BDS movement co-founder Omar Barghouti: Israel should save us and then die - by Jonathan S. Tobin

The boycott movement’s coronavirus hypocrisy doesn’t obscure its anti-Semitism. Good news about Israel will never convince those who hate it to change their minds.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
07 April '20

Advocates of Israel have always liked to joke that supporters of the BDS movement shouldn’t be selective about their efforts to convince the world to boycott the Jewish state. In particular, lately they have said that they are waiting to see what those who seek to isolate and destroy Israel will do if its scientists come up with a vaccine for the coronavirus. The answer shouldn’t provide any comfort for anyone, especially those who continue to believe that the Jewish state’s scientific advances and other contributions to the world will eventually somehow convince its enemies to give up their century-long war on Zionism.

This issue arose this week because the founder of the BDS movement has actually provided a response to the quips of those who have invited foes of Israel to extend their boycotts to the fruits of the advanced medical research and innovation produced by Israel.

In a video posted on Facebook by an anti-Israel group, BDS founder Omar Barghouti said this past weekend that if Israel finds a cure for cancer or for a virus, then there is no problem to cooperate with it.”

Barghouti, who fancies himself a humanitarian, went on to say that if Israel were to perform such services for humanity, “then saving lives is more important than anything else.”

The chutzpah and the hypocrisy contained in this statement are hard to fathom. Those who seek to stigmatize all Israelis as persons that decent societies should shun and who advocate boycotts not only of all Israeli products, but of its culture and academics ought to at least be consistent. Where do those who think that the world should treat Israelis—and their technology and ideas—as beyond the pale get the gall to say that there would be “no problem” in using them to avoid a deadly disease?

What Barghouti is basically saying is that Israel should continue its incredible creativity, and go on transforming medicine and technology for the betterment of humankind, while also consenting to the elimination of the one Jewish state on the planet.

(Continue to Full Column)

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