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BDS' Useless Politics of Confrontation

(Times of Israel) David Makovsky and Raquel Saxe - 37 U.S. universities, including elite schools, had BDS campaigns this academic year - more than the previous two years combined. According to Gallup, Americans older than 65 support Israel's actions by a margin of 24 points, but those younger than 30 oppose these actions by 26 points. Additionally, while white Americans backed last summer's Gaza war by 16 points, non-whites opposed it by 24 points. The driving force for BDS on campus, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), has actively sought to attract minority students. Israel's critics fail to notice that minorities in Israel fare far better than in other Middle East countries. Indeed, context is relevant. The president of Harvard, Lawrence Summers, said: "We live in a world where there are nations in which the penalty for homosexuality is death...in which governments are killing tens of thousands of their own people each year. But the proponents of Israeli [BDS] do not favor any form of pressure against countries other than Israel." David Makovsky is director of the Program on the Middle East Peace Process at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Raquel Saxe was president of the Jewish Student Union at UCLA.
2015-05-25 00:00:00
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