ANT KATZ

The WIZO Conference will be held in n Cape Town from 9am on Sun 22 November. Dr Wilf is a Senior Fellow with the Jewish People Policy Institute and former chair of the Knesset Sub-Committee for Israel and the Jewish People, and Member of the influential Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee in the 18th Knesset.

Previously, Dr Wilf served as Foreign Policy Advisor to Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres and a strategic consultant with McKinsey & Company.  Born and raised in Israel, Dr Wilf served as an Intelligence Officer in the Israel Defence Forces.

Read Dr Einat Wilf’s anti-BDS paper below

She is the author of three books that explore key issues in Israeli society. These cover everything from the educational system, to electoral reform. Her most recent publication deals with how to win the war of words for Israel’s legitimacy on the International stage.

To attend her speech in Johannesburg on Monday 16 November, see details below story. To find out more about Dr Wilf, visit her English language website HERE.

Below is a Paper from her website: “War of words poses real threat” which will give users an idea of how important Dr Wilf sees the battle against BDS.

---

---

War of words poses real threat – by  Dr Wilf

The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement has many faces. Its success lies in its ability to address a wide range of positions regarding Israel and the Jews. Do you want to promote peace? Support BDS. Do you oppose the settlements enterprise? Support BDS. Are you interested in undermining the State of Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people? Looking for a respectable way to express hatred for Jews? By all means, support BDS. Want to impress your friends? Well, you know what to do.

One of the reasons why the BDS movement appeals to people from all walks of life is the pride it takes in mounting a nonviolent campaign. Its captains will have you believe they are individuals who are on a par with Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela, and that the only conclusion one can draw from their nonviolent activities is that their cause is just.

The two, however, are not necessarily mutually exclusive: History is ridden with violent actions in the name of just causes, and nonviolent acts can be successfully taken in the name of violent causes.

Certain ideologies must be introduced for militaries to mobilize against Israel, for acts of terrorism to target Israelis, and for countries to consider the use of weapons of mass destruction against it.

People do not set out to commit atrocities knowingly, not unless they are psychopaths. They do so after they begin to believe that what they are doing is both just and justified. Moreover, the most horrendous atrocities in history were committed with deep conviction that they would serve the greatest cause of all — ridding the world of evil.

This is how the BDS movement works: It fosters an ideology alleging Israel is the manifestation of pure evil, and the world would be a better place without it. It uses the “placard strategy,” meaning all those placards carried in its rallies, reading “Israel/Zionist equals … .”

None of these placards ever read “Zionism equals … a political movement representing the Jewish people’s right of self-determination in their historic homeland.” Instead, the sentence always ends with words that even some of Israel’s greatest supporters have been known to use, such as “racism,” “apartheid,” “colonialism,” “war crimes,” “ethnic cleansing,” “Nazism,” “child-killers,” and “genocide.”

Those using these words would have us believe they represent reality, but using such words has little to do with reality and everything to do with what they symbolize, evil.

SA has experienced BDS’ Placard campaigns

The “placard strategy,” which is not limited to protest rallies and is used by anti-Israel speakers across all spheres, creates a repetition of the message that “Israel/Zionism equals evil.” This may not be a violent method, but it encourages violence, which is gradually realized. Those who come to believe there is evil in the world are bound to want to eradicate it, and when the time comes, they may believe the end justifies the means.

The “placard strategy” does more than just define “evil,” it defines its polar opposite — “good” — using a host of positive phrases, such as “justice,” “rights,” “solidarity,” “freedom,” and peace.”

Students in the U.S., many of them Jews, join a group called Students for Justice in Palestine. After all, what well-meaning person, let alone a young person who wishes to make the world right, does not want justice for Palestine? But the individuals behind this group believe the wrong that must be made right is the very inception of the State of Israel. For them, justice will only be served if and when Israel disappears. This is a violent goal whose essence — ethnic cleansing and genocide — is disguised by lofty words.

This is why international forums such as the U.N. General Assembly, the Orwellian-named U.N. Human Rights Council, and most recently FIFA, the international soccer federation, have become the arenas of choice for groups seeking to ban Israel from the global community.

These actions, often backed within these forums by an automatic majority, allow those preaching BDS to label Israel a “war criminal,” and breed a myriad of measures, including anti-Israel resolutions by the General Assembly and the UNHRC, biased draft resolutions at the Security Council, International Criminal Court appeals, and the formation of commissions of inquiry whose sole purpose is to expose the “evils” perpetrated by Israel.

International forums and commissions of inquiry serve the purposes of hiding the violent goals of the struggle against Israel behind lofty language advocating human rights and solidarity.

The main reason international forums are used as the primary arena against Israel, however, is that they provide anti-Israel groups an opportunity to present their vision of an Israel-free world to all, which is the way they believe is should be.

Two-Staters should lead fight against BDS

This is why those who truly want to fight for a peace based on the right of the Jewish and Palestinian peoples to self-determination in their homelands should be the ones leading the fight against the BDS movement.

If the world supports the notion that Zionism and Israel are the epitome of evil, then clearly the Palestinians cannot be expected to negotiate with it. After all, evil must be eradicated, not accepted in the name of peaceful coexistence.

Moreover, if justice for the Palestinians justifies the ethnic cleansing of Jews, and if the vision of global redemption includes an Israel-free world, then surely the Palestinians cannot be expected to agree to a permanent resolution of the conflict that would include recognizing Israel’s right to exist as the Jewish homeland.

Peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians will be possible only when both parties realize the other side cannot be defeated, and therefore they must reluctantly compromise and accept each other’s independent existence. Those fostering the Palestinians’ illusion that Israel and its Jewish sovereignty can be defeated, if not through an Arab boycott and terrorism then by global isolation and public diplomacy onslaughts, only push peace farther away.

The fight for peace is one of many facets and stages. At this time, the fight for peace requires fighting the BDS movement.

The flyer on Dr Einar Wilf’s Johannesburg talk