{"id":71378,"date":"2019-06-28T17:05:42","date_gmt":"2019-06-28T15:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=71378"},"modified":"2019-06-28T06:20:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T04:20:00","slug":"04-05-41","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=71378","title":{"rendered":"BDS: A SUSTAINED ASSAULT AGAINST THE JEWISH STATE"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>BDS: A SUSTAINED ASSAULT AGAINST THE JEWISH STATE<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

ABRAHAM COOPER<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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BDS\u2019s roots trace back to two arenas \u2013 the Arab states\u2019 boycott of Israel and the so-called Durban Conference against Racism.<\/strong>
\nAN ANTI-BDS poster calling on Palestinians to free Gaza from Hamas.. (photo credit: MINISTRY OF STRATEGIC AFFAIRS)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I recently participated in an international conference that brought together activists from 30 countries to discuss the ongoing extreme global anti-Israel BDS campaigns.<\/span><\/p>\n

As BDS impacts negatively less on Israel\u2019s economy and more on negativity toward Israel and her Zionist supporters around the world, I offer reflections on the history of BDS and how to fight it moving forward.<\/span><\/p>\n

BDS\u2019s roots trace back to two arenas \u2013 the Arab states\u2019 boycott of Israel and the so-called Durban Conference against Racism.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 The longstanding economic boycott of Israel led by Arab nations for decades was simply another front in the war to destroy Israel. In the United States, dating back decades, the US Congress passed legislation against those entities who cooperated or supported the boycott. No one back then defended the boycott as \u201cfree speech.\u201d It was and is a tool to weaken the Jewish state and erode its economic viability. In 2019, we should not allow governments, universities, NGOs, or church leaders to use \u201cfree speech\u201d as a fig leaf for BDS campaigns that have the same goals as the original Arab boycott.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 BDSers continuously move the goalposts regarding the stated goal of their campaign. We can trace its ideological roots to the ill-fated 2001 United Nations World Conference against Racism that was convened in Durban, South Africa. That continent\u2019s first such conference was hijacked to delegitimize and demonize Israel as the 21t century\u2019s apartheid state. Some 3,900 global NGOs formalized the insidious narrative against the Jewish state within which BDS operates. I know since I had a front row seat at the antisemitic hatefest and served as a spokesman for the outmanned and outgunned Jewish groups who attended. It was there that we learned that so-called civil society was anything but civil when it came to the state of Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Initially BDSers insisted that they were not attacking the Jewish state, that they were only opposing economic activity beyond the Green Line in an effort to bring an allegedly recalcitrant Israel back to the negotiating table with the long-suffering Palestinians. It was their assertion that the tactic of economic pressure was the only nonviolent way of pressuring Israel to negotiate.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2019, BDS has shed its initial nuanced stance and pursues a full-fledged war against the Jewish state. It leads the charge to isolate Israel in the cultural, economic and educational domains. This isn\u2019t a matter of free speech but a sustained assault that fulfills Sharansky\u2019s 3Ds (Double Standard, Delegitimization, Demonization).<\/span><\/p>\n

BDS is antisemitic. It should be unequivocally identified as such in every venue where BDS manifests. You don\u2019t have to believe the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The German Bundestag recently took a vote acknowledging it as such. An amazing admission from a country whose unofficial motto is \u201cexports uber alles.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

IT IS no accident therefore, that there has been a spike in antisemitic activity \u2013 including intimidation and hate crimes \u2013 on leading US campuses where anti-Israel BDS campaigns have been launched. Jewish students and the Jewish community have every right to press university and government authorities to denounce BDS for what it is and to protect their rights and safety.<\/span><\/p>\n

To defeat BDS we need support of the full community\u2019s leadership. It makes no difference if your rabbi\u2019s name is Sheila or Shmuel, if you are a progressive or conservative, combating extreme antisemitic\/ anti-Israel campaigns is everyone\u2019s concern. We have the right to expect our key organizations from Federations to Hillel to hold the line when the 3Ds are being breached, and we should withhold support for anyone \u2013 Jew or Gentile, Israeli or Diaspora Jew \u2013 who legitimizes or supports BDS, a campaign designed from day one not to help Palestinians but only to hurt Israel and supporters of Zion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Every person has the right to say what they want, but there is no obligation for Jewish money to pay for the privilege of being slapped in the face or worse for defending Israel, home to the world\u2019s largest Jewish community.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"\"The writer is associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and director of Center\u2019s Social Action agenda. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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BDS: A SUSTAINED ASSAULT AGAINST THE JEWISH STATE ABRAHAM COOPER BDS\u2019s roots trace back to two arenas \u2013 the Arab states\u2019 boycott of Israel and the so-called Durban Conference against Racism. AN ANTI-BDS poster calling on Palestinians to free Gaza from Hamas.. (photo credit: MINISTRY OF STRATEGIC AFFAIRS) I recently participated in an international conference […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71378"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71378"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71386,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71378\/revisions\/71386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}