If you ask proponents of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement why they single out Israel, they will tell you that you have to start somewhere. But since its beginnings a decade ago, BDS has never been invoked against any other country.
Common sense and decency asks, how a self-described “human rights” movement can single-out the only democracy in the region. Progressive activists, mainly college professors and students, ignore the brutal treatment and often torture and murder of women, minorities and members of the GLBTQ community in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan.
If their goal was the betterment of Palestinian lives, wouldn’t they be outraged at the hundreds of children that died building tunnels for Hamas? Shouldn’t they demand Hamas stop storing and setting up weaponry near or in schools and hospitals? How about demanding that political leaders in the Palestinian Unity Government (starting with the Yasser Arafat Estate) return the billions of dollars they banked for themselves instead of building infrastructure and an economy for their people?
The answer is simple and sad. Like Israel Apartheid Week, BDS is simply another campus anti-Semitic hate fest complete with administrative tolerance if not sanctification– even in the highly charged campus atmosphere of racial and ethnic sensitivity.
This article was originally published in The Jewish Press