http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/
Several days ago, an Australian state parliamentarian, David Clarke, ably articulated the core of the case against the abominable Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, and to their credit the vast majority of the New South Wales upper chamber agreed with him.
“The boycott, divestment and sanctions [BDS] campaign directed world-wide against the state of Israel is a campaign that is misleading and deceitful. It is a campaign that is devious and destructive. It is a campaign that engenders hate mongering and promotes division. This whole world-wide boycott, divestment and sanctions operation should be repudiated and rejected by all people of decency and goodwill …
Those who fuel this campaign say that it targets some of Israel’s policies but the truth of the matter is that it does not target Israel’s policies; it targets Israel’s legitimacy. The truth is that it targets Israel’s right to exist. The truth is that the campaign’s end result would see the state of Israel cease to exist as the state envisaged by the United Nations when it voted to recognise its legitimacy back in 1947….
The BDS campaign has at the core of its platform that there should be a right of return to Israel, not just of all Palestinians who claim to have lived in Israel at the time of its independence in 1948 and who left for whatever reason; it demands that all of the descendants of those who departed for whatever reason should also have the right of return—every child, every grandchild, every great grandchild should likewise have the automatic right of return. This would mean not just scores of thousands or even several hundred thousand; it would mean millions, even many millions. The United Nations in 1947 envisaged two states in Palestine, one Jewish and one Arab. The result of the BDS campaign would see Israel, as a predominantly Jewish state, face the destruction of its Jewish character. That is not what the United Nations envisaged over six decades ago and it is not what Australia, as a member of the United Nations six decades ago, envisaged either. And it is not something that we should, by our silence, conspire to allow to occur.
The platform of the BDS campaign demands that Israel commit national suicide…. There are forces in this world that seek the destruction of Israel by whatever means they can. The terrorists of Hezbollah and Hamas seek to achieve it by firing their rockets on the civilians of Israel. The late but unlamented Osama bin Laden devoted the last 20 years of his life to the same goal and the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has declared the same goal as a policy of state. The platform of the BDS campaign would result in the same goal as well…. ”
