Trump’s actions today don’t leave much doubt about this. Links here https://bdsmovement.net/ and here
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If You Want to Drive Trump Nuts, Support BDS!
Reality-based commentary on politics.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is incredibly cruel and stupid for banning Rep. Omar and Rep. Talib from visiting Israel or the occupied territories, the latter of whom just wanted to visit her infirm grandmother in the West Bank. He and Trump have also elevated the status of BDS, a movement the Brookings Institute has shown has had little impact on the Israeli economy or altering Israeli behavior. In the long run, this move will continue to make support of Israel a partisan position and alienate the many Democrats who support it.
Personally, I support the right of Israel to exist and oppose the continued occupation of what should be future Palestinian land in the West Bank. If BDS were effective and supportive in advocating for the two state solution it would have my support. Since it is neither of these things, it does not.
Mr. Netanyahu has been transforming support for Israel into a partisan or even hyperpartisan issue since at least 2015, with his outrageously offensive and heavy-handed pandering to the GOP and attacks on the Democrats during the run-up to the 2016 elections. That transformation began long before this brouhaha with Ms. Omar and Ms. Talib. In any marriage — even a long-term marriage — when one partner abuses the other and breaks the long-standing ground-rules of the marriage, divorce is inevitable. Mr. Netanyahu betrayed bipartisan US support for Israel in 2015. What’s done is done — the act cannot be undone.
Any Democrat who cares about the visions and priorities that the Democratic Party has stood for since at least 1968 (when we ejected our segregationist wing and its supporters) should be alienated by Israel’s policy under Mr. Netanyahu. His treatment of Ms. Omar and Ms. Talib is only the most recent offense — he has been aggressively dismantling all the efforts of his predecessors towards a two-state solution as eagerly as Mr. Trump has been dismantling the oversight agencies of the US government.
Since Israel still claims to be a representative Democracy (one of the most commonly cited memes about why the US should continue to support it is that it is the only representative Democracy in the Middle East), then I see no way to avoid including the Israeli electorate in our condemnation of Mr. Netanyahu’s policies. A majority of Israeli voters continue to re-elect him in full cognizance of his stance towards the Palestinians.
The standing of the US in the eyes of the world is already damaged by our 2016 election of Mr. Trump. What’s left of that standing will be shattered if we re-elect Mr. Trump in 2020. That is to be expected, and it is a perfectly reasonable and rational response of the rest of the world to the outrageous insanity of having Mr. Trump in the Oval Office at all.
In the same way, I suggest that Israel itself deserves condemnation for repeatedly returning Mr. Netanyahu to power. The blood of Palestinians is on his and and their hands.
The organization that led the boycott against South Africa was created in 1959. apartheid in South Africa ended somewhere between 1991 (when Mr. De Klerk repealed the remaining apartheid laws) and 1994 (when the new South Africa, with Nelson Mandela as President) rejoined the UN General Assembly). For most of those 45 years, the organizations that led the anti-apartheid movement were either ignored or marginalized and attacked by the powers that ran the world.
I am therefore quite cynical about the attacks on BDS. The behavior of Israel towards the Palestinians is outrageous. The machinations of Mr. Netanyahu are more so.
I absolutely support a boycott of Israel and Israeli products so long as it continues along the bitterly divisive path charted by Mr. Netanhahu. I don’t know enough about BDS as an organization to know whether or not I support it.
I support the mandate of BDS as presented on its “about” page: