Anti-Israel activists are now putting all their energy into their Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (BDS). Their goal is to portray Israel and Israelis as pariahs that should be excluded from all international spheres — diplomatic, political, economic, social and cultural.
Jews have been victims of such policies before. In the millennia of anti-Semitism in Europe and the Middle East, they have been singled out, demonized and excluded, as they were, for example, in 13th century England and 1930s Europe. The Jewish state, too, has experienced such policies since its founding, when Arab nations implemented strict exclusion and boycotts against Israel, most of which are still in place. The current global BDS campaign began in 2001 and grew after 2005, when Israel effectively defeated the terrorist campaign known as the Second Intifada. Today, hard-core anti-Israel activists around the world are feverishly lobbying artists, universities, churches, retailers, unions, municipalities, and other institutions to adopt BDS.
Any public figures, retailers, institutions or organizations that adopt or defer to BDS policies should themselves be boycotted.
They should be boycotted because they advocate destructive rather than constructive measures. BDS is anti-coexistence, undermines peace efforts and does nothing to help Palestinians begin state building, improve their lives or move toward reconciliation.
They should be boycotted because BDS policies are fundamentally anti-Semitic even though some of the movement’s advocates are Jews. The campaign uses the propaganda techniques and imagery of classical anti-Semitism now applied not to individual Jews, but to the world’s largest Jewish community and its only Jewish state. Boycott activists strip away all context for Israel’s actions, such as ongoing terrorism and the virulent ideology that propels it, in order to depict Israel as motivated by sheer malice in what are often simply modern blood libels. They obsessively put a microscope on Israel to detect its flaws and expect it to live up to standards they do not expect of any other nation. They never call for BDS against nations that do systematically commit war crimes and human rights abuses, such as Ahmadinejad’s Iran, Bashir’s Sudan, Lebanon’s apartheid practices against Palestinians or Turkey’s occupation of northern Cyprus and violent repression of its Kurdish minority.
They should be boycotted because of their hypocrisy. Where was the outrage of the boycotters, who claim to be champions of social justice and human rights, when the Palestinian suicide bombing campaign targeted innocent Jewish men, women and children, and Hamas fired thousands of rockets from Gaza into Israeli communities, murdering toddlers and turning daily life into a lethal game of Russian roulette? Where were they when Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust even as he called for genocide against Jews? Where is their protest against the Judeophobic incitement that dominates the Middle East? Their callous indifference and implicit support of murdering Jews is both morally perverse and anti-Semitic.
Above all, they should be boycotted because they endorse the agendas of the dictatorial regimes and radical Islamist groups who share their hatred of the Jewish state and who are also enemies of human rights, social justice values, tolerance and modernity. These states and groups like Hamas oppress women, persecute religious and other minorities, and oppress their own citizens. Those who adopt BDS should be exposed and pay the price for supporting and enabling the intransigent enemies of humanitarian and liberal values.
Boycotting those who comply with BDS means that any university that does not unequivocally denounce campus divestment campaigns should not receive another nickel from donors who care about fairness, the survival of Israel and modern liberal values. Recording artists who refuse to perform in Israel should be labeled as extremists for the regressive, anti-Semitic values they endorse. Fair-minded people should stop buying their records and attending their concerts. Consumers should boycott any retailers who refuse to stock Israeli products, and should support the new StandWithUs campaign, BIG and RIG (Buy Israeli Goods and Request Israeli Goods).
It is time to expose the distorted values that drive the BDS movement and its alliance with the most repressive and dangerous forces in the world today. It is time to unequivocally say no to this BDS movement and to all who would consider complying with it.
Roz Rothstein is international director of StandWithUs. Roberta Seid is education director of StandWithUs.
