Is a Boycott of Israel Just?
Click here to read the full response in The New York Times.
Regarding “Why the boycott movement scares Israel” (Review, Feb. 1): Omar Barghouti misleadingly portrays the B.D.S. movement’s attacks on Israel. B.D.S. activists admit among themselves that anti-Israel boycotts are not simply a strategy for ending the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Rather, the goal is the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state, exploiting the rhetoric of human rights and false apartheid analogies to demonize and isolate Israel.
NGO Monitor, which promotes accountability among nongovernmental organizations with humanitarian agendas, has found that Mr. Barghouti and other B.D.S. proponents use racist and discriminatory rhetoric in their attacks, including highly offensive Nazi analogies. This form of political warfare has been going on for over a decade, since the 2001 World Conference Against Racism. Hundreds of NGOs gathered in Durban, South Africa, to announce a strategy of pushing for the “complete and total isolation of Israel as an apartheid state” and “the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargoes, the full cessation of all links (diplomatic, economic, social, aid, military cooperation and training) between all states and Israel.” Although Mr. Barghouti attempted in his opinion article to obscure the B.D.S.’s true goals, the evidence clearly demonstrates that the main targets are Israel and the right of the Jewish people to sovereign equality.