#bds is antisemitism

[ind1g3n0us-lev1t3]

BDS and the Nazis

This was in Nazi Germany back in the 30s. Do you think Humanity has learned anything from this?

No, no they have not.

This time, they're hiding their antisemitism under the guise of "Liberation for palestinians" and "Fighting apartheid" which is bullshit. They've disguised their antisemitism as "Antizionism" and replacing the word "Jew" with "Israeli" or "Zionist".

All over my city I've seen boycott Israel posters all around Jewish areas and businesses, most with no ties to Israel.

If you really want to help the humanitarian situation in Gaza, donate to a charity which won't give the money to Hamas, don't boycott businesses owned by Jews because some casual antisemites want you to.

If you actively choose to be part of the BDS movement, you are no better than the Nazis in the images above boycotting Jewish businesses. You are no better than the people who would label Jewish businesses and smash their windows in. It's vile.

#BDSisantisemitic <- Spread the word

[naipan]

Campaign against antisemitism and boycotts of Israel

Why BDS is antisemitic – David Hirsh

Posted by David Hirsh

BDS is a global campaign against Israel and only Israel. It seeks to foment sufficient emotional anger with Israel, and with only Israel, so that people around the world will want to punish Israel, and only Israel.

We are free to criticize whoever we want to criticize and people attracted by BDS are critical about other human rights abuses too; but this specific punishment, exclusion from the global community, is proposed only against Israel. BDS cannot be defended as free speech; it goes beyond speech into action. See this debate for more on the issues of singling out Israel; the debate continues here.

BDS says that it seeks to punish only Israeli institutions and not to silence or exclude Israeli individuals. This is not true. Israeli individuals, academics, athletes, artists, actors, film-makers, work inside Israeli institutions; where else could they work? If BDS demands that Israelis should not be part of institutions then it puts an eccentric demand on Israelis. Follow this link for what happened when the BDS movement tried to disrupt a Hebrew production of Merchant of Venice in London.

The BDS demand that for Israelis to be accepted in the global community they have to emigrate, and so not be part of Israeli institutions, is a claim about the essential illegitimacy of the Israeli state. See ‘The Myth of the Institutional Boycott‘ for more on this.

Sometimes BDS argues that there should be a political test rather than an institutional test. For example Israelis have been challenged to criticize Israeli ‘apartheid’ – and if they fail to do so in the terms required of them then they are excluded. But proponents of BDS never explain what kind of machinery would be set up in a university in Britain, say, or America, to test the political cleanliness of an Israeli. And they never explain why such a McCarthyite blacklist would only be set up for Israelis. For more on McCarthyism and BDS, see Steve Cohen here.

BDS is careful to remain ambiguous on the question of Israel’s legitimacy. It says that it is appropriate for people who oppose only the post 1967 occupation but it also refuses to make a distinction between Israeli institutions within Israel and within the West Bank. BDS refuses clarity on what it means by the Palestinian ‘right of return’ and it thinks about the creation of the state of Israel itself as the root of the problem.

BDS talks about Israel as a colonial settler state or an apartheid state but it allows no conception of Israel as a life-raft state, a haven for the un-dead of Europe, a home for Jews ethnically cleansed from the great cities of the Middle East, or as an asylum for the Jews who limped away from the carcass of the Soviet Union. For more on the progressive case for Israel, see this link.

BDS constructs Israelis as white foreigners, who came from outside to settle the land and it constructs Palestinians as indigenous, who have a natural right to the land. In truth many Jews and Arabs have always lived in Palestine; and both Jews and Arabs moved into the area as it became more developed in the late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. There is a historical connection between Jews and the land of Israel. In any case, the splitting of peoples into ‘foreigners’ and ‘indigenous’, the notion that some people have a natural right to land while others are impostors, is profoundly reactionary. Moreover the idea, put about by BDS that Israelis are ‘white’ is also highly misleading. About half of Israelis are descended from people who came from the Middle East; the other Israelis are descended from people who were defined and treated as a racial infection in white Europe.

