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We Must Fight BDS in the Name of Human Rights

(Jerusalem Post) Jonathan Sacks - There is a growing and widespread concern among friends of Israel everywhere at the increasing threat posed by the BDS movement. Our fight against this movement will not be easy, but it is a fight we can and must win, not just for the survival of Israel or the safety of the Jewish people, but for the world. Universities in particular should be vigilant in ensuring freedom of speech, which means listening respectfully to views contrary to one's own. The BDS movement is the latest incarnation of the denial to Jews as a distinctive faith and people the right to be: the right to govern themselves in the land of their beginnings. During the Middle Ages, Jews were hated for their religion. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, they were hated for their race. Today they are hated for their nation state. Anti-Semitism is not simply about Jews. It is an offense against the fundamental dignity of difference. The rebirth, in this mutated form, of anti-Semitism within living memory of the Holocaust should be chilling for anyone with a genuine sense of humanity. An assault on Jews or the Jewish state is never an assault on them alone. Today, when Christians are being persecuted and Muslims murdered by the forces of radical political Islam, all who care for human rights, particularly European governments and their Jewish communities, must stand together with the Israeli government in their defense. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks is the former chief rabbi of the UK and Commonwealth.
2015-06-12 00:00:00
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