The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement is about a decade old. It couches its appeals to Western sensibilities in a language of righteous indignation that never gets old. The Palestinian nationalists behind the BDS movement use it as another strategy to achieve their goal of destroying Israel. It is fair to identify the BDS movement's supporters and their own goals.
NGO Monitor has done excellent work tracking the funders of the BDS movement and its allied causes. The New Israel Fund aligned with BDS is particularly noteworthy for its history of supporting Israeli NGOs that make false or misleading claims about Israel's justice system and military operations. Even the BDS symbol is an adaptation of the Palestinian "Handala" cartoon encouraging perpetual victimhood. Handala figures prominently in the imagery of the Palestinian right of return principle. It is obvious that Israelis and others who adhere to the right of return principle have not considered the effects of forced immigration on Israeli citizens.
Israelis and Jewish-Americans who sign on to the BDS movement are, in the phraseology attributed to the Comintern describing their international collaborators, useful idiots. Jewish Voice for Peace claims the BDS positions are going mainstream. That claim is unverifiable, and is certainly untrue within mainstream Judaism after Jewish organizations have repeatedly identified JVP representatives as unwelcome. The Anti-Defamation League has an excellent backgrounder on how JVP covers for the anti-Israel agenda of other entities.
I had a very unenlightening experience in recent weeks when a JVP activist spoke to a foreign policy study group I frequently attend at one of San Francisco's most renowned civic affairs clubs. She sounded very naive, as if they could all sing Kumbaya to give the Palestinians their own state. This woman claimed that JVP's social network audience exceeds AIPAC's audience. I just did my own checking today on Twitter, Facebook, and Alexa.
JVP Twitter followers: 41,500
AIPAC Twitter Followers: 46,000
JVP Facebook fans: 206,756
AIPAC Facebook fans: 102,417
JVP website Alexa rank: Global rank 536,838; US rank 123,682
AIPAC website Alexa rank: Global rank 214,495; US rank 36,527
The numbers show AIPAC leading JVP in two of those three metrics. The JVP woman was either lying or stupid to make her claim of social reach. Radical activists are not above lying to move their agenda. Soviet dupes in the West did it all the time.
BDS activists often draw false parallels between their movement and the US civil rights movement of the 1950s-60s, the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s, or the Northern Ireland peace process. The red herrings fly fast and furious with these people. The US civil rights movement never lobbied for a separate homeland for African Americans, but for justice within a single-state solution. The anti-apartheid movement was a similar recognition of a single state's legitimacy. The Northern Ireland peace process ended with recognition of British sovereignty, another single state solution. The BDS objective of weakening Israel's ability to defend itself through a military boycott, with no requirement for the Palestinian territories to likewise disarm, is not the moral equivalent of earlier movements for peace and justice.
It is glaringly obvious that JVP and other BDS supporters in the Anglo-West have not conducted any serious thinking about what happens after their boycott succeeds and a Palestinian state crowds out a greatly weakened Israel. Where would Palestinian returnees settle? Would they go to Israel to evict Israelis or to a Palestine that may not be able to absorb them? Will the GDP of a Palestinian state support both its existing citizens and new returnees? Will Hamas abandon its charter's pledge to destroy Israel and evict all Jews from the Middle East? Is a comprehensive Israel-Palestine peace even possible while a Sunni-Shia conflict exists within Islam? Serious diplomats across the Middle East and the Anglo-West have wrestled with these questions for decades. The only firm answer has always come in the form of Israel's ability to defend itself from existential threats.
Radical elements within the Palestinian nationalist movement have never surrendered their goal of destroying Israel. The methods change to make the goal seem palatable to sympathetic Westerners. The BDS movement is another strategy to de-legitimize Israel. It does not yet pose an existential threat to Israel by itself, but it is clearly a form of asymmetric warfare.
NGO Monitor has done excellent work tracking the funders of the BDS movement and its allied causes. The New Israel Fund aligned with BDS is particularly noteworthy for its history of supporting Israeli NGOs that make false or misleading claims about Israel's justice system and military operations. Even the BDS symbol is an adaptation of the Palestinian "Handala" cartoon encouraging perpetual victimhood. Handala figures prominently in the imagery of the Palestinian right of return principle. It is obvious that Israelis and others who adhere to the right of return principle have not considered the effects of forced immigration on Israeli citizens.
Israelis and Jewish-Americans who sign on to the BDS movement are, in the phraseology attributed to the Comintern describing their international collaborators, useful idiots. Jewish Voice for Peace claims the BDS positions are going mainstream. That claim is unverifiable, and is certainly untrue within mainstream Judaism after Jewish organizations have repeatedly identified JVP representatives as unwelcome. The Anti-Defamation League has an excellent backgrounder on how JVP covers for the anti-Israel agenda of other entities.
I had a very unenlightening experience in recent weeks when a JVP activist spoke to a foreign policy study group I frequently attend at one of San Francisco's most renowned civic affairs clubs. She sounded very naive, as if they could all sing Kumbaya to give the Palestinians their own state. This woman claimed that JVP's social network audience exceeds AIPAC's audience. I just did my own checking today on Twitter, Facebook, and Alexa.
JVP Twitter followers: 41,500
AIPAC Twitter Followers: 46,000
JVP Facebook fans: 206,756
AIPAC Facebook fans: 102,417
JVP website Alexa rank: Global rank 536,838; US rank 123,682
AIPAC website Alexa rank: Global rank 214,495; US rank 36,527
The numbers show AIPAC leading JVP in two of those three metrics. The JVP woman was either lying or stupid to make her claim of social reach. Radical activists are not above lying to move their agenda. Soviet dupes in the West did it all the time.
BDS activists often draw false parallels between their movement and the US civil rights movement of the 1950s-60s, the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s, or the Northern Ireland peace process. The red herrings fly fast and furious with these people. The US civil rights movement never lobbied for a separate homeland for African Americans, but for justice within a single-state solution. The anti-apartheid movement was a similar recognition of a single state's legitimacy. The Northern Ireland peace process ended with recognition of British sovereignty, another single state solution. The BDS objective of weakening Israel's ability to defend itself through a military boycott, with no requirement for the Palestinian territories to likewise disarm, is not the moral equivalent of earlier movements for peace and justice.
It is glaringly obvious that JVP and other BDS supporters in the Anglo-West have not conducted any serious thinking about what happens after their boycott succeeds and a Palestinian state crowds out a greatly weakened Israel. Where would Palestinian returnees settle? Would they go to Israel to evict Israelis or to a Palestine that may not be able to absorb them? Will the GDP of a Palestinian state support both its existing citizens and new returnees? Will Hamas abandon its charter's pledge to destroy Israel and evict all Jews from the Middle East? Is a comprehensive Israel-Palestine peace even possible while a Sunni-Shia conflict exists within Islam? Serious diplomats across the Middle East and the Anglo-West have wrestled with these questions for decades. The only firm answer has always come in the form of Israel's ability to defend itself from existential threats.
Radical elements within the Palestinian nationalist movement have never surrendered their goal of destroying Israel. The methods change to make the goal seem palatable to sympathetic Westerners. The BDS movement is another strategy to de-legitimize Israel. It does not yet pose an existential threat to Israel by itself, but it is clearly a form of asymmetric warfare.
