Last week, a group of students in my school proudly announced my universityās first BDS Week, proudly sponsored by Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights, which is one of those ubiquitous student clubs plaguing every university campus, that insist on promoting anti-Semitism in the name of freedom of speech. BDS stands for āBoycott, Divestment and Sanctionsā against (obviously) Israel. It is, as far as I can make out, an extremely proud but vehemently non-racist organization, the only non-racist organization I have ever encountered that feels the need to explain exactly what isnāt racist about it. BDS compares Israel to apartheid Africa, claiming that boycotting Israel, did I mention proudly, is a legitimate political strategy, to force Israel to cease to exist andĀ blah blah blah blah blah...
Thereās a particular garbage can on my university campus, on the fifth floor, right near the escalators going up, which contains a ripped-up newspaper, and if you feel like finding it and gluing it back together again - the newspaper, not the garbage can - the newspaper will tell you everything youāll ever need to know about BDS, including a detailed explanation of why itās not racist.
Although now that I think about it, you may as well waste your time trying to read the garbage can.
If youāre looking for another lecture about whoās right or wrong, or wondering whether or not itās morally justifiable to kill Israelis for funsies, go away. Itās obviously not okay to knife Israelis to death, a fact that is - or rather, should be - exceedingly obvious to anybody who isnāt racist or insane. How is this being turned into a Israeli vs Palestinian debate? Itās not okay to walk around with knives, stabbing people. This is an obvious moral truth that I take for granted, and if you disagree with this, then I have nothing more to say to you.
ā¦no, no matter why you feel like killing them.
Now please go away, and also stop stabbing people.
Everyone seems to feel the need to weigh in on one side or the other, like not stabbing people with knives is a questionable moral norm that requires intellectual justification. For some reason Iām still trying to understand, this appears, to the world, to be a legitimate debate. Odder still, the general public seems to have come to the conclusion that itās okay to kill Jews if theyāre a) Israeli Jews b) pro-Israel Jews c) Zionist Jews d) Jews-who-happen-to-be-in Israel Jews e) evil Jews f) Jews and g) more Jews.
Forgive me if Iāve missed any.
There are probably good reasons for this conclusion. There have been, in every era since Abraham, plenty of good reasons to kill Jews. Jews have committed many unbelievable crimes, such as a) poisoning wells b) murdering Christian children c) owning banks d) starting plagues e) not spontaneously handing over their property to non-Jews or conveniently dropping dead f) being Jews g) existing Ā h) being French spies. No oneās ever murdered Jews, so far as I can tell, just because they felt like it.
And thatās that. What else is there to say, when people think that the truth is something that exists only so as to be made up? When all people are equal - but not the Jews? When discrimination and hatred and murder is morally acceptable so long as you only target Jews? When racism is justifiable? (āWeāre not anti-Semitic! Jews really ARE evil!ā) The world appears to be stuck on the notion that Jews ought to be fun and easy to murder. Itās an indescribably odd notion to be stuck upon.
It really doesnāt say much for the progress of humanity.