(Washington Times) David May and Benjamin Weinthal - On July 9, 2005, Omar Barghouti, then a graduate student in philosophy at Tel Aviv University, launched a campaign to boycott, divest and sanction (BDS) the State of Israel. In a May 2020 podcast in Arabic, Barghouti confirmed that BDS seeks to eliminate the "Zionist state." Yet, after 15 years, Israel has only become stronger economically and diplomatically. BDS has notched modest successes among American academics, church groups and campus organizations, but it failed to make inroads beyond the low-hanging fruit. Many U.S. lawmakers have condemned BDS. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called on Americans to "be vigilant against bigoted or dangerous ideologies masquerading as policy, and that includes BDS." In 2017, governors of all 50 states signed a letter opposing BDS. And over half of U.S. states have laws that prevent state investment, bar state contracts or prohibit the use of state funds for companies boycotting Israel. David May is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where Benjamin Weinthal is a research fellow.
2020-08-06 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive