Real message of Marrickville BDS; Zionists scared of focus on occupation

It’s one day before the New South Wales election.

Sydney’s Marrickville council embraced BDS late last year and since then we’ve seen a litany of hysterical attacks by the Zionist lobby, Liberal Party, Labor Party and Murdoch press.

The main “issues”? The Greens are anti-Semitic, want Israel destroyed and hate Jews. That’s the kind of predictable drivel pushed by Labor MP Michael Danby (who never saw an Israeli war he didn’t like).

Anything to avoid discussion about the Zionist treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

In the Australian, Bruce Loudon writes that Israel is nothing like apartheid South Africa because the Zionist state is a thriving democracy with rights for all. Palestinians? Well, there are “restrictions on people living in the occupied territories”:

South Africa’s apartheid was an indefensible system based entirely on race in its basest and most outrageous form, on whites believing they were superior by virtue of their skin colour, and insisting that blacks should be condemned to a life of servitude for white masters.

There is simply no basis for any similar condemnation of Israel. Yes, there are restrictions on the flow of people to and from Gaza – hardly surprising given Gaza’s role as a hotbed of anti-Israeli ferment and violence and the power base of the murderous, Iranian-backed Hamas militants. How could Israel reasonably be expected to do otherwise?

Loudon is just the latest in a long line of old dopes who have no idea or don’t care what Israel is doing in Palestine. Leading Israeli writers are despairing at the corrosive effects of the occupation but a Murdoch columnist in Australia thinks the Jewish state is praise-worthy. Good to hear.

Palestinian civilians are being murdered in Gaza, non-violent resistance to the West Bank occupation is growing and mainstream Israeli politicians are desperate to damn even American Zionists (like J Street) who don’t embrace every Israeli policy.

That’s why BDS is so essential. Everything else is just white noise.

Text and images ©2024 Antony Loewenstein. All rights reserved.

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