The BDS Perversion of Reality

Joseph Puder


The Washington Free Beacon’s Adam Kredo reported on March 22, 2014, that “Pro-Palestinian activists at the University of Michigan have had the cops called on them for threatening pro-Israel students and staging a sit-in over the student government’s refusal to back an anti-Israel initiative to divest from the Jewish state. The threatening rhetoric used by these pro-Palestinian activists is part of a wider campaign by the University of Michigan’s pro-Palestine group Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE), which is part of the virulently anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.”


The ultimate goal of the BDS movement is the destruction of the Jewish State. The intent is to weaken it through de-legitimization, economic sanction, and isolation. What the anti-Semitic radical-Left is seeking, while in cahoots with the Arab-Palestinians, is to bring down Israel through lawfare instead of warfare. The Arabs and Palestinians have tried wars, terror, and economic boycott, and failed. At this stage of warring against Israel, the BDS movement is using the language of human rights which the West is addicted to, and is placing the Palestinians on top of the so-called Third World anti-colonial struggle. Defending the Third World (regardless of its abuse of universal standards of human rights) is sacrosanct to the political-Left in the West. Israel therefore becomes a triple “sinner.” It is considered by the BDS activists as too powerful, too western, and too Jewish.

The Palestinians on the other hand, are the chosen “victims.” They are viewed as weak, uphold none of the Western values, and best of all, they fight the Jews. It does not matter that Israel alone respects the human rights of its citizens, or that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East where religious freedom and individual rights are fully protected. Nor does it matter that the Palestinian leadership regularly violates the human rights of their fellow Palestinians, oppresses their Christian minority and/or jails and often kills LGBT individuals. In fact, Israel is a place of refuge for gays and lesbians fleeing persecution from the Palestinian territories, where Palestinian women run away from their abusive families for protection, and where Palestinian terrorists come to hospitals for life-saving care.
In April, 2011, Alex Kane, of the Brooklyn, NY, based The Indypendent, interviewed Omar Barghouti, a Palestinian-Arab propagandist and one of the architects of the BDS movement, Barghouti declared, “The movement has three demands: an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands and the dismantling of the separation barrier, equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees. To meet these goals, the BDS movement advocates boycotting Israeli products and institutions, divesting from companies profiting from the occupation, and government sanctions on Israel.”
To the naïve and uninformed Western ear, the three demands might sound rather reasonable. It might be especially appealing to the ‘moral narcissist’ American university student who has yet to distinguish between Sunni and Shiite Islam, or be able to find Amman on the map. This “useful idiot” is precisely the kind of recruit the Arab-Muslim activists and their far-left allies seek. A student who would readily say “My mind is made up do not confuse me with facts or truth.” Some student’s ears perk up upon hearing the buzz words “human rights, equality, and occupation.” They don’t want to know about the Palestinian rejection of self-determination in the 1937 Peel Commission plan, or the U.N. Partition Plan of 1947. They want to be part of the “Rights culture,” and acquire status through their “moral purity.” Those students who do question the premise of anti-Israel actions are intimidated by the BDS thugs.
The “three demands” underlined by Barghouti clearly convey the intended liquidation of the only Jewish state, dressed in innocuous code words. The Jewish state is to be replaced with yet another Arab-Muslim state, added to the existing 22 members of the Arab League. All of them speak the same language – Arabic, profess the same religion – and Islam, share the same culture – male dominated and intolerant of non-Muslims. 
Now let us examine Barghouti’s demands, the first being “end the occupation.” According to U.N. Resolution 242, Israel is rightfully entrusted to administer “the territories” Israel captured from Jordan in the Six Day War of June, 1967, until a peace settlement is reached. Egypt and Jordan made peace with Israel, and Israel returned every inch of land it captured. Jordan gave up its right to speak for the Palestinians in 1988 hence the territories remained in Israel’s hands. Moreover, the Palestinians were not a state party included in Resolution 242. Resolution 242 stressed the word “territories” but not “all” territories, in exchange for peace. The Oslo agreement of 1993, devised a transition period, which would ultimately lead to a Palestinian state. In July, 2000, at the Camp David Summit, Yasser Arafat, the Chairman of the P.L.O. and Palestinian Authority rejected a peace settlement offered by Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Barak. It would have given the PA 97% of the West Bank and Gaza, with a capital in East Jerusalem. President Clinton endorsed Barak’s offer. Arafat rejected it, and chose to launch the Second Intifada.
The West Bank (Judea and Samaria) included the Etzion Bloc of 22 Jewish villages which the Arab Legion illegally occupied in the 1948 War of Independence. The Jewish residents of these villages were either killed or escaped with their lives. Israel liberated these villages in 1967. It also included the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem, which the Jordanian Arab Legion occupied in 1948, and either killed or exiled its Jewish residents.
In January 2014, Australia’s Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, said that the international community should refrain from calling settlements illegal under international law, without waiting for their status to be determined in a deal with the Palestinians. She also called the activists who seek to boycott Israel “anti-Semitic.”  Asked whether she agrees or disagrees with the near-universal view that Israeli settlements anywhere beyond the 1967 lines are illegal under international law, she replied: “I would like to see which international law has declared them illegal.”
The “separation barrier,” as it was called by Barghouti, is Israel’s response to Palestinian suicide bombers and terror inside Israel. America too has a barrier wall on the border with Mexico. The difference is that the latter is to prevent illegal immigrants from entering America, while Israel’s barrier is to save its citizens lives.

Equality for “Palestinian” citizens of Israel reveals Barghouti’s feeling towards the Jewish state. In Israel they are called Arab-Israeli citizens. Palestinians on the other hand, are not citizens of Israel. What Barghouti hints at is the campaign to undermine the Jewish nature of Israel from within, by seeking to transform the only Jewish state into a “state of all its citizens,” a formula by which to destroy the symbols of the Jewish state. In tandem with Palestinian equality, Barghouti, like Mahmoud Abbas has rejected recognition of Israel as the “State of the Jews.”
While seeking to boycott Israeli products, Barghouti and BDS folks have deliberately ignored the fact that 70% of the Palestinian Authority imports come from Israel.
Barghouti’s demand for the “Right of Return for Palestinian refugees” is a clear indication of the Palestinians unwillingness to make peace with Israel. The Right of Return is a euphemism for the demographic destruction of Israel, and the people of Israel will never agree to that.
The BDS activists seek to turn reality upside down, deliberately ignoring the facts underlined above. They are motivated by a single passion – hatred for Israel. It is time to call them what Julie Bishop of Australia named them, anti-Semites.