BDS remains unimpressed about Israel’s role as a potential haven for Jews around the world, if that should become necessary.

BDS says that Israel is an apartheid state. This analogy mis-states the key problem, which is a conflict between two peoples, not a racist state which seeks to exploit the black majority. This analogy again refuses to make a distinction between Israel itself, which is fundamentally a multi-ethnic democracy in which everyone is equal before the law; and the occupied territories, in which there are two different legal systems. Israelis and Palestinians need to find a peace agreement; we need to support those in both nations who recognise the independence of the other. The apartheid analogy is weaponized by BDS as a thought-free short-cut to the conclusion of boycott. See this piece by Alan Johnson on the apartheid analogy.

BDS does not impact much against Israel; it impacts hard against Jews around the world where BDS takes a hold. BDS constructs friends and enemies of the Palestinians in such a way that the overwhelming majority of democratic and antiracist Jews cannot be recognised as friends of the Palestinians. BDS sets up an assumption against Jews, on campus, amongst progressives and in the Labour movement, that they are enemies of Palestinians and therefore enemies of those who want to support the Palestinians. BDS sets itself up in opposition to the overwhelming majority of Jews. See this debate with Claire Potter on the question of antisemitism.

BDS situates itself in the tradition of the boycott of apartheid South Africa but it always remains silent about the other traditions in which it follows. The boycott of Israel organised by the Arab Nationalist States was formally established in 1945, within a year of the gas chambers in Europe going cold. Boycotts of Jews from universities and campaigns to ‘not buy from the Jews’ have been integral to antisemitic movements for centuries.

To teach people to relate to the overwhelming majority of Jews, that is Jews do not agree with BDS, as apologists for apartheid, Nazism or colonialism is to teach people to relate to those Jews in an antisemitic way. If BDS says that Israel is apartheid and that anybody who does not agree with boycotting Israel is a supporter of apartheid, then it is setting up a framework for Jew-baiting. If antizionists say that Israel is genocidal, is like the Nazis, that Zionism is similar to Nazism, then they are inciting people to treat Jews as though they were Nazis.

BDS operates as though there was no threat to the State of Israel. Yet in 1948, 1967 and 1973 there were military attempts by Israel’s neighbouring states to wipe it off the map. The Iranian state continues to argue for and to work for the elimination of Israel and it finances and arms Hamas and Hezbollah in their campaigns against Israeli civilians. Israel may be strong compared to the Palestinians, but in the world as a whole it is a small state surrounded by states and political movements which want it eliminated.

BDS is a campaign to make people angry with Israel and with Israelis and with those people around the world who are suspected of supporting Israel. It would be extraordinary if such a campaign did not sometimes bring with it antisemitic emotions and if it did not sometimes draw upon antisemitic tropes. Experience tells us that BDS does precisely that. Israel is portrayed as a blood-thirsty child-murdering state; it is said that it is racist because the Torah, with its talk of ‘chosen people’ is racist; it is said that Jews were behind the slave trade; it is said that the Rothschilds financed the state of Israel by stealing diamonds from South Africa; it is said that Israel steals and trades in body parts; it is said that Israel is genocidal like the Nazis; it is said that Israel controls politics and the media around the world. In these ways old antisemitic tropes, including blood libel and conspiracy, have a tendency to emerge, recycled, out of the BDS movement.

BDS is only thinkable for people who have no fear of antisemitism. But if we look at the political movements and the states and the militias which seek the destruction of Israel and if we look at the culture which BDS always brings with it into a social space, then having no fear of antisemitism is eccentric indeed. See this critique of Naomi Klein’s argument for more on this .

