How to Make Peace Part 7: BDS

BDS and the Anti-Israel movement

So let’s talk about BDS and similar boycotts.

For all of you who have never heard of BDS, Boycott Divestment and Sanction is the boycott movement against Israel, which is gaining massive popularity worldwide.

I, for one, am very much a supporter of peaceful boycotts and find it to be the most democratic and civil form of protest. And while they are often not practical, they should be encouraged.

Yet just like the contradictory existence of the UN, where you find yourself in a democratic organization built for non-democratic authoritarian regimes. The BDS movement is a peaceful movement focused on genocidal Ideas.

Yep, that’s right. You can see the founder of the BDS movement, Omar Barghouti, clearly declaring that they will keep on boycotting till all of Israel becomes Palestine and that Jews need to leave.

https://www.facebook.com/AIPAC/videos/403131773743092/

How do they want them to leave? And where to? They keep it vague. But if you listen to what Arab leaders tell their own people in Arabic, you often hear different descriptions focused on killing the Jews.

The strangest aspect of all this is that BDS is not even Pro-Palestinian. They are perfectly happy to boycott any Israeli institution even if it benefits the Palestinians.

For example, Soda Stream, an Israeli company focused on coexistence and a big employer of Palestinians, always gets demonized by BDS. Once,they known to make the palestinian employees of the company lose their jobs, just because.

One last challenge that the BDS movement creates to peace is that it uses vague terms like “ending the occupation”.

The Average protestor does not understand what ending the occupation means. They are probably hoping that it means moving back to the 1948 or 1967 borders, but BDS leader Omar is clear: the boycott is about all of the Israeli borders.

The lack of clarity is intentionally confusing and makes the entire process not very goal oriented. If you want to boycott something, please at least state what it is that you want from it. The vagueness and lack of clarity intend to create more hate against Israel, but it also prevents us from coming closer to peace.

The biggest problem with BDS and the strong growth of the anti-Israel protest is that it gives the Palestinian people and its leadership a small sense of progress. Not progress that benefits the Palestinian people because, as we learn, this is not really what this is all about, but progress in this destructive goal against Israel. People in the disputed territories feel that they are winning the PR battle, and if they are patient enough, it will weaken Israel to a level that they will be defeated. As long as we give them this small sense of empowerment, we can be stuck in this mess for another century.

That’s why we must point out the BDS contradictions and genocidal desire while always make it clear that Jews are equally indigenous people to the land offered 4 compromises for peace and removed themselves from Gaza.

It’s important to point out that succeeding and getting more people to support Israel’s right to exist is the only way to actually support the Palestinians and peace in general.

If we make the Palestinians feel that they are no longer moving forward through PR, they would finally accept that there is no other option but the negotiation table, till then they simply feel empowered to continue in their way.

And with that, it’s time to bring it all together, which we will discuss in the next article