America’s great Cold War diplomats—George Kennan, Charles Bohlen, and Lwellyn Thompson—were realists. They had no love for Soviet communism, but they warned repeatedly against Americans’ capacity to see their own actions as righteous and others as evil. They knew that that diplomacy depends on recognizing all parties’ essential interests, as well as allowing them to save face.

When the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, agreed to the reunification of Germany, the West promised him that we would not take advantage of the change to expand NATO. Yet today, Eastern European states are part of NATO. NATO installed missile defenses in Poland and Romania and set up a military outpost in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

American diplomats and American money were involved in the ouster of Ukraine’s corrupt but democratically elected pro-Russian president. The new government, ratified by a rump parliament, includes far right-wing forces. It excluded Russian as a national language, alarming eastern Ukrainians, then reversed the decision.

I believe Kennan would have counseled President Obama not to take advantage of the conflict to threaten Russia, specifically through NATO membership, military integration, or deployments and to beware of using American money to support opposition groups, above all in Russia itself. Washington would insist on no less of Moscow if there were a socialist revolution in Mexico.

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.