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Source: http://time.com/3896437/why-boycotting-israel-is-a-bad-idea/
Why Boycotting Israel Is a Bad Idea
(TIME) David Wolpe - In a world in which there are few protests on campuses about Russia's treatment of Ukraine, the Taliban's treatment of women, or ISIS's history of beheadings, the nation-wide focus on Israel raises some suspicions. According to the Pew Research Center, there are 49 countries where Muslims are the majority, 158 countries and territories where Christians are the majority, and one country where Jews are. Yet Israel is routinely condemned, and the court of common sense offers a strong verdict that anti-Semitism has something to do with it. The arguments for BDS don't make sense. If you say it's to help the Palestinians, then BDS is a bad tactic because it could hurt the Palestinian economy. If you say it's for democratic reasons, then it's by working within the democratic process, not by seeking to coerce it, that one gets results. The BDS campaigns will not and cannot work. When a nation's security is at stake, making the citizens feel less secure is not a recipe for compromise. A nation surrounded by hostile powers is not moved to negotiate by threats from friends. The writer is Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles.