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For the full article go to http://jcpa.org/unmasking-bds/
By Dan Diker
Introduction
In the summer of 2014, Hamas fired more than four thousand rockets, and assaulted Israel using a vast underground network of attack tunnels that reached well into Israeli territory.
The Israel Defense Forces responded by
targeting the terrorist infrastructure of Gaza, triggering scores of pro-Hamas
demonstrations in European and North American cities in which protesters held
placards reading “Free Palestine,” “End the siege on Gaza,” “End Israeli
Apartheid,” and “Stop Israeli state terror.”
These public protests demonizing,
criminalizing, and delegitimizing Israel also characterize the ongoing boycott,
divestment, and sanctions movement. Global BDS activists exploited the 2014
Gaza conflict to reinvigorate their political and economic warfare campaign against
Israel.
On August 20, 2014, at the height of the war,
hundreds of pro-Hamas protesters in New York City carrying placards that read
“Israel=Racism and Genocide” and “Palestine from the river to the sea” – a
public call for Israel’s destruction – also dropped a massive flag from the
Manhattan Bridge that read “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions”
More generally, BDS represents a continuation
of an ongoing campaign promoting political subversion and economic warfare
against the State of Israel irrespective of the territories in dispute between
Israel and its Palestinian neighbors.
In Western circles, BDS is commonly
misunderstood. It is generally viewed as a progressive, nonviolent campaign led
by Palestinian grassroots organizations and propelled by Western human rights
groups, who call for boycotting Israeli goods produced in the “occupied” or
“disputed” Golan Heights and West Bank territories captured from Syria and
Jordan respectively in the 1967 war.
It is also widely assumed that the global BDS
movement is further limited to boycott and divestment aimed at Israel’s
presence over the 1967 Green Line, resulting in international actions led
frequently by the Palestinian Authority at the United Nations, at the
UN-affiliated International Court of Justice, as well as petitions made to the
International Criminal Court.
However, a closer investigation of the BDS
movement reveals a starkly different picture. BDS is more accurately described
as a political-warfare campaign conducted by rejectionist Palestinian groups in
cooperation with radical left-wing groups in the West. BDS leaders and
organizations are also linked to the Palestinian Authority leadership, the
radical Muslim Brotherhood, other radical groups, terror-supporting
organizations, and in some cases even terror groups themselves such as Hamas.
BDS boycott campaigns have effectively misled
trade unions, academic institutions, and even leading international artists and
cultural icons, with seemingly earnest calls for “justice” entailing the
establishment of a Palestinian state living beside a Jewish state.
These BDS
supporters have been led to believe that the combined pressure of boycotts,
divestment, and sanctions will force Israel to withdraw to the 1949 armistice
lines, otherwise known as the 1967 Green Line, enabling a resolution of the
ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict. However, as
some commentators – including the New York Times’
Roger Cohen and Professor Norman Finkelstein – have pointed out, the BDS
movement seeks to eliminate Israel even before addressing the Palestinian
issue.
As explained below, the publicized “demands” of
the BDS movement state clearly that the endgame of this punitive global
campaign is to cause Israel’s implosion as the nation-state of the Jewish
people and enable the creation of another Arab-majority state in its place.
Understanding the maximalist goals of BDS
presents a challenge to policymakers, shapers of public opinion, and Middle
East observers alike. The movement has exercised tactical sophistication in
“dressing up” its radical linkages and extremist ends in a language of peace,
justice, and human rights that appeals to Western audiences.
What Is BDS?
BDS stands for boycott, divestment, and sanctions, and refers to three distinct yet related forms of punitive action against the State of Israel. All of these actions promote isolating, breaking off relationships with, denormalizing, delegitimizing, and punishing the Jewish state.
· Boycott refers to the breaking of relationships with
Israel as a means of protest, punishment, intimidation, or coercion. These
actions include consumer and trade boycotts, cultural and sporting boycotts,
and academic boycotts.
· Divestment is the opposite of investment: the withdrawal
of investments in Israel by banks, pension funds, and other large investors or
from companies operating in Israel.
· Sanctions refer to punitive actions taken by governments
and international organizations, including trade penalties or bans, arms
embargoes, and cutting off diplomatic relations.
The term “BDS” is not used in any other
conflict or boycott campaign. It is nomenclature that refers exclusively to
imposing these punishments on Israel.
The Radical Roots of BDS
The term “BDS” is relatively new, having been popularized following the 2005 “Palestinian Civil Society Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.” However, the roots of boycotts against Israel and the Jewish people extend back centuries.
Since the Middle Ages, Jews were the targets of
boycotts and formal legal exclusion continuing hundreds of years. Jews were banned from owning property,
attending universities, or practicing a trade. Even after the European
Enlightenment removed many of the formal barriers to Jews, informal, grassroots
boycotts and exclusion still persisted.
A mass popular boycott of Jews was
organized in France in the late 1890s, and the
Jews of Limerick, Ireland, were the victims of a boycott campaign in 1904. Universities in Europe and the Unite States
maintained official and unofficial quotas of
the number of Jews they would admit, which continued well into the 20th
century.
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