled via fields such as Tupi and Iracema, to Haifa. The Tupi field, for example, has a concession contract in which Petrobras operates 65 per cent, with in partnership with Shell (25 per cent) and Petrogal (10 per cent). When asked about the responsibility of a Brazilian company like Petrobras in this relationship, it is common for the responsibility to be treated as exclusively that of Shell and the other companies that have concession contracts with Petrobras. However, if "the pre-salt is ours", as the traditional slogan in left-wing movements goes, and if it is part of our national sovereignty strategy, what kind of sovereignty is that if it can't be used to turn off the tap that supplies the genocide? What we can see is that although the general damage of divesting from relations with Israel is minimal, the sectoral and private interest in maintaining these relations influences our state position.

It is worth noting that when the Lula government, after popular pressure, officially suspended the purchase of armoured vehicles from the Israeli company Elbit Systems, Lula was accused by the Zionist right of compromising Brazil's national defence and, of course, of anti-Semitism. Celso Amorim explained that the government's decision was aimed at complying with the orders of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) not to cooperate militarily with Israel. For his part, Defence Minister José Mucio insisted that the artillery could be produced by AEL Sistemas - a subsidiary of Elbit Systems that is still operational in Porto Alegre. In other words, every time Brazil comes close to the possibility of ceasing co-operation with Israel, military and oil interests speak louder.

Another collaborative sector that keeps us tied to the genocidal state of Israel is agribusiness. As if the damage done by Brazilian agribusiness in the form of fires, pesticides, soil degradation, water waste, land grabbing, tax evasion, rural violence, animal cruelty and greenhouse gas emissions weren't enough, there are agribusiness divisions that actively participate in foreign trade with Israel. In February 2024, shortly after the crisis between Lula and Netanyahu, experts warned that although Israel represents only 0.5% of total Brazilian agro exports, almost half of Israel's exports to Brazil in 2023 were in the fertiliser sector. Nonetheless, fertiliser consumption by agribusiness is so high that the Israeli input makes up only 5% of these imports. A break in relations between the two countries would have a direct impact on both countries, but a much greater impact on Israel. But the fear of agribusiness is different: that a firm stance by Brazil will harm overall exports in the region, since Brazil is the second largest supplier of agribusiness products to Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran, or worse, that a break with Israel will jeopardise Brazilian trade relations with the United States, one of the main destinations for beef from Brazil.

A triple divestment plan for Brazil

Colombia and Brazil occupy friendly but different positions in global geopolitics. In a way, the Brazil of Lula and the G20 presidency is seeking to follow a path of leadership in the Global South, capable of articulating alliances against hunger and major cooperation agreements, where it even flirts with the position of non-alignment, but without assuming it entirely. The US is still the big elephant in the room and should be mentioned whenever we try to interpret the delicate dance of Brazilian diplomacy towards Israel, which contributes to the US objective of global normalisation of Israel as a state, as a trading partner and as a military force. It is possible that a total break with Israel by Brazil could generate friction with the US, especially with the return of Donald Trump, and stoke the fears of the rich and market speculators. At the same time, it could be argued that the more Brazil establishes itself as a global power, the more it will be able to exert its diplomatic influence to balance tougher stances against genocide.

Popular pressure from BDS supporters in Brazil is helping the government to inform its decisions, but it won't be enough as long as Zionist commercial and military interests are in line with the influence of agribusiness, oil and the military sector - full of anti-democratic zeal - on the stances of the Brazilian state.

It is therefore interesting that we combine the debate on solidarity with Palestine with the need to divest from oil - a basic condition for a real energy transition - and from agribusiness - which is destructive, violent and criminal and at the root of Brazil’s historical emissions - and to reformulate our defence and public security policy so that we can finally break free from the chains of racist and antidemocratic groups, as well as costly structures from the industrial prison complex that generate insecurity and mass incarceration. If abandoning, or at least weakening, one of the pillars of this "petro-agro-military" tripod already seems like a colossal task, imagine the difficulty we would have if Brazil really wanted to implement a triple divestment plan that would allow renewable energy alternatives, agro-ecology and real national sovereignty to flourish. This giant challenge would, if realised, bring about a reshaping of economic and military power in Brazil that would naturally weaken relations with Israel in the long term. Even relations with the US would change as Brazil became less of an exporter of fossil and agricultural commodities and more in control of full-scale production chains and new partners. Yet, if “transition” is a term to be taken seriously by the Brazilian left, which must urgently update its understanding of sovereignty to the 21^st Century, we have to start somewhere. Tactics that will cost us “something” in the short-run, but better position ourselves in the long-run with real democratic and sustainable benefits should be considered by unions, social movements and, of course, political parties.

The diagnostic analysis of the national and international political economy objectively demonstrates that the petro-agro-military sectors keep us fuelling Israel's genocidal capacity, while delaying Brazil’s aspirations to overcome the system of dependent capitalism and our potential to “develop” on our own terms. Alternative progressive policies in these areas can bring us concrete economic, social and political gains, but this strategic horizon cannot be realised without collective political will, which is often the most affected by the spectre of a "lack of correlation of forces" or "market reaction", plagued by the kind of left melancholia that pushes too little out of fear of losing too much. By being stuck with the idea that we don't have enough power to implement what we want, we cowardly refrain from acting and building the organising and politicising positions necessary to gain implementing power and diminish the power of the opposition.