BDSers sometimes say that there is nothing to fear from debate. This is not always the case. Sometimes there is much to fear from debate. Some debating questions are racist questions. For example we would fear a debate on whether the Holocaust really happened; we would fear a debate on whether women should remain in the kitchen; we would fear a debate on whether black people are more aggressive than white people. In the same way, I fear a debate on whether Israelis, and only Israelis, should be excluded from the global academic, sporting, artistic and economic community. Antisemitism and racism never opens debate, it always closes off free speech.

It is sometimes said that the claim that BDS is antisemitic is an ad hominem argument, aimed at smearing those activists who are in favour of it. The truth is the opposite. The truth is that antisemitism is not a characteristic of people who push BDS, but it is a characteristic of the movement itself. Antisemitism is not only a hatred of Jews; it is also norms, practices and discourses which discriminate against Jews.

The claim that Jews raise the issue of antisemitism as a dirty trick to silence the BDS movement is itself an antisemitic claim. It teaches people to recognize someone who raises the issue of antisemitism as being part of a Jewish conspiracy to play the antisemitism card or to mobilize the power of Holocaust victimhood in a disgraceful way. Usually when people say they have experienced racism or sexism or bigotry, we take that seriously. But BDS trains activists not to take that seriously when it comes out of the mouths of Jews or Jewish communities. BDS trains activists to assume that Jews lie. BDS refuses to teach activists about the history and tropes of antisemitism. BDS is happy to be in a global coalition with antisemitic movements which hate Israel, such as Hamas and Hezbollah. BDS treats people who worry about antisemitism as being more of a threat than people who are antisemitic. Follow this link more on the Livingstone Formulation, the counter-charge that somebody who says they experiences antisemitism is really lying for Israel.

It is understandable when Jews have a special connection to Israel. Sometimes this is manifested in a special horror or even shame concerning the crimes of Israel, both real and imagined. This becomes problematic when Jews export their own specifically Jewish obsession with what Israel does wrong into civil society, campus debate and the Labour movement. It becomes more problematic still when they offer guarantees to non-Jewish institutions and individuals that a focused hostility to Israel, and only to Israel, is not antisemitic. It is problematic when Jews educate non-Jews to think in antisemitic ways and to support antisemitic movements. Read more on antizionism, and particularly Jewish antizionism here.

Antizionism forms the intellectual and the emotional underpinnings of the culture in which antisemitic speech and actions are tolerated. Antizionism is not simply criticism of this or that policy or characteristic or Israel. It is a political movement which takes hostility to one particular state and it makes it into an ‘-ism’, a worldview; one which has a tendency to position the Jewish state as being central to all that is wrong with the world. Everything bad that happens in Israel is constructed, within this ideology, as the necessary result of the supposedly racist essence of Zionism. The aspiration to dismantle the state of Israel, against the will of its citizens, leaving them defenceless against military and political forces which threaten their lives, is part of the antisemitism problem.

Antisemitisms have always constructed ‘the Jews’ as being at the centre of all that is wrong in the world. […]

[xclowniex]

I think the reason why boycotts aren't working is because people refuse to push a viable better alternative. And this leads to either just not work or is actively bigoted.

The actively bigoted category applies to stuff like the petition for trade joes to boycott Israeli kosher goods. The people organizing the petition did not push for or at all mention any alternative kosher companies trader Joe's could replace its Israeli kosher goods with. And a lot of the US is in a food desert. Outside of major areas, you don't have a lot of options, especially if you're kosher. And it isn't inherently bad to take away kosher items as long as you replace them with other kosher items. But that is not what the petition wanted. And this also does fall into the "just won't work" category too because stores don't stock kosher specific items just for funsies. They stock them so they have jewish customers who keep kosher come to their store. So again, by not suggesting alternative kosher items in your petition, trader Joe's won't comply because they'd lose a demographic.

Here in NZ, Obela products were targeted with BDS stickers. And do you know what the supermarkets did? Just put them behind the counter for a bit before putting them back out in the open.

