Israel Matzav

Peter Beinart and MJ Rosenberg have an epiphany

The BDS movement's goals have become so blatantly obvious that even such uber-Leftists as Peter Beinart and MJ Rosenberg have been forced to admit that BDS's goal is not a 'two-state solution.'

Peter Beinart, the de facto spokesman for Liberal Zionism, famously called for a boycott of the West Bank in 2012. In the same article, however, he also called for the increasing investment inside the Green Line, in order to distinguish “Zionist BDS” from the predominant BDS movement.

“Boycotting anything inside the green line invites ambiguity about the boycott’s ultimate goal — whether it seeks to end Israel’s occupation or Israel’s existence.”

MJ Rosenberg, a longtime critic of Israel’s West Bank policy, who was spurred by last week’s debate at the University of Michigan, to write a detailed piece about the duplicity of the BDS used the same argument:

The reason why BDS keeps failing despite the almost universal recognition that the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the blockade of Gaza, are illegal and immoral is that the BDS movement is not targeting the occupation per se. Its goal is the end of the State of Israel itself.

In its view, all of historic Palestine is occupied territory; that means Tel Aviv and Haifa as much as Hebron and Nablus. Obviously, a movement dedicated to eradication of Israel as a country is never going to achieve support other than from a radical fringe.

Rosenberg and other supporters of the two-state solution – including those who support a “limited boycott” of the West Bank for that purpose – are best positioned to see that the BDS movement is not a “peace” movement and does not aim for a Palestinians state alongside a Jewish state.

BDS is an all-or-nothing proposition. You can't support BDS and support a 'two-state solution.' Beinart and Rosenberg apparently see that. Does J Street? Do other 'liberal Zionists'? Hmmm. 

Labels: BDS, J Street, Leftist Jews, liberal Jews, MJ Rosenberg, Peter Beinart, two-state solution

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:22 PM