The members of Boycott from Within describe themselves as “Palestinians, Jews, citizens of Israel,” who “join the Palestinian call for a BDS campaign against Israel, inspired by the struggle of South Africans against apartheid,” and who are “devoted to the promotion of just peace and true democracy in this region.” They disapprove of “Western governments' decision to boycott the Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” which they characterize as “particularly outrageous given the same Western governments' prolonged support of Israel's apartheid and other daily violations of international law.”[3] Ronnie Barkan, a longtime Jewish Israeli activist and math teacher who was raised in Raanana, near Tel Aviv, is a co-founder of Boycott from Within.
In a 2012 interview with journalist Ceclia Dalla Negra of The Electronic Intifada, he expressed his belief that Palestinian resistance is a “popular struggle rather than a nonviolent one,” but added that “as long as Israel and its backers use means of terror against the Palestinian civil population, then we cannot legally and should not morally condemn those fighting for their liberation from doing so.”[4] Barkan has described himself as “among the group of the over-privileged in this struggle for Palestinian rights, acting against a system that has at its very core the Zionist principle of differentiation.” He describes the Israeli treatment of Palestinians as apartheid, identifies himself as “anti-Zionist,” and refers to Israel as “the Jewish-supremacist entity...founded on the basis of ethnic cleansing and ethnic segregation.”[5] Barkan has been described as having evaded mandatory service in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
[8] Another Boycott from Within activist, Kobi Snitz, is a mathematician employed by the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot.
Snitz is also a longtime member of Anarchists Against the Wall who has demonstrated alongside Palestinian villagers protesting the West Bank fence for many years.
Imprisoned in 2004 for interfering with security policies,[vague] he was summoned by Shin Bet for questioning in 2010, at which time Shin Bet told Haaretz that it possessed “information indicating that Dr. Kobi Snitz is involved in organizing illegal gatherings and illegal entry into restricted military zones in the West Bank.”[1][9] Boycott from Within member Leehee Rothschild’s Tel Aviv apartment was raided and she was detained in 2011.