Stopping the BDS Rot

The Forward published a piece recently highlighting the divestment “movement’s” hypocrisy in demanding the world boycott Israeli universities while simultaneously demanding that boycotters who teach or attend these schools continue to enjoy the privileges of a subsidized education or tenure.

Ha’aretz had an equally entertaining piece on the BDS crowd’s willingness to latch onto and wreck the work of others (such as the organizers of the Toronto Film Festival) just to score political points (which they never notice they lose when people flock to Israeli movies or buy out Israeli goods).

I know a familiar tactic to counter BDS is to point out the host of Israeli- or Jewish-created goods and services surrounding the divestnik’s life (Intel processors, cell phones, instant messaging, Wassermann tests) and show what they’d have to give up in order to truly live by their creed. But as I’ve stated before, objective reality has nothing to do with the motivation behind BDS.

If I could definitively prove that their actions would lead directly and inexorably to the death of millions of innocents (even better, millions of Palestinians – whose lives they claim as their moral loadstone), they would not budget one millimeter in their trajectory. For Palestinians, like Israelis, like Americans, like virtually everyone in the world are simply props to their storyline, a story that casts them as the avenging revolutionary: aging, paunchy perhaps, but still on the vanguard of some great and noble battle.

I’ve commented on this type of fantasy politics before, and while I prefer papers like the Forward having fun at the divestor’s expense (vs. falling for and disseminating their hoaxes), they miss a couple of more troubling points.

First off, fantasy politics is not something to be shrugged off because of the inconsistencies it invariable generates. Rather, people being able to commit deeds ranging from inconsiderate to pure evil while convincing themselves of their unquestionable virtue is the bane of our civilization, and the driver behind history’s darkest moments. The worst acts of brutality ever committed were not performed by people who saw themselves as wicked or sinful. Rather, they were committed by people who knew in their heart of hearts that all goodness resided in them (which made stamping out what they considered “evil” to be a moral imperative, no matter what the cost). Consider that the next time you watch a BDSer turn their head with indifference to the suffering of anyone in the world that does not serve their political purposes.

On a more practical matter, there is an increasing tendency to let the marginalization of BDS justify any attack on Israel that does not include a boycott or divestment component. In the month of Goldstone, we’ve already seen sentiments along the line of “of course Israel is guilty of x, y and z…” (x, y and z being a series of increasingly unverified and unfounded accusations of criminality and brutality), “…but we should not boycott them (at least for now).”

While I’m happy to see that many Israeli bashers recognize that something exists (in this case boycott) that are still beyond the pale, I would prefer that they (as well as the general public) recognize that divestment is not the bastard cousin of the “Israel is guilty! What was the charge?” crowd, but simply the purest expression of a sentiment they have let loose in the world.

The language of human rights and international law, the alleged defenders of those principles like the UN and Amnesty International, well-meaning civic institutions such as the Mainline Protestant Churches or British trade union movement have all been corrupted, their principles sacrificed in order to create a world where Israel will be perpetually in the dock. Even if none of this ends up in real (vs. fraudulent) boycott, divestment or sanctions (at least today), BDS should provide a warning smell of the rot spreading through the very institutions meant to protect those who need protection the most.