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Initiatives to boycott Israel (including Israeli universities), divest from Israeli companies, and otherwise sanction Israelis and supporters of Israel are based on libels against Israel. Such initiatives aim to debilitate Israel and intimidate Jewish staff, faculty, and students at Canadian institutions of higher learning. They are an affront against intellectual honesty, academic freedom and integrity, faculty and student mobility, and university fiduciary responsibility to act in the financial best interests of beneficiaries – and, as such, should be rejected by fair-minded observers and executives.

In short, the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement is illiberal and antithetical to campus and Canadian values. Capitulating to BDS demands will only incentivize future rules violations and further antisemitism on campus. Colleges and universities should proactively affirm their commitment to the free exchange of ideas and wide access to academic opportunities, including Israeli academic institutions and academics.

Key Reasons To Reject BDS

BDS demands self-determination for Palestinians while denying this same right to the Jewish People. It is a non-violent means to a violent end.
BDS singles out Israel, ignoring the many other human rights violations committed by countries around the world. It holds Israelis and Jews to a different moral standard than others.
Any endorsement or serious discussion of BDS by an institution will incite hatred, engender division, and lead to an increase in antisemitic actions against Jewish or pro-Israeli campus community members.

This resource page provides limited outlines of essential points for consideration on the topic of BDS. It is not an exhaustive resource or strategy to combat hateful BDS efforts. PLEASE CONTACT US FOR MORE INFORMATION ON ADDRESSING SPECIFIC BDS CONCERNS AT YOUR INSTITUTION!

CONTACT US

What Is BDS?

Background

BDS is an acronym for “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions,” a campaign that seeks to delegitimize and isolate Israel – and Israel alone – around the world and in global forums.   BDS activists promote the false idea that Israel is solely responsible for the Arab-Israeli conflict and, in turn, push for a boycott of the Jewish and democratic state. These boycotts take many forms – from telling consumers not to buy Israeli products, to calling for universities to cut ties with Israeli professors and universities, to calls for Israelis to be banned from international sports competitions.    The intent of those employing BDS language seems not to be to resolve the conflict or promote reconciliation, but rather to single out Israel and challenge the Jewish state’s right to be treated with the same standard of fairness applied to any other democracy in the world.   All Canada’s major political parties have unequivocally rejected this odious tactic – clear evidence that BDS is at odds with the Canadian consensus and outside the genuine peace movement that emphasizes fairness and mutual responsibilities. At colleges and universities, administrations, senates, and boards at institutions of higher education have also rejected academic BDS efforts due to their being antithetical to core principles of academic freedom and the pursuit of academic excellence.

BDS is a pernicious assault on Jews and Israel and an offense to academic freedom and Canadian values 

Malicious Intent

The intent of those seeking to impose boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel and Israelis is not at all peaceful or peace-seeking. Generally, those calling for BDS aim not to help resolve conflict or promote reconciliation but rather to criminalize – even crush – Israel. BDS is clearly at odds with Canadian values. BDS initiatives fall far outside the genuine search-for-peace imperative that animates Canadian public life and national security policy.

While BDS initiatives rarely succeed, they do create a lot of tension and divisiveness on campus. Often, the vilification of Israel and its supporters creates an atmosphere that isolates Jewish and pro-Israel students, sometimes emboldening antisemitic actions or expressions.

BDS is fundamentally antithetical to core principles of academic freedom, rigorous intellectual honesty and fairness, and the pursuit of academic excellence. It imposes a single narrative on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, shutting out opportunities for academic debate, compromise, and dialogue – activities that would otherwise help bring campus members together, instead of dividing them. Moreover, it must be recognized that, for most Jews, Israel (and, by definition, the Zionist movement founded in the principle of the Jewish people’s return to Zion, a.k.a. Israel) is an integral part of their Jewish identity. (See Brym, 2024). Boycotting Israeli sporting, cultural, and academic institutions would, therefore, be synonymous with boycotting elements of their Jewish identity. Likewise, divesting from Israeli companies would be an affront to Jewish national identity and pride. As such, BDS harms equity by creating an unsafe, distinctly anti-Jewish atmosphere on campus.

