Contemptible, because Omar Barghouti was calling for his boycott before and while he attended Tel Aviv University in Israel to gain a Master's Degree in philosophy, rather than attain his degree at a Gazan, Qatar or other Arab university. Yet the democratic rules that apply to citizens in Israel meant that while calling for his boycott, despite a petition by Israelis, Israeli law was on his side to continue and complete his studies.
Could you imagine calling for a boycott of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Dubai or the Emirates from within any of those countries, let alone while studying at one of the universities located there? At best you'd be jailed for years, at worst, sentenced to death.
Uncharitable because, as a multi-millionaire, he lives the high life, either in his luxury apartment in Tel Aviv (Palestinians, meanwhile, are prevented from owning property in virtually all Muslim countries) or in his luxury apartment in Doha while Palestinians are forced to survive on less than $3,000 (except those who work for Israeli companies and enjoy wages at parity with Israeli workers - one of the underlying reasons the BDS are so keen to 'boycott' and thus render Israeli-employed Palestinians jobless when Israeli firms move on).
The one thing that sets the BDS movement apart from any other anti-social group in the world is that they hypocritically call for a boycott of Israeli goods and services while at the same time continuing to use Israel products themselves. They have Facebook pages; they use Apple products; they use Pentiums and Calerons; they use Twitter; they use the Windows operating system; they use smartphones to record their Jewhating rallies - in fact, they are so knee-deep in Israeli technology, that any sentient, normal-thinking person should be otherwise totally embarrassed to be associated with such a hypocritically hate-filled group.
The far more sinister side to the BDS is not just its association with the terrorist group Hamas (with it's published charter calling for the murder of Jews and the destruction of Israel), but the fact they are openly Jewhaters spreading Jewhate. They have - and continue to - demonstrate clearly on many occasions that they simply do not care about the Palestiniains thay the group was supposedly set up to help 'defend'. In total, the BDS have helped over 3,000 Palestinains in Israel lose their jobs over the past three years, 605 alone through forcing the relocation of SodaStream from the West Bank. Yet they defend their actions in closing (most companies they have forced to close have actually just relocated and as a result have ended up employing just Israeli citizens because of their new location) a mere handful of Israeli companies (with the loss of 3,000 Palestinian jobs) as "worth the course".
Yet they make no attempt to actually replace the incomes of those Palestinians they succeed in rendering jobless!
So who are the people who support BDS?
They fall into four broad categories:
- The out and out Hamas-style Jewhaters who want to see Jews murdered and Israel disappear
- The simpleton and often right-wing anti-Zionists, Nazis and white supremacists who use it as an excuse to pursue their Jewhating agenda
- The naive people who are ostensibly good-hearted and misguidedly see Israel as the big brother and the Palestinians as the oppressed while failing to realise that it is in fact Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are the oppressors thought their usurping of world aid for their own end and have no intention of a peaceful settlement with Israel
- The rich and famous, many of whom have what appears to be an anti-Semitic streak and who treat Israel as their pet hate (while, of course, ignoring other countries with problems that are far, far worse than ANY of the problems that may be in the Israel area), many of them potentially just to further advance their careers with exposure to a new audience of ignorant, young, right-wing, closet anti-Semites - Roger Waters, Brian Eno and Annie Lennox are just three celebrities who fall into this (and, it must be added, sharing some attributes of #1 above) category, while the likes of British politicians such as failed LibDem Bradford MP David Ward, ousted Baroness Jenny Tongue and Labour MP Grahame Morris consistently demonstrate an inexplicable hate for Israel and even for Jews themselves.
Perhaps given the outing of anti-Semites in the British Labour Party, it is time these detestable people were theselves boycotted by normal, reasonable citizens.
