You’ve all seen him: on Wikipedia, on blogs, and at the top of almost every mainstream news story that needs an image about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions “movement” (i.e., BDS).
In our lazy journalistic age when an illustration to your story is just a right click away, I’ve always wondered why this guy seems to have become Mr. Clip Art when it comes to BDS.
The one clue to his identity (or at least affiliation) is the name “FAMSY” which appears on the sign behind Mr. BDS’s Israeli flag one (the sign that beings “Gaza Children” and seems to end with “What have you done?” – presumably something terrible that must be laid at the feet of Israel alone).
FAMSY stands for the Federation of Australian Muslim Students and Youth (their web site seems to be under construction, although their Facebook page is available). As far as I can tell, this is a national youth group in Australia for Muslim youngsters whose agenda seems to cover more than holding signs about Israel bombing babies.
It’s not clear whether the fellow up front, who looks a bit old to be either a student or a youth, is a member of FAMSY, or just happens to be standing next to one at one of the many anti-Israel rallies that break out around the world (including in Australia) the moment Israel decides to shoot back.
Anyway, if there are some Aussie readers out there who can help me solve this mystery, I would deeply appreciate it. If not, the image above seems ripe for meme-ifying if anyone out there has some Photoshop (or even Microsoft paint) skills and a sense of humor.
(EoZ: The rally was in Melbourne, June 5 2010. You can see a seemingly different guy holding the same sign at 7:06 of this video, so it might have been passed around.)
