The BDS Movement
The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (BDS) is a bigoted global propaganda campaign against Israel. It is the newest weapon in the ongoing effort to eliminate Israel as the democratic state of the Jewish people. BDS brands itself as a progressive human rights movement, but nothing could be further from the truth. BDS an extremist agenda which is anti-peace, anti-justice, and anti-human rights.
One of the BDS movement's three central demands is, a "right of return" to Israel for millions of Palestinian refugees. If millions of Palestinians move to Israel, Israel will be eliminated and replaced with a Palestinian state. 2 This would violate international law and the collective rights of the Jewish people to self-determination.
If BDS' demands are met, Israeli Jews would likely be forced to live as a minority under the rule of racist political parties. Fatah and Hamas are the forces that dominate Palestinian politics today, and both regularly express or 3 promote hatred of Jews and Israelis.
Norman Finkelstein, an infamous critic of Israel, has stated that BDS is "not really talking about rights. 4 They’re talking about [how] they want to destroy Israel."
BDS singles out Israel alone for boycotts while ignoring the world's worst human rights violators. Israel is the only free country in the Middle East and its record is comparable to that of other liberal democracies according to 5 Freedom House.
According to NYT columnist Thomas Friedman, "criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is vile. But 6 singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction... is anti-Semitic, and not saying so is dishonest."
BDS places all pressure to end the conflict on Israel, while failing to hold Palestinian leaders accountable for promoting hatred, incitement, and terrorism. Palestinian leaders have no incentive to negotiate in good faith if they think the world will pressure Israel into giving them everything they want.
BDS condemns groups that promote dialogue and coexistence between ordinary Israelis and Palestinians.7
Many companies targeted by BDS have Israeli and Palestinian employees, and promote coexistence.8
Almost 100,000 Palestinians work in Israel and Israeli settlements in the West Bank. On average, they earn twice as much as Palestinians who work in the Palestinian Authority, and for many the difference in wages is even 10,11 higher. These workers support thousands of other Palestinians financially
Many Palestinian farmers rely on Israeli companies such as Agrexco to export their goods to European markets. 13 Agrexco has exported hundreds of tons of Palestinian produce from Gaza since 2010.
Noam Chomsky, one of Israel's harshest critics, has accused BDS of calling for "the destruction of Israel," and 14 said that "if you really hate the Palestinians, [BDS] is a good step because it's going to harm them."
The Palestinian Arab Executive Committee, led by Nazi collaborator Haj Amin al-Husseini, called for a boycott 15 against Jews in the British-controlled Palestine Mandate in 1933. Arab nations imposed boycotts against pre- 16 state Israel in 1945, and expanded them when Israel was established in 1948. Arab officials clearly stated that 17 the goal of those boycotts was the "liquidation of Israel". BDS is a continuation of that destructive agenda.
1As'ad AbuKhalil, "A Critique of Norman Finkelstein on BDS," February 17, 2012, at http://english.al-akhbar.com/blogs/angry-corner/critique-norman-finkelstein-bds
2BDS Movement, "Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS," July 9, 2005, at http://www.bdsmovement.net/call; Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights," December 16, 1966, at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htm
3The Avalon Project, "Hamas Covenant 1988," Yale Law School, August 18, 1988, at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp; Palestinian Media Watch, "Demonization of Jews/Israelis," 2013, at http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=762,
4Norman Finkelstein, "Norman Finkelstein on BDS," YouTube, February 15, 2012, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iggdO7C70P8
5Freedom House, "Freedom in the World Report 2013," 2013, at http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2013
6Thomas Friedman, "Campus Hypocrisy," New York Times, October 16, 2002, at http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/16/opinion/campus hypocrisy.html
7Yair Rosenberg, "Talking to Palestinians Who Won't Talk Back," Tablet Magazine, September 4, 2013, at http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/143517/talking-to-palestinians-who-wont-talk-back
8The Forward, Haaretz, and Nathan Jeffay, "Palestinian workers praise SodaStream-and Scarlett Johansson," Haaretz, February 2, 2014, at http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/1.571948; Christa Case Bryant, "Palestinian workers back Scarlett Johansson's opposition to SodaStream boycott," Christian Science Monitor, January 30, 2014, at http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/2014/0130/Palestinian-workers-back- Scarlett-Johansson's opposition-to-SodaStream-boycott-video; Josh Mitnick, "What SodaStream's Palestinian Employees Think About Scarlett Johansson," Gawker, February 1, 2014, at http://gawker.com/what-sodastreams-palestinian-employees-think-about-sca-1513475552; Matthew Kalman, "Bursting Oxfam's West Bank Bubble," Haaretz, February 3, 2014, at http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/outside-edge/.premium-1.572231; Naama Ben-Yaakov, "Rivlin Visits Arab and Jewish Workers at the Barkan Industrial Zone," Indy News Israel, May 28, 2010 at http://www.indynewsisrael.com/rivlin-visits-arab-and-jewish-workers-at-the-barkan-industrial-zone
9Khaled Abu Toameh, "20,000 Palestinians working in settlements, survey finds," Jerusalem Post, August 15, 2013, at http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/20000-Palestinians-working-in-settlements-survey-finds-323222 10PCBS, "Labour Force Survey Annual Report: 2010," April, 2011, at http://www.pcbs.gov.ps/Portals/_PCBS/Downloads/book1744.pdf; Djamila
1Ould Khettab, "The Palestinians who work in settlements," Your Middle East, April 15, 2012, at http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/features/the-palestinians-who-work-in-settlements_6111
11Khaled Abu Toameh, "Number of Palestinian workers in Israel rises," Jerusalem Post, August, 15, 2012, at http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=281320
12Agrexco, "Coral,” n.d., at http://www.agrexco.co.il/en/coral.asp
13Jonny Paul and Jeremy Sharon, "UK food retailer's Israel boycott could harm Palestinians," JPost, April 30, 2012, at http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=268007
14Noam Chomsky, "Noam Chomsky Interviewed by Frank Barat, on Israel/Palestine (4/4)," YouTube, September 22, 2010, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5hY-gffV0M
15Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, "A Survey of Palestine Volume I," P. 31, Government Printer, Palestine, December, 1945 and January,1946
16Mitchell Bard, "The Arab Boycott," Jewish Virtual Library, September 27, 2007, at http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Arab_boycott.html
17Yehoshafat Harkabi, Arab Attitudes to Israel, Israel Universities Press, 1974, p. 29, at
Note: I have been compeletely unaware of this movement until just today (20160309). Since I follow the news quite fervently, I don't see how I missed it.KG