Johanna Markind
JNS, Nov. 17, 2021
“Anti-Israel groups have targeted anti-BDS laws for extermination. In the course of litigation, they have shone a spotlight on the laws’ strengths and weaknesses.”
The post-Holocaust moratorium on openly expressing anti-Semitism is over. Even where blatant targeting of Jews remains unfashionable, it often flourishes masquerading as anti-Israelism. Its latest incarnation is the BDS campaign. States can and should help fight this stealthy discrimination.
Even as more Arab countries recognize Israel, Israel’s high-tech economy flourishes and competing Palestinian leaderships achieve nothing positive for their people, BDS warriors inside and outside the Middle East ramp up a rejectionist narrative painting Israel as a pariah and its supporters (read, “Jews”) as the devil’s handmaidens. The strategy is not just to harm Israel’s economy, but to destroy political and moral support for the continued existence of the world’s sole Jewish state. As for the goal, former BDS co-founder and Hamas leader Omar Barghouti explained: “definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine.”
Ben & Jerry’s is the first high-profile company to buy into BDS. Judging by the recent success that ideology has had in penetrating Western business culture, it won’t be the last. Like other ideologies, BDS blames successful people and societies for their success, presumes the unsuccessful bear no responsibility for failure and, in fact, blames the successful for others’ failure.
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