BDS=BS
By
Leonard Zwelling
While some of us were sleeping, a movement has arisen on
college campuses and elsewhere to Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) Israeli
goods and even intellectual exchanges among academics.
Here’s the latest tidbit from California:
I guess I have to say it again. Some folks are just poor
losers and the Arabs living in what used to be the British Mandate of Palestine
have to be placed in that category. By riling up a bunch of impressionable and
foolish American liberal students bent on the political correctness of
punishing Israel for defending itself or just outright using BDS as cover for
anti-Semitism, this movement has gained a considerable foothold on college
campuses.
Now I am fine with having debates, even heated ones, about
the rightness or wrongness about some Israeli actions. Israel should not be
exempt from American criticism any more than France, the UK and Germany are,
but for goodness sake, they are our only democratic ally in a very dangerous
and strategic part of the world. What is it these folks want? Israel to give
back the land they took fighting the aggression against their own people in
1967? They’ve tried. The Arabs have never missed an opportunity to miss an
opportunity.
Again,
I repeat, Israel can give back the West Bank when the United States gives South
Dakota back to the Sioux. Ain’t gonna happen.
A more progressive and clear-eyed approach might be to
conjure up a real and viable “ask” of the Israeli government like more economic
trade with the Palestinians, the return of their special tax status (which pays
for the hospital care given to Palestinian children in Israeli hospitals), and
educational benefits for Arabs in Israel, all in exchange for just one thing.
Stop the fighting! No rockets. No tunnels. No bombs. No guns. No knives on
Israeli soil or buses by Arabs. And then cease telling the world you want
Israel driven into the sea for it is far more likely that it is the Arab
population that will be so driven given the power of the IDF.
Then, factor in the Arab on Arab violence that is pervading
the region from Syria, to Lebanon, to Iraq and to Yemen plus the on-going
battle for supremacy between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and I think siding with the
Arabs is way outside the range of acceptable American values.
Just
in case you missed it, ISIS burned a captured Jordanian pilot to death a month
ago while leading the Jordanians to think that he was still alive to extort
$200M.
We
have now seen the new definition of Air Jordan—supported by American air power. This
may well be a protracted fight for dominance in the region and it is mostly an
Arab fight.
Israel
and its prime minister are correct. The existential threat to its nationhood is
from Iran and the foolish American negotiations with Iran will only last as
long as Iran wants them to for its own convenience as ISIS is a threat to Iran
as well. His visit to Congress could have been handled with far more political skill but Bibi doesn’t play nice. We all know that. He’s just doing his job
keeping the minds of the American Congress, that may actually listen, on the real threat in
the region, Iran, not ISIS.
These pro-Palestinian students spray-painted swastikas on a
Jewish fraternity house. We all know where this is going and it isn’t pretty.
It is obvious that the leaders of college campuses cannot control these
demonstrations or their students. Free expression is fine. Nazism disguised as
support for the downtrodden of the former British Mandate of Palestine is not.
This must end. Now.
Here’s
the web site of the BDS movement that called Israel’s response to the rockets
and tunnels a “massacre.” Really?
I
wonder what the Texas National Guard would do in response to rockets launched
from Juarez toward San Antonio let alone tunnels to invade Brownsville or
Tucson from the other side of the border?
http://www.bdsmovement.net
