Global Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Movement Research Paper

Analyzing the Global Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement

In Favor of BDS (Anecdote)

As an individual with friends in Palestine, I have heard the stories and seen firsthand the immoral acts committed by Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza and in the West Bank. I have seen the bulldozed homes, the illegal Israeli settlements, the victims of Israeli aggression, the loved ones buried—killed by soldiers or burned and murdered by Israel’s use of white phosphorous, which others have also reported on (Kaposi, 2016). The BDS Movement is a movement that aims to draw attention to these crimes and to hold Israel accountable. It aims to put pressure on the state—economically—so that the state begins to realize the enormity of its crimes and makes amends.

One story that I can share that will illuminate the reason why BDS should be supported is this: not to long time ago, my friend and his family lived in their home in the West Bank. The Israel bulldozer arrived like an angel of death out of nowhere and began knocking down the homes—even as my friend, his family and his neighbors were all still living in them—were in fact still in them at that very moment. The bulldozer did not care and did not stop its destructive work. If you wanted to live, you left. If you wanted to protest and demonstrate in front of the bulldozer, it did not care: it would bury you in the rubble. It was your choice. Of course, the Palestinians including my friend and his family all chose to live. The stood by as the bulldozer destroyed their homes and their belongings so that Israel could establish illegal settlements on the West Bank. The Palestinians were forced to move. This is not an isolated incident: rather, this type of thing happens all the time with Israel. That is why BDS needs to be supported.

Response (Normative)

Israel has a right to defend itself: those who support the BDS movement are anti-Semitic (Sheskin & Felson, 2016). They are the same people and of the same mindset as the Nazis who sought to persecute defenseless, innocent Jews during WW2. The stories that are told about Israelis bulldozing Palestinian homes and erecting settlements illegally are all untrue. Israel has a right to defend itself and a right to lay claim to territory on the West Bank. That right is part and parcel with its right to defend itself. Israel has never acted unjustly or immorally in any regard.

What Israel has done is to assert its right to self-determination. For centuries Jews have been persecuted by the West. They have been the victims of hate. Now they have a state and in order to be strong and to defend themselves…

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…engages in state-sponsored acts of vigilantism against the Palestinian people. It is not interested in a peaceful solution nor in giving back the land it has illegally taken from the Palestinians. Israel’s aim is to ethnically cleanse the region of the Palestinian people and the only thing preventing the state from achieving this ambition is the fact that so many people around the world have rallied together to raise with one voice their protest against the slaughter being inflicted upon the Palestinians by the Israelis.

Israel wants to be the dominant power in its part of the world. It does not care about human rights abuses. It does not care about the rights of Palestinians or Lebanese. It does not believe those people also have a right to exist or have a right to self-determination. In their eyes, only Israel has a right to self-determination. It is a hypocritical political and social doctrine that animates Israel to act. It is hypocritical of the U.S. to support Israel’s antagonism of its neighbors, to say the very least. The BDS movement is a way for Americans and others all over the world to protest what they see as intolerable actions on the part of Israel towards the people of Palestine, people who are everyday 100x more oppressed and victimized than the people of Israel. Yet Israel wants to act like the victim: the state should be…