Vision to Reality: The Reut Blog

An interesting article by Bradley Burston touches on the recent BDS campaign at the University of California, Berkeley and argues that it makes peace harder, rather than easier to achieve as it “feeds the far-right portrayal of proponents of an independent Palestine as being unremitting opponents of anything and anyone Israeli.”

Burston touches on what is a central strategy of the BDS campaign against Israel – the creation of an ‘all or nothing dynamic’ in which boycott is framed as the only way to demonstrate opposition to a specific aspect of Israeli policy.

Burston’s continues that, “If the goal is to effect positive change in Israel-Palestine, the ways to do so are many and well worth supporting. The best place to start, here and in the Bay Area, is to back the many organizations actively working for a two-state solution and Jewish-Arab reconciliation.”

In fact, suggesting constructive, ‘pro-peace’ organizations for those critical of Israeli policies to invest in could go a long way to break this ‘all or nothing dynamic’ and help to drive a wedge between critics of Israeli policy, who should be engaged, and delegitimizers of its existence, who should be isolated and exposed.

Related Posts

Delegitimacy and the All or Nothing Dynamic

Fighting Delegitimacy: Driving a Wedge between Soft and Hard Critics