BDS seeks to delegitimize and destabilize Israel

The argument

The leaders and supporters of BDS (Boycott, Divest, and Sanction) claim that their aim is to place financial pressure on the state of Israel until they unoccupy Palestinian territory and abide by international human rights laws in regards to the people of Palestine. However, many of those who oppose BDS “believe that the real aim of the antisemitic boycott movement is of course the delegitimization of the State of Israel.” Israel has been faced with a multitude of existential threats since it was founded in 1948, and BDS is “another attempt to demoralize and destabilize a critical U.S. ally. Compounding these challenges is economic aggression.” The argument that BDS is anti-semitic is based off the premise that BDS is denying Jewish people the right to self-determination and an autonomous state of their own. “The idea that all other peoples can seek and defend their right to self-determination but Jews cannot,” declared US Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer in 2017, “is antisemitism.” In addition, once that statehood has been achieved, it shouldn't be taken away. The argument as to whether or not the state of Israel ever should have come into existence is no longer relevant - Israel, in the modern day, is home to millions of people with a new and distinct identity and culture. Present day citizens had nothing to do with the conception of the Israeli state in 1948, and "Anti-Zionism proposes nothing less than the elimination of that identity and the political dispossession of those who cherish it.” BDS seeks to consistently undermine the comfort, security, and quality of life of Jewish people in Israel who are trying to carve out a safe space for themselves in a world that has targeted them for centuries. Claiming that Israel should be a state for all its citizens, with equal rights for Jewish people and non Jewish people is a form of delegitimization that is inherently anti-semitic.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Defenders of BDS respond that the movement, by its own official platform, targets state policies — occupation, settlement expansion and the treatment of Palestinians — rather than Jewish people as such, and that pressuring a government is standard political action rather than bigotry. They argue that equating opposition to specific Israeli policies with the denial of Jewish self-determination conflates a state with an entire people, and note that many Jewish individuals and organisations themselves support the movement. Boycotts, they add, have long been a nonviolent tool used against numerous states without being described as hatred of those states' populations.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] BDS's stated aim is to change Israeli state policy, not to deny that Jewish people may have a state; critics argue the premise recasts political pressure as identity-based denial. [Rejecting P2] Whether BDS "functions" to destabilise Israel is contested; supporters describe a limited campaign of economic pressure tied to specific human-rights demands, not an existential threat. [Rejecting P3] Opposing particular policies of a state is not equivalent to denying its citizens' identity, so pressure on Israeli policy need not amount to a denial of Jewish self-determination.