And I will not forget how that affected my sister. Obela products catered to her dietary needs. My sister is disabled, she has to have a super restrictive diet. Do you know how embarrassing is was for her to have to walk up to the counter, with people staring at her as she asks for the boycotted product? She looks visably jewish. She was advertising to everyone that she was a jew who wanted the boycotted product. She developed such bad anxiety that she can't go to the supermarket alone. All because she wants food which doesn't taste like grass.

And none of this is working at all. It's just negatively impacting jews. This isn't a successful boycott

[notaplaceofhonour]

I’m honestly not surprised. JVP, SJP, and BDS are all scummy, but the Columbia chapters are some of their most consistently, openly, publicly ghoulish

[a-very-tired-jew]

Columbia University's Joint Anti-Israel Groups Go Mask Off

Hey, remember how Columbia University had students in encampments protesting for months? Remember how their SJP, BDS movement, and associated groups endorsed terrorism, violence, and "resistance by any means"?

I remember. Well their joint SJP and BDS group called CU Apartheid Divest just posted something to their Instagram that shows it has never been about Palestine or Palestinians.

Fig. 1. CU Apartheid Divest group, made of SJP, BDS, and other groups openly admits that they are anti-Western Civilization

Read that again.

"We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization."

That's a wild statement to make.

So what are they posting about suddenly that has them revealing their intent for their actions since October?

Bangladesh.

The CU Activists are attempting to liken October 7th attack by Hamas with the Bangladesh student protests. Bangladesh had a quota based employment system that students were protesting, the government responded violently, and everything escalated from there due to years of government corruption, violence, and economic turmoil. This was a protest turned revolution within a country by its own people. This was not a government run by a recognized terrorist group attacking another country, killing civilians, and taking them hostage.

However, the differences and reasons between Hamas's actions and the actions of the students in Bangladesh do not matter to the anti-Zionist Activist.

We've seen this repeatedly from these activists that they will try to liken their movement and/or attach it to other conflicts around the world. Many of these conflicts differ greatly from the Israel/Hamas war as they are internal issues with internal actors being involved.

Bangladesh is students protesting against their government.

Sudan is going through a civil war between various factions.

The Congo has been experiencing decades long violence as various militias fight each other for control.

Yet I've see anti-Israel protestors tag their posts with Free Bangladesh, Free Congo, Free Sudan even though these conflicts differ in origin and parties involved.

If you continue through the IG post you'll see very little information as to the cause of the protest/revolution in Bangladesh and continued attempts to coopt the actions for their movement.

Fig. 2. CU Apartheid Divest group tries to liken its student movements to the student protests in Bangladesh and calls to escalate.

I can't help but think that the CU student activists yearn to be oppressed in a way that would allow them to respond like revolutions and protests around the world. The way they speak and write exudes a yearning for violence. In Fig. 2. they detail the actions taken by students against an authoritarian government that has actively shot and killed protestors. Whereas here in the USA the students were forcibly removed from campuses, experienced some police violence, were arrested, and then released. No curfews with a shoot on sight policy were imposed here in the USA in response to college campus protests.

Fig. 3. CU Apartheid Divest classifies this as an Intifada and likens it to Hamas's attack.

Notice in Fig. 3. that they're trying to call the actions in Bangladesh an Intifada. Not an intifada, but an Intifada which is a proper noun with its own connotation. I know I may be a stickler here, but if I see that word capitalized then I know it's referencing the First and Second Intifadas, and I know that these student groups have been calling for a Third one under the guise of "Global Intifada". They also say that Westerners need to escalate and are "obligated" to do so.

Fig. 4. CU Apartheid Divest uses tankie terminology, refers to Bangladeshis as martyrs, and calls this part of the Global Intifada.

