NYU ‘Students for Justice in Palestine’ and a response to ‘the 10 Common Misconceptions About BDS’ - by David Collier

BDS seeks the destruction of Israel. Only Israel. It harms Palestinians, perpetuates the conflict and it only helps the same radical Islamic movements that it shares its goals with. It is a modern day version of a lynch mob, with BDS activists gathered together, wanting to burn the house at the bottom of the hill. ‘Coincidentally’, that house is the only one in the village with the Jewish family inside it. Antisemitic? You decide.

David Collier..
Beyond the Great Divide..
08 November '18..

NYU and the ‘ten common misconceptions about BDS’

‘Washington Square News‘, is an ‘Independent Student Newspaper’ at NYU. Three days ago they published an article written by SJP ‘Students for Justice in Palestine’. It was titled ‘10 Common Misconceptions About BDS‘ and set out to reassure the reader that the boycott movement against Israel (BDS) is a legitimate, credible, successful and ethical tool with which to bring peace to Israel and the Palestinians. I thought I’d take a look:

1 BDS is antisemitic

This is an easy one. BDS is clearly antisemitic. SJP argue that ‘BDS targets the nation-state of Israel, not any religious or ethnic group’, which is half-true, but they fail to address the lies and hypocrisy inherent in the movement. In their argument they bring up historical Jewish anti-Zionism in the shape of the Labour Bund. The logic is this – if some Jewish people were against the formation of Israel in the 1900-1940’s, it is okay to oppose Zionism today. That’s pretty twisted. The Bundists opposed Zionism because they believed Europe could provide safe haven in the shape of Jewish autonomous regions. They were wrong and Bundism burnt in the fires of Auschwitz. SJP are cynically using Holocaust victims to shield criticism of an attack against Jews.

Yet the real issue with BDS is in its selectivity. Notice how BDS ‘target’ Israel. Why not Lebanon? Inside Lebanon are descendants of the 1948 Israel /Arab conflict, perpetually held under a real Apartheid system. These ‘refugees’ are explicitly referenced by BDS, yet BDS does not target those guilty of oppressing them. Why not? If human rights of Palestinians is key here, then BDS should cross borders, but it doesn’t. This shows that promoting the ‘human rights’ of Palestinians is an excuse. BDS is a movement set up to exclusively target the ‘Jewish state’ for reasons beyond those officially stated. Picking exclusively on Jews sounds pretty antisemitic to me.

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