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On Resistance: BDS and Israel's Declining Support Among Diaspora Jews
Cohen, Stanley L.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2018/02/12/on-resistance-bds-and-israels-declining-support-among-diaspora-jews/Date Written: 2018-02-12 Publisher: CounterPunch Year Published: 2018 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX22468 Like its predecessor movement decades ago in South Africa, assessing the success of BDS against Israel today necessarily rubs up against the tension between Israeli Hasbara (propaganda) and its reality as an effective organizing tool against it throughout the world. Abstract: - Excerpt: Though Israel has repeatedly claimed BDS has proven to be a failed venture, it's a contention very much in desperate search of fact. Indeed, one need only look at the hundreds of millions of dollars that Israel has spent in various anti-BDS efforts to discern that its impact is not just productive, but poses a dynamic threat to the status quo ante of the state. Why else would it continue to invest such large, indeed, increasing amounts of money against a movement that it asserts has had no cognizable impact upon its policies or its future? To be sure, Israel has spent vast sums of money on anti-BDS lobbyists and publicity and on a veritable army of social media trolls used to promote fantasy as desperate push back against the truthful and appealing fact laden argument and results of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. It has expanded its use of public relations and law firms throughout the world in an effort to silence the movement through attacks on academic freedom, faculty and students and by legislative fiat designed to criminalize, sanction and otherwise deter persons or groups that engage in support for the BDS effort. To the extent that pro Israeli lobbyists such as AIPAC have been able to purchase some state and federal anti-BDS legislative enactments in the United States, ultimately they will prove to be, of no moment, costly pyrrhic victories as courts strike them down as unconstitutional infringement upon free speech and association. Subject Headings |