The terminology in Fig. 4. also shows how much the Free Palestine student movement in the USA is not actually about Palestine, Palestinians, or any other movement it tries to attach itself to. These are tankies as indicated by the use of "comrades" and they are wholly opposed to Western Civilization. They genuinely state that their movement should violently escalate here in the USA and that they should be prepared for "sacrifices". This language when coupled with the use of Intifada is alarming as it appears that these student activists are preparing to follow in the footsteps of the Second Intifada, or at the very least calling for others to do so.

These students, whom call themselves the Militants of Hind's Hall (seen in the IG post, but not pictured here), are coopting, or attempting to coopt, movements and conflicts from around the world for their own ideals. As these are students in the USA who are arguably experiencing the least amount of oppression when compared to these other conflicts, and are actively attending Ivy League or R1 universities, it can only be assumed that they're yearning to live out their Glorious Revolution fantasy.

I am under no illusion that I understand their reasoning. Are things perfect here in the USA? Of course not, but when compared to the countries that these student protestors are attaching themselves to, we are leaps and bounds better. And if you disagree, then I have to ask, when was the last time we had a curfew with a shoot on sight policy?

Anyone attempting to call this movement and group "peaceful" is naive. They've been telling you for months that they're not peaceful, that their goals are not peaceful, and that the only peace they want is after they commit violence.

The IG link for reference

[elder-millennial-of-zion]

Overheard at work:

“My post got me crucified on social media. Apparently we’re boycotting Starbucks.”

“Why?”

“Cuz they’re ‘supporting genocide.’”

“I like Starbucks, so I’d totally go anyway. You could always go and just not post about it?”

“No, cuz then you’re like, ‘complicit.’”

“I could never be an influencer. You get canceled for everything.”

“Everyone wants to be an influencer. Not everyone should be an influencer, some people just aren’t interesting enough.”

“Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with admitting you’re not that interesting.”

[chanaleah]

BDS does literally nothing to help Palestinians.

I think the best example of this is Ben & Jerry’s, because it’s relatively harmless. If you didn’t know, Ben & Jerry’s decided to stop selling ice cream in the West Bank/Judea & Samaria to protest the settlements.

However, they actually achieved the opposite of what they wanted. Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is still sold in Israel proper. This means that the only people who are prevented from getting Ben & Jerry’s are Palestinians who live in the West Bank/Judea & Samaria.

If you’re an Israeli living in a settlement, you can simply drive into Israel proper to buy yourself some ice cream. However if you’re a Palestinian, it’s much more difficult.

This move, pushed by the BDS movement, does nothing to help Palestinians. Ice cream isn’t the biggest deal, considering everything else going on, but it’s the perfect example of how the BDS movement does not care at all about Palestinians, but rather only cares about the goal to destroy Israel.

[captain-casual]

Germany: We need a list of Jewish people’s names and addresses. For reasons.

Literally everyone:

[girlactionfigure]

diplo.act

More proof that #BDS is not just a #boycott but a movement to attack and isolate #Jews, incite violence, and dismantle the only #JewishState. We must see them for who they are and put an end to their #antisemitism

[humanbeanvitaminsea]

What are you achieving when you post extremist, strongly anti Israel, anti Zionist comments and content on social media? What is your purpose? What do you hope to achieve?

You might think your strong, angry opinions are going to "save" or "help" the Palestinian people.

They're really not. They're not going to change anything outside of the circle of people you know in your own daily life.

What you're actually doing is isolating people, causing distress to people who, before you started your hate campaign, felt a little safer around you. Now they're scared of you. Is that what you wanted to achieve?

You want peace in the Middle East? I don't think so. I don't think you give two shits about anyone in the Palestinian territories.

Feels to me like you just care about what other, perhaps more influential haters think about you.

If you did, you'd understand that you don't achieve that by posting hate on Facebook.

Don't you think the Israelis and Palestinians would have made peace already if they could?

You honestly think your hate comments are going to help anyone?

They're not. They just destroy friendships, make people frightened and isolate people.

I think you're too arrogant to stop stirring up more and more hatred in the town where you live.

