The BDS campaign against reggae singer Matisyahu vividly demonstrates that what starts with a boycott against Israel will end with a campaign against Jews.
But instead of backing down in dignified manner, as the Rototom Sunsplash reggae festival did when it reversed its decision to cancel his performance, the BDS Pais Valencia group dug its heels in with a perplexing statement full of finger-pointing and facile justifications.
The biggest head-scratcher on the list of points is certainly number 6 :
While the media has portrayed this effort as part of the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, we wish to make clear that our efforts are outside the remit of the cultural boycott of Israel as per the guidelines issued by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). BDS calls for boycotts against Israeli institutions that are complicit in Israel’s violations of international law, not against individuals. Unlike the cultural boycott movement against apartheid South Africa, the Palestinian-led BDS movement does not call for boycotting individual artists, academics, etc. [bold type in the original]
So wait, according to this, the perception that this is a BDS campaign is just a product of the media? Might not people assume it’s BDS on their own simply because it’s run by a group with BDS in its name and aims to boycott an artist for alleged sympathies to Israel?
[sc:graybox ]Join the Fighting BDS Facebook page and follow @FightingBDS on Twitter and stand up against the delegitimization of Israel.
But that’s not even the most mystifying part of the statement. In a stunning show of pretzel logic, the statement claims that the effort was not a BDS campaign (or not conforming to BDS standards, if such a thing exists) because the BDS guidelines warn against exactly this type of action.
But that makes no sense at all. If you’re a BDS group and you run a boycott campaign, what difference does it make what it says on the BDS site? If those words don’t guide the actions of the people on the ground, do they meaning anything? In the real world, actions, not words, reveal intentions.
Of course, this is not the only case of targeting an individual for boycott. Just days before Matisyahu’s festival cancellation hit the news, an Israeli film-maker was boycotted by an Oslo film festival. And BDS Valencia is not alone in the view that Matisyahu was a legitimate target.
And that is the inevitable other lesson of the entire affair – what starts with a boycott against Israeli institutions will end up targeting individuals. And you can count on the BDS to play the role of thought police, where only one view is acceptable.
