The BDS Campaign and Anti-Jewish Boycotts
The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel is a modern manifestation of antisemitic boycotts, echoing historical anti-Jewish actions. BDS aims to delegitimize Israel, often employing antisemitic language and tactics that demonize the Jewish state. This campaign has primarily gained traction on college campuses, where it threatens academic integrity and creates a hostile environment for Jewish students.
On campuses, BDS activists leverage institutional status to amplify their message, often targeting and isolating Jewish students for their perceived or actual support of Israel. This has led to the exclusion of Jewish students from progressive groups simply for being Zionists, furthering antisemitic tropes and inhibiting academic freedom.
The campaign's impact on campuses is particularly concerning, as it exploits students' passion for justice without providing adequate knowledge of the complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By presenting a biased, simplistic approach that singles out Israel, BDS works to deny Jews the right to self-determination masked as advocating for Palestinian rights.
Sources:
https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/boycott-divestment-and-sanctions-campaign-bds
https://ngo-monitor.org/key-issues/bds/about/
https://www.adl.org/resources/article/impact-divestment-campaigns-rising-antisemitism
THE HISTORY OF ANTI-JEWISH BOYCOTT: PART 1/2
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Photo Credit: US Holocaust Memorial Museum
Historically, anti-Jewish boycotts have been employed to diffuse societal unrest and divert anti-government protests by creating a Photo Credit: US Holocaust Memorial Museum scapegoat to target.
Beginning in the 19th century, “Don't buy from Jews," "Buy from Christians only," and "Each to his own" were commonly heard slogans in Europe, as organized boycotts blamed Jews for rising unemployment and poverty. Organizers justified these actions as a defensive tactic or as retribution for alleged Jewish wrongdoing.
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Photo Credit: US Holocaust Memorial Museum
No sooner had Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party risen to power in Germany in 1933, than they organized a boycott against Jews as retribution for unfavorable press and boycotts of Nazis occurring across the world. It marked the beginning of Hitler's campaign against Jews, culminating in the Nazi's "Final Solution" – the genocide of European Jewry.
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Just months after the Nazi defeat and Hitler's suicide, and before Israel's Independence, the Arab League launched its boycott against Jews in Palestine. The December 1945 declaration stated that "Jewish products and manufactured goods shall be considered undesirable to the Arab countries."
Photo Credit: The New York Times
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After these attempts to physically annihilate the new Jewish State failed, the boycott became an alternate instrument of war to bring about Israel's demise through economic means. The boycott consisted of three levels:
- Barring commerce between citizens of Arab League countries and citizens of Israel and the Israeli government.
- Barring commercial relations for anyone that does business in Israel.
- Barring commerce between Arab League countries and companies that do business with Israel.
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The latest iteration of these tactics is the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. Like previous boycotts, it is an antisemitic tool of discrimination against the Jews. As a result, there has been a global backlash.
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Parliaments in the following countries have labeled BDS as antisemitic.
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SOURCES
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CONTEMPORARY DEBATE OVER ACADEMIC AND ANTI- JEWISH BOYCOTT: PART 2/2
Photo Credit: Alisdare Hickson from Woolwich, United Kingdom,
CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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BOYCOTT, DIVEST,
SANCTIONS MOVEMENT
Promoters of anti-Israel boycotts denounce resolutions that consider BDS a form of anti-Jewish bigotry. Instead, they promote the movement as dedicated to Palestinian human rights and justice, using the pretense that the campaign constitutes "non-violent" criticism of Israeli policy toward Palestinians, which is protected speech.
BDS' violent and discriminatory nature is evidenced both by its targeting of the Jewish state for attack and by its leaders' and members' justification of and engagement in verbal or physical violence against Israelis, Jews, and Jewish supporters of Israel.
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A recent effort to combat anti-boycott legislation in the name of the First Amendment comes from "Just Vision," a BDS-affiliated film team. Their latest film, "Boycott," aims at U.S. state legislation against the anti-Jewish boycott campaign. It argues that the BDS movement's discriminatory boycott is constitutionally protected, and attempts to boycott the boycotters are unlawful and deplorable.
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Referring to "dangerous bills" that allegedly "remove the legal protection that has been awarded to boycotts for generations," the filmmakers make clear the partisan angle they take in their film synopsis:
"The film chronicles the courage of three Americans as they defend freedom of expression and lays bare what's at stake our constitutionally-protected right to boycott -if they are defeated."
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Alan Leveritt, a "Boycott" protagonist and publisher of The Arkansas Times publisher, had his BDS views highlighted by New York Times.
Leveritt's column suggested that opposition to BDS and anti-Jewish boycott was predicated upon "eschatological beliefs" about "the Second Coming and Armageddon" that "conservative Evangelicals" in his state hold.
By depicting Israel support and rejection of anti-Israel activism as a religious fundamentalist minority, the film and Leveritt marginalize the pro-Israel, anti-BDS perspective of most Americans.
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The last NYT piece presenting this majority anti-BDS position was written by Florida Senator Marco Rubio, in which he defended the "Combating BDS" Act he helped introduce in 2019.
"While the First Amendment protects the right of individuals to free speech, it does not protect the right of entities to engage in discriminatory conduct. Moreover, state governments have the right to set contracting and investment policies, including policies that exclude companies engaged in discriminatory commercial- or investment-related conduct targeting Israel…"
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Eugene Kontorovich, George Mason University Law Professor and international law expert, has pointed out that the First Amendment gives state governments the right to dictate with whom they do business:
"if states can choose to not do business with South African companies because of their politics and practices (which BDS proponents wholeheartedly support), it also means they can choose to not do business with private companies because of other discriminatory policies like a boycott of Israel."
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Kontorovich explains:
"The campaign to boycott Israel seeks to legitimize discriminatory refusals to deal with people or companies simply because of their connection to the Jewish State. This is a legitimization of bigotry, just as boycotts of people because of their race, sexual orientation, or national origin would be discriminatory."
To weigh both sides of the debate about anti-Jewish boycott and understand why so many seek to combat it, one must be familiar with the boycott's history and its inherent antisemitism.
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SOURCES
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