Stayon your soapbox as long as you want, but be aware that no one likes a bully.

You're hurting people who don't even live in the Middle East. You're hurting people who live in your own town.

You are a bully.

Stop it.

[hero-israel]

Has BDS ever done anything remotely successful towards Palestinian liberation, or has every chapter just harassed diaspora Jews and targeted businesses that aren’t even in Israel?

Your instincts are correct: no impact on "liberation," a good deal of impact on otherizing Jews. If you recognize BDS as the abstinence-only sex education of the Left, it makes a lot more sense. More detailed commentary below.

[xclowniex]

So I have been doom scrolling on YouTube shorts those days,,, a video of someone buying/eating something that the pro palis are boycotting pop up.

It’s a simple innocent video, the comments are full of “boycott (brand name)” and watermelon emojis and “free Palestine” some even calling the YouTuber names and stuff.

This is harassment, this is full on harassment of someone who crime is buying from a brand they are boycotting.

Not going to lie but they started to sound like a cult at this point.

Instead of focusing all their energy on harassing random YouTuber and Jews and destroying properties, they could focus it on more useful and important things that will help stop this war.

Like idk, helping with the release of the hostages? Not supporting Hamas?

100%

The BDS movement is majorly problematic. They celebrated the shut down of a soda stream factory in the west bank a few years back yet they didn't do anything to help the palestinian workers who lost their jobs find new jobs so they can, ya know, feed their families.

BDS also claims that you should listen to all palestinian voices, yet is telling people to boycott standing together, an org which uplifts Palestinian and Israeli voices.

In regards to non BDS boycotts, it also a cult mentalility especially with that clip of that Australian Hasan fan who said "just don't drink coke on stream, just drink it in private as we are boycotting coke" like ah yes, only boycott a product in public and still give them your money in private, totally how a boycott works.

Like giving BDS some credit (which i hate to say) at least they focus on only a few things which is achieveable. Some of those long ass boycott lists (like that 300+ German list) is just unachieveable.

The whole reason for the boycotts is to make the Israeli government have less money so war cannot happen and to punish the Israeli economy. Essentially civilian created sanctions, however it will not work unless the majority of the population does so. Israel will also always defend themselves when they are attacked. So like you said nonnie, unless Hamas is gone and peace is achieved, Israel will continue to have wars with breaks in between until they are no longer attacked. And obviously war and after after war is bad for everyone on all sides as both Israeli's and Palestinians should not have threats to their safety due to their respective governments actions.

[colombinna]

Unfriendly reminder that Marvel Studios is still under boycott by the BDS movement due to being imperialist zionist propaganda and you're a fucking spineless class traitor if you can't even be bothered to not watch a shitty show from a studio that genocide victims specifically asked you not to support

[spot-the-antisemitism]

I honestly don't get the whole boycotting entire companies in support of Palestine anymore. Like, at first when I was deep in the kool aid before I got wise to what is actually happened with Israel, I was like, yeah, boycott these companies and brands! But now it's like... This helps how, exactly? Like, for example, the ceo for the company behind Squishmallows was in full support of Israel against Hamas' actions (still is, maybe? I don't know for sure) and people got their panties in a twist (myself included but again, I got wise via actually reading into it and know better now). It feels dumb, and I'd rather boycott anything that supports actual terrorists like Hamas now.

Dear anon,

it’s because BDS exists on the premise that Israel is apartheid and the way to always solve all apartheid is boycott because it worked in South Africa

I was immunized because I remember sanctions in Russia do not work and did not Free Crimea or help Ukraine

what made you get out?

Cecil

[elder-millennial-of-zion]

Saw a comment on one of those TikTok’s about “shopping while boycotting,” that said “I kept checking every brand so my grocery shopping took 4 hours!”

I used to feel so threatened by the BDS boycotts, but now I’m just like, yes keep wasting your time 😆