Divest This will be
taking a break for a while to focus on work and family.
Before going on a previous hiatus, I paused to reflect on what
the whole BDS project and the fight against it meant in the context of the
wider war against the Jews and their state.
This ended up a nine-part Bigger Picture series
that should still be relevant to anyone fighting the good fight who wants to
better understand what we’re up against.
Since knowing who you are fighting only gets you so far, I
used that understanding after returning from hiatus to look at the strategies
and tactics needed to defeat not just BDS but the militant movement BDS is
simply one part of.
Those are both longish series/documents, and I never expected
everyone to read them in full and act accordingly. But the principles they lay out are still
relevant and can be summarized as:
·
Far from being a peace
movement, BDS represents the propaganda arm of a war movement, one designed to
weaken the Jewish state so that others can do the dirty work of eliminating
it.
·
The war movement of which
BDS is a part relies on language carefully selected to convince progressive-minded
individuals and groups that the anti-Israel cause is a virtuous fight against
racism, imperialism and other contemporary sins.
·
Because the societies that
back BDS represent the greatest enemies of the progressive values listed above,
BDS advocates must militantly police the left end of the political spectrum it
is trying to coopt in order to ensure everyone stays in line. This is why, for example, feminist groups
must bow down before the (mostly male-dominated) Palestinian cause, but anyone
pointing out the inherent sexism and homophobia within that cause is
immediately hounded out of “the movement.”
·
BDS itself is not a
movement, but simply a tactic designed to paint the Jewish state as the
inheritor of South Africa’s mantle as the world’s worst human-rights abuser. So
even when BDS loses this or that battle, even if the Israeli economy tripled in
size during the BDS decades, the campaign continues since its propaganda goals
are met every time people are exposed to the Israel = Apartheid narrative
(especially young people who were not even born when South African Apartheid
existed).
·
The fight against BDS is
stymied by debates over whether we are “just playing defense” vs. “going on the
attack.” Missing from this binary choice
is an analysis of how offense and defense represent different aspects of a
military strategy – each required at different times. But because we do not treat the fight against
Israel’s detractors as a military campaign (rather than an argument to be won
or lost), we end up fighting with each other over which ineffective defensive
or offensive tactics everyone should be using.
·
Treating our fight as a
military campaign requires recognizing the nature of the battlefield, the
relative strengths and weaknesses of each side, including the fact that one
side (ours) does not want to ultimately see our enemies destroyed. Given this, we should adopt tactics
associated with siege warfare, switching to pitched battles and other tactics
only when they are militarily prudent (or required).
This is just a quick summary of what is contained in the
material linked above, the bottom line of all of which is that patience is the
most potent military and political force in the universe. While it is painful to see Israel smeared
from coast-to-coast, and the rise of anti-Semitic movements and parties
(especially in the West) is enormously frightening, we should also look at and
learn from positive long-term trends.
For example, one need only compare Israel, which has thrived
and grown richer and more powerful since 1948, with the chaos and decline that
characterized her enemies during this same period. While there is always the chance that his
chaos will expand to engulf far more than just the Middle East, the best
defense against this trend is an Israel that is militarily powerful,
economically independent and allied with others fighting the same fight.
Please reach out via the contact form at Divest This if
anything comes up while I’m taking a break from blogging, and enormous thanks
to Elder for letting me participate in his fabulous site over the last several
years.
Onward!
DT