Jerusalem confab eyes Israeli view of BDS

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Debate on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is often heard loudest from Jews in America and the rest of the Diaspora,rather than focusing on what leaders in the movement’s stated target—Israel—are saying. 

Israelis aired their views at a “Stop the Boycott” conference in Jerusalem on March 28.

“We need to go where they are and be better than they are,” Member of Knesset Yair Lapid, leader of Israel’s Yesh Atid political party, told the assemblhy. “There is no way that the ‘start-up nation’ could not know how to do a better job than they are doing,”

“There is no way we will not be able to reach every campus and debate and win those debates,” Lapid said. “Why are we not doing it? It’s like the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) being told not to go where they are shooting. If they are shooting, go and fight. We are fighting for this state.”

Similarly, Israeli opposition leader MK Isaac Herzog (Zionist Union) said the pro-Israel community can’t take out one mosquito at a time.

“We cannot walk around with a racket that kills mosquitoes here on this campus or a little mosquito there—we need to dry up the swamp. It is in our hands to change it,” he said.

“I think Israeli politicians need to address issues like BDS,” said Elana Yael Heideman, executive director of the Israel Forever Foundation, which works to combat BDS.

That may not be a simple matter, however.

One conference panel featured five Israeli politicians from various parties and perspectives and each offered commentary on fighting BDS, but no fully-baked solutions to the problem.

“This is what Israeli politicians are grappling with,” said Tovah Lazaroff, deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post, who covers issues relating to BDS for the English-language Israeli daily newspaper. “If they had a solution, they would have already done it.”

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