American religious history is filled with examples of faiths whose public perceptions defy deeper realities. The Quakers, for instance, are known as peaceful and supremely benign. Few suspect that one central mission is promoting the boycott, divestment and sanctions, or BDS, movement that opposes Israel’s existence.
The commitment of the Quakers through their primary organization, the American Friends Service Committee, is unmistakable. It is a leading member of the BDS umbrella group known as the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and provides support to BDS efforts on numerous college campuses. The AFSC works alongside the Students for Justice in Palestine and the rabidly anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace. Its representatives have even helped write Israel divestment resolutions for student governments.
One Quaker group describes the BDS movement as “the transforming power of love and nonviolence, having faith that enmity can be transformed and that oppression can give way.” How much of the AFSC’s almost $160 million annual budget is devoted to BDS isn’t known, as the Internal Revenue Service classifies the organization as a church.
Quakers, who tremble or “quake” before God, began as dissenting Protestants in England during the 17th century. Adherents rejected traditional sacraments—baptism and the Bible’s inerrant authority—and instead bore witness through “spirituality in action” and followed the “inner light,” which founder George Fox described as “spirit, and grace, by which all might know their salvation, and their way to God.”
