Opinion

August 25, 2010

Boycott the boycotters

By Roz Rothstein and Roberta Seid

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Anti-Israel activists are now putting all their energy into their Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign (BDS). Their goal is to portray Israel and Israelis as pariahs that should be excluded from all international spheres—diplomatic, political, economic, social, and cultural.

Jews have been victims of such policies before.  In the millennia of anti-Semitism in Europe and the Middle East, they have been singled out, demonized, and excluded, as they were, for example, in 13th century England and 1930’s Europe. The Jewish State, too, has experienced such policies since its founding when Arab nations implemented strict exclusion and boycotts against Israel, most of which are still in place. The current global BDS campaign began in 2001 and grew after 2005, when Israel effectively defeated the terrorist campaign known as the Second Intifada. Today, hard core anti-Israel activists around the world are feverishly lobbying artists, universities, churches, retailers, unions, municipalities, and other institutions to adopt BDS.

Any public figures, retailers, institutions or organizations that adopt or defer to BDS policies should themselves be boycotted.

They should be boycotted because they advocate destructive rather than constructive, measures. BDS is anti-coexistence, undermines peace efforts, and does nothing to help Palestinians begin state building, improve their lives, or move toward reconciliation.

They should be boycotted because BDS policies are fundamentally anti-Semitic even though some of the movement’s advocates are Jews. The campaign uses the propaganda techniques and imagery of classical anti-Semitism now applied not to individual Jews, but to the world’s largest Jewish community and its only Jewish State. Boycott activists strip away all context for Israel’s actions, such as ongoing terrorism and the virulent ideology that propels it, in order to depict Israel as motivated by sheer malice in what are often simply modern blood libels. They obsessively put a microscope on Israel to detect its flaws, and expect it to live up to standards they do not expect of any other nation.  They never call for BDS against nations that do systematically commit war crimes and human rights abuses, such as Ahmadinejad’s Iran, Bashir’s Sudan, Lebanon’s apartheid practices against Palestinians, or Turkey’s occupation of northern Cyprus and violent repression of its Kurdish minority.

They should be boycotted because of their hypocrisy.  Where was the outrage of the boycotters, who claim to be champions of social justice and human rights, when the Palestinian suicide bombing campaign targeted innocent Jewish men, women, and children, and Hamas fired thousands of rockets from Gaza into Israeli communities, murdering toddlers and turning daily life into a lethal game of Russian roulette?  Where were they when Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust even as he called for genocide against Jews?  Where is their protest against the Judeophobic incitement that dominates the Middle East?  Their callous indifference and implicit support of murdering Jews is both morally perverse and anti-Semitic.

Above all, they should be boycotted because they endorse the agendas of the dictatorial regimes and radical Islamist groups who share their hatred of the Jewish State and who are also enemies of human rights, social justice values, tolerance, and modernity. These states and groups like Hamas oppress women, persecute religious and other minorities, and oppress their own citizens. Those who adopt BDS should be exposed and pay the price for supporting and enabling the intransigent enemies of humanitarian and liberal values.

Boycotting those who comply with BDS means that any university that does not unequivocally denounce campus divestment campaigns should not receive another nickel from donors who care about fairness, the survival of Israel, and modern liberal values.  Recording artists who refuse to perform in Israel should be labeled as extremists for the regressive, anti-Semitic values they endorse. Fair-minded people should stop buying their records and attending their concerts.  Consumers should boycott any retailers who refuse to stock Israeli products, and support the new StandWithUs campaign, “BIG” and “RIG,” acronyms for “Buy Israeli Goods” and “Request Israeli Goods.”

It is time to expose the distorted values that drive the BDS movement, and its alliance with the most repressive and dangerous forces in the world today.  It is time to unequivocally say no to this BDS movement and to all who would consider complying with it.

Roz Rothstein is CEO of StandWithUs.  Roberta Seid, PhD is Education Director, StandWithUs

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Rothstein Seid omit to mention that Israel is occupying Palestinian land illegally. Our government has done nothing to compel Israel to comply with U.S. policy on settlements. If Israel’s presence in East Jerusalem and the West Bank is not “occupation,” then 50% of Israel’s inhabitants are non-Jews. Rothstein and Seid use the tired old race-baiting “anti-semitism” canard. Enough. Let’s support full and equal rights for all residents, instead of a discriminatory system that privileges Jews and relegates the “natives” to second-class status.

