BDS, the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement calls for boycotting Israel in order to bring “an end to Israel's occupation and colonization of all Arab lands … “ (1) Omar Barghouti, one of BDS’ founders makes it clear that “all Arab lands” includes the land that is today known as the State of Israel. He said "I clearly do not buy into the two-state solution... you would not have a two-state solution, you would have a Palestine next to Palestine, rather than a Palestine next to Israel." BDS activist Ahmed Koor declares that "Ending the occupation doesn't mean anything if it doesn't mean upending the Jewish state itself… BDS does mean the end of the Jewish state." (2)
So what is the problem with advocating an end to the Jewish state? The problem is that it causes most Jews to prepare to defend the Jewish nation and the Jewish state by force if need be. In other words, it is tantamount to calling for yet more war and violence.
For 2000 years the Jewish nation lacked a state of its own. It therefore lacked the military capability to defend itself against the aggression to which it was repeatedly subjected. Even more tragic, the Jewish nation lacked a state to which it’s members could flee the oppression, massacres, forced conversions and expulsions that they repeatedly suffered living as an often despised minority in both Christian and Muslim societies. That long history produced a nation convinced that, above anything else, it needed to re-establish itself in its own nation-state, a state with the will and capability to defend the Jewish nation against aggression and to provide a place to which Jews living as minorities in Diaspora countries could flee if they were again attacked or oppressed. As things turned out, that 2 millennia history of defenselessness culminated in an attempted genocide in which six million innocent non-combatant members of the Jewish nation were murdered in cold blood. Most of the victims had no way to escape because, with only insignificant exceptions, no state would accept them. That only reinforced the already perceived need for the existence of a Jewish state and hardened that perception into an absolutely indelible first order existential and moral principle in the psyche of the Jewish nation.
To the extent that the BDS and one state movements challenge the continued existence or question the legitimacy of the Jewish state, they become enemies of the Jewish nation -- not only in the thinking of a right wing Jewish fringe, but also in the minds of mainstream Jews both in Israel and the Disapora. The reaction among most Jews to the BDS and to the one state movements is to halt risk taking, halt consideration of compromises, prepare for confrontation, and advocate the use of force if need be to guarantee the continued existence of a Jewish state. Self-declared peace groups can only hope to achieve their professed goal if their advocacy unequivocally includes the continued existence of the only Jewish state in the world. Those that challenge the legitimacy and continued existence of a Jewish state only discredit the whole peace movement. They convince Jews, both in Israel and the Diaspora, that the peace camp harbors an unspoken agenda that includes the annihilation of the only Jewish state in the world and the return of the Jewish nation to its tragic historic state of national defenselessness.
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