Embrace the hot potato – and sack the chef!
The hot potato that is Israel is even affecting what we can buy in our shops as the political, economic and institutional isolation of the country spreads across the world.
The so-called Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is a campaign to delegitimise and demonise Israel in the guise of bringing economic pressure on the country. But its real aim "is to bring down the state of Israel", according to California State University professor As'ad AbuKhalil, who added: "Justice and freedom for the Palestinians are incompatible with the existence of the state of Israel."1
Originating in 2009 with the so-called 'Kairos' document as a form of 'Palestinian Liberation Theology', and supported by some church denominations and even liberal Jewish groups, it has won the backing of many professors and students, and has been boosted by accusations of Israel being an 'apartheid' state. So it's based on a lie (dealt with in two parts earlier in this series) and, for that reason alone, Christians should have nothing to do with it.
It has also been shown to harm the Palestinians – on whose behalf BDS campaigners are allegedly fighting – as much, if not more than, the Israelis, as they rely heavily on Israel for jobs. When the pressure of an economic boycott is applied, employment is lost and Palestinian poverty increases.
Based on a Lie
The BDS protest has spread rapidly through university and college campuses where gullible young students have been quick to express their radicalism by taking up this ill-informed political stick with which to beat the Jewish state.
Companies initially targeted for doing business with Israel were Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola Solutions, but what Dr Theresa Newell describes as a "pernicious" movement "also affirms a fantasy that Christian peacemakers have long embraced – that the fighting will miraculously come to an end once Israel ends the occupation."2
In a paper on the subject, Dr Newell quotes John Lomperis, who ended his statement urging the United Methodist Church against adopting the boycott by saying: "The push to divest from companies doing business with Israel is fundamentally unjust, factually misinformed, morally inconsistent, and out of touch with much of our grassroots membership and our North American mission field."3
An earlier generation of students, including myself, perhaps rightly exercised their indignant fervour against genuine apartheid in South Africa. But in Israel, Arabs and Jews have equal rights, travel on the same buses, debate with each other in parliament, and both hand down sentences in the courts. A Jewish friend of mine has just had his case heard by an Arab judge, and reports that he was very fairly treated!
So it's clear that this movement is not dealing with reality, but is a thinly disguised form of anti-Semitism. The economic sanctions meted out to South Africa during the apartheid era may well have been fair, despite the hypocrisy of some nations where injustice was at least as bad. But in Israel's case, truth itself is the victim as propaganda a-plenty is spewed out by politicians and the media.
Judgment is the Lord's
Israel is not perfect, and its authorities make mistakes, but we – as followers of the Jewish Messiah – are called to pray for them (Ps 122:6), bless them (Gen 12:3) and proclaim the good news of the One who came "first for the Jew, then for the Gentile" (Rom 1:16). If we are concerned over their unrighteous behaviour, have we prayed? Have we been quick to defend them against growing hate crime? Have we taken opportunities to share the life-transforming message of Jesus with them? They need him as much as we do.
Tragically, many Christians have been quicker to pick up the mood of the world's media than the mind-renewing lifeblood of the cleansing word of God. St Paul's admonition to the Romans shouts across the centuries to this generation: "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will" (Rom 12:2).
In the same chapter we are also urged not take revenge against those we perceive to have harmed us or someone else. "'It is mine to avenge; I will repay', says the Lord" (Rom 12:19). We are to bless, not curse. And remember, Jesus said that with the measure we use to judge others, so it will be measured out to us (Matt 7:2). Placard-bearers should listen, for God will judge you on the same basis that you judge Israel. Do you harbour injustice in your heart? Do you hate your enemy? The Lord will hold you to account for your shortcomings in the very areas which you perceive to be Israel's sin.
And besides, would you also ban the Bible – for it is Israel that gave us this precious treasure? They also gave us Jesus, the Saviour of the world. And are you willing to give up your mobile phone and computer, for Israel has been at the helm of the development of such new technology? Even the gramophone and record, through which the age of mass entertainment found its first global medium, was invented by German-Jewish emigrant to the USA Emil Berliner.
BDS Harms Palestinians Just as Much
Additionally, BDS harms the Palestinians as much as, if not more than, the Israelis. For example, more than 400 Palestinians lost their jobs when Israeli company Sodastream was forced by the campaign to close its factory in the West Bank and move south to the Negev.
"We don't know what we are going to do," says Mahmoud Jerdat, who has worked there for seven years. "In the Palestinian territories the economy is at rock bottom...I have four children and I need the job with this company."4
Israel Today editor-in-chief Aviel Schneider comments: "Ironically, the victims of the blind hatred of the BDS are the very Palestinians whom the movement has vowed to protect."5
The boycott also threatens the livelihoods of Arab agricultural workers in Israel. Switzerland's biggest supermarket chain has taken Israeli potatoes off its shelves in response to BDS – and specifically through the influence of Muslims living in or near the French part of the country. This is according to a vegetable producers' sales manager who said that, until recently, there had been a great demand for Israeli products due to their availability and quality.6
Encouraging Counter-Movement
But there is an encouraging counter-movement in progress. In the US, New Jersey has become the latest of 21 states to have agreed anti-BDS legislation, prohibiting the investment of public employee retirement funds in companies boycotting Israel.7
And I'll let film star Helen Mirren have the last word. Speaking at a press event in Jerusalem, the Oscar-winning British actress sang the praises of Israeli artists, adding that she firmly rejects the boycott campaign: "The artists of the country are the people you need to communicate with and make a relationship with and learn from and build upon. So I absolutely do not believe in the boycott, and here I am."8
Mirren, who is not Jewish, was in Israel to present the Genesis Prize (a type of Jewish Nobel Prize) to Israeli-American violinist Itzhak Perlman. Her first trip to the nation was in 1967 when she spent time working on a kibbutz.9
Notes
1 Resisting the longest hatred, by Clifford D May, Washington Times, 26 May 2015. Quoted by Dr Theresa Newell, USA Chairman of the Church's Ministry among Jewish people (CMJ), in her paperWhat is BDS? CMJ USA.
2 Dr Theresa Newell, referring to the Kairos document which spawned the BDS movement in her paper BDS: How did it all begin? CMJ USA.
3 Faith & Freedom, December 2015, p13, quoted by Dr Newell in the above-mentioned paper.
4 Israel Today, May 2016.
5 Ibid
6 Dov Eilon, Israel Today, July 2016.
7 New Jersey passes legislation prohibiting anti-Israel BDS. Jerusalem Post, 28 June 2016.
8 Helen Mirren Slams BDS, Supports Israel. Bridges for Peace, 27 June 2016.
9 Ibid.
