To all the politicians, journalists, Zionist lobbyists and hacks who continually claim that BDS is irrelevant, the fact that it’s being fought at the highest levels of the Israeli government proves otherwise. Alex Kane in Mondoweiss reports:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is directly involved in growing efforts to combat the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, according to a… report on the website of Israeli newspaper… Yedioth Ahronoth.
Nahum Barnea, a leading Israeli commentator,reported June 25… that Netanyahu met with a small group of unnamed “Jewish millionaires” at the Israeli Presidential Conference last week in Jerusalem. Netanyahu “sought to raise their money and use their connections for the war against the anti-Israel boycott movement”–a movement Barnea says is “arousing great interest in Western countries, leaving its mark on the academic system, on economic decisions made by business and political organizations and on the media.”
The details from Barnea are yet another indication of how seriously the Israeli establishment is taking the BDS movement. Netanyahu’s desire to combat BDS comes… about a month after Israeli businessmen warned the prime minister… that without progress towards a two-state solution, foreign investments would be withheld and “no one” would “buy goods” from Israel. And in a speech this week, Netanyahu “promised to implement the recommendations of [the… Jewish People Policy Institute]… with regards to countering international ‘delegitimization’ and boycott initiatives,” as the… Electronic Intifada’s Ben White noted.
Barnea’s story was published a day after… Haaretz’s Judy Maltz… broke the news that the… Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations was planning… to launch a new campaign targeting BDS on college campuses. The campaign was announced by Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice-chairman of the… Conference of Presidents group.
Is there a connection between Hoenlein’s announcement and Netayahu’s meeting with a small group of Jewish millionaires on the BDS movement? The meeting took place at the Israeli Presidential Conference; Hoenlein was there, and it’s where he told Maltz the news of the new anti-BDS campaign. It’s pure speculation at this point. (I’ve put in an e-mail inquiry to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, but they have not responded.)
Hoenlein and Netanyahu are considered to be “very close,” as… Haaretz’s Barak Ravid put it in 2011… in a report on Hoenlein’s meeting with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Hoenlein reportedly delivered a message from Netanyahu to Assad, though Hoenlein… denied he did so for Netanyahu.
Whatever the case, the reportedly direct involvement of Netanyahu in anti-BDS efforts represents the latest effort by the Israeli government to enlist Jews outside the government to take on the movement. In 2010, the anti-BDS… Israel Action Network… was formed by the Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs at the urging of the Israeli government,… according to theJewish Telegraphic Agency’s Jacob Berkman.