The BDS movement urges those who oppose current Israeli government policies to avoid purchasing products made in Israel or the Occupied West Bank, divest from Israeli companies, and lobby for governmental sanctions against the Israeli government in an attempt to change Israeli policy toward the Palestinians.

To accuse the boycott’s supporters of anti-Semitism is an old and well-worn tactic that attempts to discredit those who would protest against what many in the international community see as Israel’s unjust and illegal actions aimed at the Palestinian people and their land. The accusation of racism seeks not only to discredit the messenger, but to distract from the real issues at hand. In fact there is nothing racist in condemning Israeli government policies, just as there would be nothing racist in, say, condemning President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe for his unjust and illegal actions.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is a moral, legitimate and grassroots response to the Israeli government’s aggressive and unwise policy to expand settlement activity in the West Bank and to turn a blind eye to settler violence, as well as its cruel and unjust blockade of Gaza.

Many in the BDS movement (although by no means all) believe that Israeli government actions in the West Bank and Gaza undermine the possibility of a two-state solution and thus in the long term threaten Israel’s Jewish and democratic character. Opposing Israel’s unjust actions and supporting the boycott is therefore anything but anti-Semitic. Indeed, from my perspective, it is the moral calling of our time.

Forty years later, the American Studies Association and other academic groups are moving along the same path. They are adopting resolutions calling for boycotts or other steps against Israeli institutions, ostensibly because of Israeli policies toward Palestinians. These actions stem from a campaign to treat Israel as a country that practices apartheid, as South Africa once did.

However, not even those it is supposed to help support this movement. Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has objected to boycotting Israeli goods.

Nor is it apt to be very effective. The Economist magazine has called the boycotts “flimsy” with little impact. Even Israeli critics of their country’s policies regard these tactics as counter-productive.

Most importantly, the campaign to equate Zionism with racism is fundamentally flawed. The case for the state of Israel rests not on the claim that Jews are better than other people, but on their right to national self-determination. Until that right is recognized by others in the Middle East, conflict will persist.

In 1991, the UN repealed its resolution. IU’s Michael McRobbie and other academic leaders have already denounced the action of the American Studies Association. But until the Jewish desire for a homeland is accepted, anti-Semitism will continue to flourish in a new form among those who should be most resistant to it.

 Sources

Zionism as Racism Resolution: Daniel Patrick Moynihan, with Suzanne Garment, A Dangerous Place, Little Brown, 1978.

“Campaign Against Israel” (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

“Boycott by Academic Group Is a Symbolic Sting to Israel” (New York Times)

“Boycotting Israel: New Pariah of the Block” (The Economist)

“A Leftist’s Critique of BDS” (Daily Beast)