The antisemitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement is achieving its goal of isolating Israel — thanks to the fact that Hamas has refused to end the war and release the last hostages it seized on October 7, 2023.
The movement, which launched during the bloody wave of terror in the second intifada (2000-2005), had struggled to gain traction, except in some anti-Israel parts of Europe and on a few college campuses.
Indeed, with the Abraham Accords in 2020, which saw several Arab and Muslim countries make peace and normalize relations with Israel, BDS, which only targets Israel and not the Palestinians, seemed to have failed entirely.
But after Hamas launched its unprovoked and brutal attacks on Israel, murdering 1200 people — mostly civilians — and taking 250 hostages, several frightened countries recognized a Palestinian state.
That movement has accelerated in recent weeks, as the war grinds on in its final stages, with Hamas leaders refusing to accept defeat, and attempting — successfully — to create a sense of crisis around hunger in Gaza.
Several major western countries — France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia — have now said they, too, will recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations in September. And anti-Israel boycotts, both formal and informal, have been spreading across Europe and the west. Here are just a few examples:
- France has reportedly refused to renew visas for security staff of El Al, Israel’s national air carrier
- Baggage handlers at Brussels Airlines have said that their staff no longer wish to work flights to Israel
- Academic boycotts of Israeli researchers and institutions are spreading — except in the United States
- Germany — Israel’s best ally in Europe — has cut off defense shipments to Israel over the war in Gaza
- Italy is threatening sanctions against Israel, claiming Israel has “lost its reason and humanity”
- Norway’s sovereign wealth fund has said that it was too slow to divest from Israel, and will do so now
As hysteria spreads in the global media about Palestinian starvation — a claim that has largely been invented by Hamas — the world is ignoring the fate of the 50 remaining Israeli hostages, 20 of whom are still thought to be alive. The world is also ignoring the strategic danger of rewarding Hamas terrorists for their cruelty.
From an Israeli perspective, the world’s behavior is bewildering. This was not a war Israel chose to fight; this is an existential war, because Hamas and its Iranian backers have made clear that they intend to continue to attack Israel in the hope of destroying it. And given Hamas’s refusal to abandon that goal, or to release the hostages, there is no choice but to continue to fight to right Gaza of the terrorist organization. Any country would do the same — and, in fact, many countries have done the same. The Allies fought Nazi Germany until it surrendered, causing major hardship to the German population, including years of hunger and starvation.
Israel is actually providing humanitarian aid to its enemy — unprecedented in the history of war — but is still being isolated.
BDS is winning — thanks to a strategic alignment with Hamas, hostage-taking, and terror.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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