Strong signs of anti-semitism in the BDS movement

[shira]

41. BDS, Racism and the New McCarthyism

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Some human beings are endowed with an amazing capacity to filter reality and see only that which fits their agenda. BDS advocates see the checkpoints, the separation wall, the night raids, and the home demolition in the West Bank. They do not see the innocent victims of terror. They do not see the innocent babies who owe their lives to the wall. They certainly do not see the anxiety of 7.9 million human beings living under the shadow of 150,000 deadly rockets, aimed at their civilian populations.

BDS followers possess infinite capacity to remember every horror of the 1948 war that led to the Palestinian refugee problem but zero capacity to remember another refugee problem. In the 1936-1940, the British Government succumbed to mass Palestinian riots and blockaded Jewish refugees from entering Palestine — thus sealing their fate in Auschwitz. Perhaps it is hard for BDS supporters to acknowledge these refugees because they are not with us to testify. What they should be able to acknowledge though, and rarely do, is the 1948 Arab attack on the newly created nation of Israel, which, by all historical accounts, was genocidal in intent and left deep scars on the Israeli psyche. Scars on both sides beg for healing; seeing some and not others is seeing none.

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The leaders of the BDS movement do not hide their real purpose: in every conversation with them they admit that their ultimate goal is not to end the occupation, and surely not to promote peace or coexistence, but to choreograph an arena whereby the “criminality” of Israel is debated and her character defamed. In other words, their goal is not to win a debate but to stage one, in which the words “boycott Israel” are repeated time and again to slowly penetrate listeners’ minds, thereby tarnishing Israel’s image with a stain of criminality. Net effect: bullying pro-coexistence voices into silence.

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Some of my colleagues find contradiction in BDS’s relentless attacks on tolerant Israel, while obvious violators of human rights, like Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Palestine, enjoy BDS silence, if not favors. The answer is clear to me. For BDS, human rights is merely a slogan to rally the uninformed around the banner of Israel bashing. What is somewhat unclear to me, however, are the intellectuals who have read a chapter or two in the history of the Middle East yet buy into this deception. I can only conclude that there must be some deeply ingrained animosity that turns such intellectuals against Israel. What is it?

I believe the answer lies in what Israel represents to BDS followers and to the world.

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