Comment by Seth Ritman on 8/25/10 at 10:53 am

Maybe Set Ritman is not aware of history A in 1967 the arab countrys
atacket Israel and lost B. ther was never a palestinian state before
they where all under Egyptian and Jordanian control C. it is the same as calling the united stated to retun the country to the native indian
how about you as a humanitarian return your home to the native Indian
please dont play coy with history tha try to rewrite

Comment by John mckleary on 8/25/10 at 1:54 pm

Post on the web, FOR ISRAEL, JEWISH NATION !

There are hundreds of “palestinian” websites devoted to spreading propaganda—with pictures of starving “palestinian” children and sites with blood dripping down your screen describing the “horror of massacres orchestrated by the fascist Israelis.” Pro-“palestinian” activists have flooded chat rooms, bulletin boards, and online comments sections.
- Speak up against individuals who spread lies, against the mobs who bomb synagogues in Europe, and against those who preach intolerance in schools and universities.
Boycott the boycotters

ISRAEL, be strong and take heart in the knowledge that all decent people are on Israel’s side.

Comment by RespectIsrael on 8/30/10 at 7:48 pm

Good article, but it would be helpful if the authors listed the names of the “artists, universities, churches, retailers, unions, municipalities, and other institutions” supporting the anti Israel boycott (or told us where we could find out this information), so we would know who they are. I realize that it may be a long list, but how else are we to know whom to boycott?

Comment by Joel Nathanson on 8/31/10 at 7:24 pm

Well why don’t you print the names of those who are behind these anti-semiic/anti-Israel attmepts

Comment by W.L. ZEV Wexler on 8/31/10 at 7:39 pm

Stop BDS. We need to support Israel and Israel rigth to exist. Those Jews who are support the arabs, they are against themselfs. They are leftist. We Jews and none Jews has to love Israel for many reasons. Reason one, it’s our Jewish Land. Reason two, it’s a beautiful land want nothing more then a peace. Reason tree, The US, and Israel has some things to share in common call democrasy. So, stop your BDS and begin to support Israel.

Comment by Paul on 1/21/11 at 3:13 pm

Wake up Israel and her friends. Its time to go on the offensive. Its time to demand a 2-state in Egypt. There has already been a 2-state in Palestine, and serial 2-states in the same tiny land = genocide. The persecuted Copts in Egypt predate both Islam and the Arab race in that land. The invented Pretend Palestineans are the least affected refugees in Geo-History, aspiring genocide while hiding under false labels invented by Arafat.

Comment by BUTSeriously on 1/21/11 at 5:16 pm

One recording artist who agreed to cancel a planned Israel concert was Elvis Costello.  Shame on him!  On a more positive note, Macy Gray is resisting calls from anti-Israel voices against her concert in Tel Aviv and will perform there.  Good!!

Comment by Randy on 1/21/11 at 6:11 pm

The UN Madarassa is an illegal, corrupt entity, controlled by 57 Islamic states against Israel and payola and oil boycott corruption: the Nazis also made such laws against their Jewish problem. My math says serial 2-state demands in the same land = GENOCIDE. Jordan is an illegal settlement - this ficticious Saudi regime was created to house the Arabs in Palestine - and is in violation of the only condition of its creation. Now Muslims are demanding the return of pre-1967 signs:

DOGS & JEWS FORBIDDEN IN EAST JERUSALEM AND HEBRON.

Comment by BUTSeriously on 1/21/11 at 6:27 pm

One only has to know the history of South African apartheid and go to the West Bank and see a repeat of that history.  The occupation is brutal. Both the Israeli occupiers and the Palestinian people are suffering because of the racism, intolerance, etc. Go and see for yourself. Read Ha’aretz which tells the truth.

Comment by Toby on 1/21/11 at 11:52 pm

There is no occupation and no brutality by Israel. The PA & HAMAS websites and Islamic doctrines is where the brutality and occupation is. The entire land of Palestine should be given back to Israel - this corruption is for oil contracts and antisemitism by those who control the UN. Jews have never occupied another peoples’ land in all their 4000 history. The reverse applies to Islam.

Comment by BUTSeriously on 1/22/11 at 12:15 am

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