Mindful of the limitations imposed on leftist imaginary, where anything that sounds radical is shut down in favour of centrist “safe” positions, I propose that we consider the divestment debate within a transitional framework. As I argued earlier, it's not enough to divest from agribusiness by changing the rules and criteria of the Safra Plan, but we must do so with equal or greater investment in popular agrarian reform, agroecology, and the demarcation of the territories of indigenous, quilombolas and traditional communities. Divestment as a transition tool is done within a plan, in a coordinated and purposeful way. It doesn't abandon the importance of economic stimulus, but it reorients stimulus so that it is compatible with the society we want to create. Democratic and purposeful planning can gradually eliminate what is unwanted, while nurturing the land freed up to sow the seeds of the society we want. This logic is essential for anything that dares to be called a transition; in other words, it is a far cry from the levity with which the term transition has been treated when Petrobras argues that we are going to explore for more oil in order to "finance the energy transition". The expansion of Brazil's fossil fuel sector is not accompanied by a concrete phase-out plan that guarantees our future overcoming of economic dependence on dirty energy, nor the direct and adequate financing of mitigation and adaptation policies, which must go far beyond the energy sector. After all, a just climate transition in Brazil does mean an energy transition, but also a socio-agri-food transition – and more!

If most of Brazil's historical emissions correspond to changes in land use and agricultural activity, which have led Brazil to rank among the largest global emitters, divesting from the sources of emissions is not only desirable, but the only way to really make good on the promises to reduce emissions that the country made at COP29 and, preferably, to grow in ambition. We need to employ policies from the state and civil society that bring more coherence to what is defended, making it possible to escape situations in which we say we are protecting the Amazon while at the same time promoting oil exploration on its coast, as if one ecosystem existed in isolation from another or as if it were worth much less than another. If we were really serious about the planned and gradual phasing out of fossil fuels, every cent raised from today's fossil investments would go towards coordinating the obsolescence of this industry.

This is absolutely not the case today and should serve as a frustrating reminder that while the last COPs were held in petro-states, COP30 in Belém will also be hosted by one.

The advantage of state intervention and the presence of strong public companies in the energy sector should not just be in feeding the public coffers or guaranteeing services for the population. A strong public company is a strong tool for planning entire sectors in ways that involve communities and workers as leaders, not just stakeholders you consult here and there to claim that there is “social participation” in the process. A company like Petrobras is much better than Shell or Total because Petrobras can plan for its own obsolescence as an oil company and do so by moulding itself into a truly renewable, fair and strategic energy company for lasting energy sovereignty.

A company like Petrobras is also better than its private competitors because it allows for the existence of strong unions of public service workers who can liaise internationally with each other to demand a just transition to green jobs in ways that go beyond retraining, but actually involve educational changes, better pensions, hours and deals conducive to phasing-out oil jobs while guaranteeing the benefits our workers deserve.

Public sector unions at oil companies can also respond to calls for international solidarity by aligning themselves with their countries' diplomatic positions. In the example of Gaza, trade unions can be more effective than company management in organising their workers in strikes and blockades, perhaps even stopping the export of oil to Israel. This was the call for concrete solidarity made by Palestinian trade unions as recently as 2023, aimed primarily at a military embargo, so that organised workers would refuse to make weapons or transport weapons destined for Israel, also passing motions in the unions to this end and putting pressure on their governments. Considering the essential role of fuel in the war machine, it is essential to include an end to energy exports to Israel as part of the military embargo mission. In Brazil, this would mean actions by trade unions and movements both in the fields operated by Petrobras, the largest participant in consortia with Shell and other companies, as well as in port terminals. Recently, in line with protests against the transport of arms to Israel, dock workers in Tangier refused to load the Maersk ship carrying military supplies from the US.

Blockades of this kind are important tools today, as we clamour for Brazil's eventual divestment from fossil fuels that will prepare us for the future and make us less complicit in the perennial relationship between wars and oil. Our socio-agri-food transition benefits our countryside, our forests, the air we breathe, and changes our relationship with the market, rejecting the dominant logic of planting for commodities. It also makes us less vulnerable to trade agreements and connections that silence our diplomatic activism in the name of imports and exports. Furthermore, by guiding regional and internationalist transitions, we can join forces to act in alternative political blocs, strengthening non-aligned and truly multipolar paths, which weave other alliances capable of filling in the gaps of trade partners, such as Israel, that we choose to leave behind.

Of course, Gaza can't wait for Brazil to finally get its transition path right, seeking real energy and national sovereignty instead of this current version of “sovereignty with an expiry date” – strong only until the next disaster hits. By treating concrete immediate actions of boycott, divestment and sanctions that cut off the flow of capital and arms to Israel also as measures that contribute in the long-run to our tactics of structural divestment for just transitions, we have the opportunity to begin shifting the dial of transition by highlighting the common interests of the Palestinian people with those of the Brazilian people. Campaigns such as "Brazil fuels genocide" remind us that wars are not only waged in the name of oil, but also fuelled by it. That's why, amid the use of technicalities to exempt Petrobras from its role in supplying Israel, the campaign is calling on President Lula to issue a decree banning oil exports to Israel, bringing Brazil into line with its responsibility under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This could also be a step towards reviewing the meaning of energy sovereignty and our power to open and close the oil tap on a path of transition.

By combating the petro-agro-military tripod that sustains Israel, we can question our own ties and dependencies. And by finally uniting our denunciation of genocide, fires and climate disasters with cross-cutting measures capable of transforming our economy, in several places at once, we can build a foundation for Brazilian leadership in the Global South, resilience against threats from the North, and true sovereignty exercised with justice and sustainability.

Ps: for a great overview on the public pathway for energy transition, please check out my interview with Lala Peñaranda from Trade Unions for Energy Democracy. This interview is part of a forthcoming dossier on energy transition I had the pleasure of editing for the Alameda Institute.