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Why BDS Fails the 3D Test on Anti-Semitism

(Newsweek) Natan Sharansky - To distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism, 20 years ago I formulated the 3D test for anti-Semitism. The three Ds are demonization, delegitimization, and double standards - the three main tools that anti-Semites employed against Jews throughout history. This test shows that the same tools are being used today against the collective Jew - the Jewish State. Many who support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement may do so out of a naive belief that it is working to achieve a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But the movement takes it cue from the BDS National Committee based in Ramallah in the West Bank. It has one goal: the destruction of the State of Israel - a goal cleverly masked behind the veneer of fighting for human rights. When caricatures against Israeli leaders repeat the worst anti-Semitic caricatures of Czarist Russia or Nazi Germany, depicting Israelis as crucifying Palestinians and portraying Palestinians as living in Nazi death camps - that is demonization. When the legitimacy of the Jewish State is denied and, in the language of some of the founders and key promoters of BDS, there is no place for a Jewish state in the Middle East in any borders - that is delegitimization. Indeed, the movement's leader, Omar Barghouti, has said unequivocally: "Most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine.'' When the Jewish State is singled out for criticism that not even the vilest dictatorship is subject to and it is held to standards that not even the most vibrant democracy is judged by - those are double standards. The writer, a former Prisoner of Zion in the Soviet Union, served as Israel's Minister for Diaspora Affairs, Deputy Prime Minister, and Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel.
2019-09-26 00:00:00
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