The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement has spent millions on college campuses across North America. The ostensible target of their protest are Israeli settlements, the State of Israel, and the millions of citizens who live there. But Israel is not the ultimate target of BDS.
Author and Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick will argue that the ultimate targets of BDS are American Jews, particularly the American Jews most sympathetic to the disgraceful claims of BDS, those who lean to the political left. Remember back in June 2017 when lesbian activists were kicked out of Chicago’s “Dyke March” for raising flags that combined symbols of gay pride with the Star of David? The rising current of anti-Zionist, progressive doctrine will force the Jewish left to choose between its support for Israel and its progressive values. You can be on the left or you be a Zionist. But according to the left, you can’t be both.
The debasement of Israel by the anti-Zionist left is not merely an attack on the Middle East’s only democracy and the political refuge for history’s most persecuted people, it is also a way to establish political litmus tests that are designed to uniquely discriminate against Jewish Americans. Unless and until Jewish institutions understand the true political strategy of the BDS movement, they will not be effective in their opposition to it or in their support for the State of Israel on campuses, in the left-leaning media, or in American culture.
BDS and the Jewish Institutions of America
Caroline Glick