Noah Daponte-Smith wrote an article in two parts. The first
is about the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement that's mounted across
the globe, including America ,
in an effort to discipline Israel
and make it a normal country … if that's at all possible.
The second part is about what he calls the hypocrisy and
barren public sphere in America .
In fact, the title of the article is just that: “BDS, Hypocrisy, and Our Barren
Public Sphere.” It was published on July 21, 2017 in National Review Online.
Having articulated a short argument on BDS in the first part
of the article, Noah Smith started the second part by expressing his hope that
his “condemnation of the Senate bill that would ban boycotts of Israeli products,
will suffice for those who ask when the right-wing defenders of free speech
would profess their opposition to the bill.” He then carried on with a long and
tedious haggle … which is a continuation of the usual debate he's been having
with his left-wing opposites.
My interest in this discussion is what he says about BDS,
and only that. What he says, in fact, is very little, all the more so because
he only repeats what the ACLU said in a letter to the senators backing the
bill. To that, he simply adds the obvious remark that the “proposed legislation
is unconstitutional and unconscionable. The senators supporting it should be
ashamed of themselves.” Big deal.
To explain my point of view regarding the BDS movement, I
start by recalling an incident I experienced two decades ago of which I had the
opportunity to tell the story nine years ago; just a few months after I started
this blog. I did so in an article I wrote under the title: “Charity Begins At
Home Not Israel .”
It can be accessed in the archives at the right side of this page by clicking
the year 2008, and then clicking the month of June. It is worth reading the
entire article.
For those who will not do so, I here repeat its most salient
parts. When Egypt got
interested in relaunching its mining industry after a long hiatus, I approached
a number of mining executives in Ontario ,
Canada
“The government of Ontario passed legislation that prohibits business from
complying with the Arab boycott of Israel . Now, every time a company
does business with an Arab country, the executives can be dragged to court and
forced under the threat of ruin and doing time in jail to explain why they are
not doing business with Israel .
They would be considered guilty of anti-Semitism, forced to apologize publicly
and made to promise they will do business with Israel as soon as possible. They
will be placed on a watch list, and expected to jump on every occasion to pour
money into Israel
whether or not it made business sense. Meanwhile, every document in their
filing cabinets could be subpoenaed and examined by the Jews to ascertain that
no one in the company harbors now, or has ever harbored ill feelings toward Israel or the
Jews”.
This is how McCarthyism in
reverse looks like.
Things have changed, and several Canadian companies –
including some from Ontario – have gone to Egypt and are
operating in the country, or have applied to operate there. What is unlikely to
happen now, is that another Canadian province will contemplate looking at this
kind of legislation any time soon.
As to the United
States of America , what is flabbergasting in
that country about the already weird federal congress as well as the State
governors and their legislatures, is that they embraced the Jewish argument
that was responsible for the worldwide popular uprisings repeated across time
and space. They all demanded that the Jewish question be resolved in any
fashion and without delay.
Are these politicians so dumb they have difficulty grasping
the truth? Or are they so devilish, they know the truth but pretend not to
because their goal is to make the violent outcome happen as soon as possible to
get rid of the Jews in their midst while pretending to be friends with Israel?
Think about it … knowing the history of the Holocaust, the
lieutenants of the American ship of state are well aware they cannot impose the
will of the Jews on their people, forcing them to buy products they don't want
to consume. And yet, here they are doing it. In fact, they seem to feel so
proud of what they are doing, they pin their evil act on the chest to display
their unbounded pride.
What they may not know, however, is that in the eyes of
others, this performance looks like a parent that has gone berserk, has raped
or murdered everyone in the family, and now asks the world to congratulate him
or her for a job done well. Just follow what the American ambassador to the UN
is telling the world and be disgusted.