Let’s think about why BDS wants to label me and millions of progressive Jews like me a Zionist. Let’s genuinely think about why so many pro-Palestinian protestors, steeped in the teachings of BDS, want to treat moderate two-state solution Jews the same as ultranationalist one-state Jews. Let’s think about why so many pro-Palestinian faculty—scholars of politics and history trained in the complexities of humanity—want to treat Jews who are deeply critical of Israeli policies the same as rightwing zealots incapable of criticism. Let’s think about why protestors on college campuses feel it necessary to treat virtually every Jewish kid, regardless of the nuance in their political views, with the exact same disdain. Let’s think about why it is so fundamentally central to BDS that every Jew, even those sympathetic to much of what this pro-Palestinian movement supports, be labeled a Zionist. And while you’re mulling over those questions, ask yourself why these social justice warriors have purposefully turned Zionist into a pejorative. Why have they turned it into a slur that treats every Zionist as an immoral person?
There are a few different answers to these questions. None of them good.
First, BDS is a nationalist movement with a very specific political goal. The chants and banners proclaiming From the River to the Sea—Palestine will be Free are not a metaphor for some kumbaya world in which Jews and Palestinians live in peace together. BDS does not support the idea of Jewish self-determination or the right of Jews to even live in the State of Israel. It supports the idea of a greater Palestine in which Palestinians are the majority. To be clear, the legitimacy of Israel as a majority Jewish state is an anathema to the BDS movement, and I know this because BDS is unequivocal in its fight for the full return of all people of Palestinian descent. The political aim is to turn Israel into Palestine, and to ensure that Palestinians rule. At times BDS pays lip service to a more democratic system of government, but this is disingenuous at best, Orwellian at worst. The push for the full right of return to areas within Israel is a push for the end of Jewish self-determination and rule. Simply put, BDS does not believe that Jews belong, much less should have the right to establish a nation in Israel.
The idea of Jewish rule in the land between the river and the sea is a repugnant one to the forefathers of BDS. The essence of their movement isn’t just Palestinian freedom, it’s the delegitimization of Jewish power. BDS is more than a grievance-based movement fighting against Israeli oppression. It is a political ideology immersed in revenge fantasies in which Jews no longer exist in the safety of their own nation. This is why so many proponents of BDS feel secure in lumping all Jews into a single category of evil under a single unifying epithet. A Jew could be the kid in the kippah who marched for Black Lives Matter or the grandma who drove sick Palestinians to Israeli hospitals or the LGBTQ rabbi who led an interfaith sermon. Doesn’t matter how progressive or pro-Palestinian—she’s still a Jew. And if this Jew has even one ounce of a belief that her people have a right to govern over those lands between the river and the sea, then the sum total of her identity is a Zionist.
Second, in addition to recognizing that BDS is a nationalist movement with a well-defined animus towards Jewish power, we need to think critically about why BDS sympathizers, namely pro-Palestinian college students and professors, have such contempt for Jewish kids on college campuses. Members of Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, and affiliated groups are generally reluctant, if not outright hostile, to engaging their fellow Jewish students in dialogue. Again, it doesn’t matter if you are a student who believes Palestinians are oppressed or that Israel should go back to its 1967 borders or if you believe the war in Gaza should end immediately. If you believe in the right of the Jewish people to govern in the State of Israel, they will not talk to you. In their narrow worldview, engaging in dialogue with any subset of Jew that supports the right of all people, including Jews, to self-determine, is normalizing Israeli policies. It is one thing to have a movement that advocates for boycotting, divesting, and sanctioning a nation whose policies you are trying to change. It is quite another to have a movement that requires its adherents to refrain from engaging in dialogue with the vast majority of a religious or ethnic group. That seems like something very different than a political movement—dare I say—it seems like hate.
Third, there is a powerful rush that goes along with being anti-someone, and an even more powerful rush in being anti-everyone. Convictions become cemented when we double-down on our definitions of “the other,” and as a result, we create greater unity and uniformity in our own group. The movement, in turn, rewards those who are most committed to the cause. It incentivizes those most willing to embrace the orthodoxy of the movement’s central tenets. This collective mindset is one of most common and troubling aspects of human nature, and because of its appeal, history is littered with its tragic consequences. Like other movements that reward targeted groupthink, BDS demands an extremely narrow lens. It demands heightened political fundamentalism and unyielding narratives about power structures and history. BDS is born out of a set of academic paradigms that revere binary definitions and specialized jargon. Settler Colonizers versus Indigenous People. Oppressors versus Oppressed. White versus Non-White. This binary black and white view of the world leads to a self-fulfilling certitude because all claims neatly fit into one box or the other. It is, of course, a false sense of certainty because this restrictive thinking devalues complexity to promote normative judgments over facts. In the case of BDS, if their specific normative views about the colonial nature of Israel are deemed foolproof, then it gives BDS adherents the intellectual and emotional cover to treat all Jews in this reductionist, if not prejudiced, fashion. There is no middle ground for Jews: they are Zionist or pro-Palestinian. But that’s the very point of BDS. If their goal is to delegitimize Jewish power, then why not treat as many Jews as possible as “the other.”
As someone who believes that empathy and intellectual honesty are paramount virtues of a moral society, I would like to be something other than BDS’ version of a Zionist. I would like to be something other than a slur. My hope would be that BDS could embrace Jews like me. My hope would be that BDS could embrace people who believe that Palestinians have endured a never-ending series of catastrophic economic, political, and social upheavals. My hope would be that BDS could embrace the millions of Jews who believe that Palestinians deserve to live in peace and freedom in a land they govern. I wish I could tell the staunchest believers in the BDS movement that this is how I feel. But they would never bring themselves to talk to someone like me.
Jay Schiffman
Founder & Executive Director