Boycotts to free Palestine?

Laura at work heard about the Bath Free Palestine march, and said there was an article about it in the Bath Chronicle.The article picks up on the idea of boycotts of companies who are associated with supporting the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The march in Bath targeted Starbucks, Marks & Spencer and Lloyds TSB.

I regard boycotts as a second-order activity, the primary action should be through the democratic institutions, particularly national governments and the UN. However, I wouldn't want my money going to support the Israeli occupation, so do the claims of the boycott advocates stack up?

Robert Fisk writes of Howard Shultz (Chairman and CEO of Starbucks) in an article in The Independent:

In 1998, Mr Shultz was awarded the "Israeli 50th Anniversary Tribute Award" from the Jerusalem Fund of Aish Ha-Torah, which is strongly critical of Yasser Arafat and insists that the occupied Palestinian territories should be described only as "disputed".

This is enough to persuade me to get my occasional hot-chocolate from Cafe Nero rather than Starbucks. What about M&S and Lloyds? Well, I'm going to bed now, dear reader. Tell me in the morning what you think about them.