What the U.S. Can Do to Fight BDS

Noting that the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel features a strong undercurrent of anti-Americanism, Benjamin Weinthal and Asaf Romirowsky encourage Washington to take action:

First, the U.S. Congress should submit the Combating BDS Act of 2016 for President Trump’s signature. The bipartisan legislation would permit state and local governments to penalize companies participating in BDS. . . .

Second, Trump can join other world leaders, especially those from BDS ground-zero countries in Western Europe, and declare BDS an anti-Semitic movement that runs counter to all peace efforts. Moreover, lawmakers should push through Congress the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act. . . . This legislation would give the U.S. Department of Education the statutory tools to examine anti-Semitic incidents [in schools and universities] in the broadest and most effective way possible. . . . The act will enhance the Department of Education’s ability to identify, investigate, and punish all forms of anti-Semitism, including anti-Zionism and anti-Israel harassment.

Third, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, can help to move the United States out of the company of the jackals and state that [the recent Security Council resolution regarding Israeli settlements] boosts BDS and should be discarded and disdained. . . . Finally, U.S. ambassadors in countries where BDS is flourishing—countries such as Ireland, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Belgium—should deliver speeches in those countries condemning the movement. Moreover, the ambassadors should advocate that the European Union replicate anti-BDS legislation. . . .

The BDS movement has been incorrectly viewed as exclusively anti-Israel. Take one telling example: Code Pink, an allegedly pro-peace U.S. group that is a main actor in the [American] BDS network. Code Pink supports many of America’s principal enemies—the Islamic Republic of Iran and Communist North Korea, just to name a couple.

Read more at RealClearWorld

More about: anti-Americanism, Anti-Semitism, BDS, Israel & Zionism, U.S. Politics

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF