BDS – don’t believe the hype

A must read piece at Harry's Place - do go and read it all, here's a few extracts:

'Naturally the constant comparisons between Zionism and colonialism entirely ignore the fact that Jews weren’t coming to Palestine to build some sort of Jewish empire and to harvest the resources of a new territory for profit but to escape from the brutality inflicted upon them elsewhere. Zionism was so popular because of the oppression of Jews and its message that Jews could take their lives into their own hands and make them better through statehood.

I have often heard Palestinians and BDS supporters argue that the suffering endured by Jews is not the fault of Palestinians and ask why Palestinians should have to suffer because of it. To ask this question is to ignore the fact that the plight of the Palestinians exists not because Jews moved to Palestine but because of the way that the Arab Palestinian community chose to respond to their arrival...

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The end result is that the Palestinian Authority comes under attack from the BDS movement whenever it appears as though they are about to negotiate an end to the very issues that Palestinians, those actually living under Israeli occupation, hate the most. The checkpoints, settlements, Israeli army patrols and all parts of the occupation itself that are so detested could be a thing of the past were the PA to feel secure enough in its own base to talk to Israel. Unfortunately BDS, focused as it is on Palestinians simply being victims, could never countenance the PA taking power into their own hands and sitting across the table from an Israel they continue to argue is nothing more than a relic from a European, colonial past. As a point of fact BDS increasingly asserts that the PA has no legitimacy to even represent the Palestinians at all.

When the Guardian and Al Jazeera leaked what became known as ‘the Palestine Papers’ in early 2011 it became clear that Palestinian negotiators were quietly well on the road to finalising a deal with Israel. This news was greeted by the BDS faithful not with happiness that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank with the hated checkpoints, settlements and overall Israeli control over Palestinian lives might soon be ending but with horror.

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The exact same mindset can be seen in the BDS movement today, in short screw the Jews, screw the fact that there are 6 million of them living in their own country, screw the fact that they have legitimate needs (not to mention rights), screw the fact that they only exist in a state of Israel because of the way the world savagely attacked them beforehand and screw the fact that they are still being attacked today because it is all their fault and their country should be forced out of existence by the more ‘enlightened’ nations of the world.'