BDS is anti-zionist, not anti-semitic

The argument

At face value, the BDS movement addresses three separate offenses against the Palestinian people by the Israelites. One is ending the Israeli occupation of Palestine. BDS considers the Israeli state a "military occupation" of Palestinian lands. Palestinians have been forced into ghettos, and Gaza is reportedly held in an endless siege where Israel is reportedly known to "[carry] out large-scale assaults" which a condemned by the group as barbaric and in violation of international law. The second offense includes ethnic and racial discrimination against Palestinian people. Israel reportedly holds in their legal code about 50 laws that directly oppress Palestinians, who have been forcibly displaced and oppressed. The third offense is the state sponsored, Israeli led displacement of Palestinian people. About 7.5 million Palestinians have been displaced and exiled from their homes into surrounding countries, and these refugees have not been granted the right to return to their ancestral and cultural homeland. Nowhere in their arguments do they state or visibly loathe the Jewish people themselves or the Israelites. They present a clearly visible disdain for the actions the Israelites have taken against the Palestinians. They ask for accountability, but they don't ask for an eye for an eye; they don't call for the oppression of Israelites and the Jewish people, only the ceasing of Palestinian oppression. Anti-zionism s a fair argument against ethic-nationalism. Zionism is defined as a movement in favor of establishing and developing a Jewish state, meaning Israel. But denying Jewish people the right to self-determination isn’t a bigoted act. The Kurds, Catalans, and Uhygers don’t have their own states either, “yet barely anyone suggests that opposing a Kurdish or Catalan state makes you an anti-Kurdish or anti-Catalan bigot. It is widely recognized that states based on ethnic nationalism – states created to represent and protect one particular ethnic group – are not the only legitimate way to ensure public order and individual freedom.” It is argued that ethnic nationalism is more bigoted than civic nationalism, because it prioritizes the needs and desires of one portion of the population over the other, with no method in which one can join that privileged group and relish in the same privileges. Civic nationalism is built “around borders rather than heritage,” and examples include making “Spanish identity more inclusive of Catalans or Iraqi identity more inclusive of Kurds, rather than carving those multiethnic states up.” Civic nationalism is more inclusive and promotes peace and cooperation between ethnic groups, rather than giving one ethic group priority over others. There are five million Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank under Israeli control who are not given the right to vote because Israel was designed to protect and represent Jewish people; not Palestinian Arabs. So long as Israel remains a Jewish state, “no Palestinian citizen can credibly tell her son or daughter that they can become prime minister of the country in which they live. In these ways, Israel’s form of ethnic nationalism – Zionism – denies equality to the non-Jews who live under Israeli control.” Replacing the ethnic nationalism of Israel with civic nationalism is not inherently anti-semitic, and the supporters and leaders of BDS don't intend for it be- “Three Palestinian members of the Knesset introduced a bill to turn Israel from a Jewish state into a “state for all its citizens”. As one of those Knesset members, Jamal Zahalka, explained, “We do not deny Israel or its right to exist as a home for Jews. We are simply saying that we want to base the existence of the state not on the preference of Jews, but on the basics of equality … The state should exist in the framework of equality, and not in the framework of preference and superiority.”

Context

The BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) is a pro-palestine movement that "works to end international support for Israel's oppression of Palestinians and pressure Israel to comply with international law." Anti-semitism is the hostility towards Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group.<ref=ASdef> One who is Pro-Palestine is in support of a Palestinian state that existed prior to the annexation of territory for Israel.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics who consider BDS antisemitic respond on several grounds, without necessarily disputing the movement's stated intentions. First, the singling-out objection: of the many states with disputed territory or serious rights records, BDS focuses its comprehensive boycott on the world's single Jewish-majority state, which critics argue reflects a double standard — the Kurdish and Catalan analogies cut the other way, since no global boycott movement targets the states denying them. Second, some core BDS demands, particularly an unconditional right of return for all descendants of refugees, would in practice end Israel's existence as a Jewish-majority state; critics contend that denying to Jews alone the national self-determination other peoples exercise is itself discriminatory, whatever the civic-nationalist framing. Third, they note that a movement's effects and the rhetoric of some adherents can be antisemitic in operation even if its official platform disavows hostility to Jews. Defenders reply that criticism of a state's policies is legitimate and distinct from prejudice; the dispute turns on whether BDS's specific demands and focus cross that line.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Critics argue that comprehensively boycotting the single Jewish-majority state, while no comparable movement targets the states denying the Kurds or Catalans, is the double standard the analogy is meant to rebut. [Rejecting P3] Some core demands, such as an unconditional right of return, would end Israel as a Jewish-majority state, which critics argue denies to Jews alone a self-determination other peoples exercise.