BDS Is A Tripwire into Antisemitism 

BDS discriminates against Jews. The movement disregards the identity of the Jewish people, their connection to Israel, and their right to self-determination. It defines the Palestinian narrative as absolute truth, while rejecting the plethora of narratives that populate the Middle East debate, including the Jewish narrative.   

BDS seeks not to create a neighbouring Palestinian State but to replace Israel completely. Under the guise of humanitarianism, the BDS movement aims to extend the right of self-determination to Palestinians while denying it to Jews. The BDS movement’s demands directly contradict the global consensus of a peaceful and negotiated two-state solution.  

Singling out Israel, the only Jewish State, holds Israelis and Jews to a different moral standard than others. This is a form of antisemitism. BDS, if passed, would demonize and alienate Jewish students on campus, for whom Israel is a central tenet of their identity. 

Although many supporters of BDS say they are not anti-Jewish but rather critical of the actions of the Israeli government, by lending their support to the BDS movement, they are supporting an organization that is antisemitic, if not in intent, certainly in effect. Criticism of Israel is not antisemitic, and saying so is wrong. But singling Israel out for selective condemnation and opprobrium – let alone denying its right to exist or seeking its destruction – is discriminatory and hateful, and not saying so is dishonest.  

Claims, Myths, and Facts

  • While a very small percentage of Jews do, in fact, support BDS, their views do not make BDS any less antisemitic. The personal ideals and perspectives of Jews who support BDS do not invalidate the narrative of the vast majority of Jews worldwide who identify strongly with Israel’s right to exist.  

    Learn more about why tokenizing Jews can lead to further harm and antisemitism!  

  • Israel is not a colonial state, or a foreign import in the Middle East. It is the modern expression of Jewish historical ties to the Land of Israel, an expression of national self-determination in the Jewish People’s indigenous homeland, with roots in the Bible. Jews are the only extant indigenous people of the land and the only people for whom it was ever their national kingdom more than 3,000 years ago. Jews have also lived continuously in the land of Israel despite numerous expulsions and colonization efforts by foreign invaders.  
     
    Calling Israel “colonialist” negates Jews’ documented indigenous ties to their homeland, while rejecting Christianity too (Jesus emerged in a deeply Jewish land of Israel also called Judea). In short, Jews are the original aboriginal people of Israel. They have been tied to the same land, praying to the same God, and maintaining the same traditions and culture for millennia.   

  • Israel is assuredly and obviously not an “apartheid” state. Israel is the most liberal democracy in the Middle East, with equal rights for all its citizens, including its Christian, Muslim, Druze, and Bahai minorities. Arab citizens of Israel actively serve in Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset (parliament), as supreme court judges, and in the Israel Defense Forces. 

    Speculative claims by Amnesty International and other proponents of BDS’s an anti-Israel movement that goes beyond critiquing Israeli policies and actions to painting Israel's very existence as illegitimate, immoral, and flawed – are both false and profoundly alarming, especially in the context of the events on October 7, 2023, that have demonstrated the very real security concerns Israel faces.   
     
    In short, labelling Israel as an “apartheid” state risks blurring the lines between criticism of Israeli policies and antisemitic assertions that demonize the Jewish state and the Jewish connection to Israel. Moreover, falsely singling out Israel with a term linked to severe injustice and discrimination emboldens hostility directed against Jews worldwide.   

  • The genocide libel inverts reality. Genocide is an internationally recognized crime where acts are committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Ethnic cleansing is the purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.  

    Israel’s wars have been of self-defence, in accordance with international law. Furthermore, during wars or other military operations, Israel targets military assets (armed combatants, rocket launchers, terrorist headquarters, and other such infrastructure), avoiding civilians to the extent possible. That any Palestinian civilians are killed during these operations is a tragedy, but, as the intent is not to kill civilians but to target terrorism, it by no measure constitutes genocide or ethnic cleansing.   

    Genocide and ethnic cleansing result in a significant decline of the population in a given geographic area. However, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, in 1948, the Palestinian population in today’s Israel, West Bank, and Gaza was 1.4 million, a total that, today, has grown to 5.5 million (approximately 2 million Arab citizens of Israel, 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank, and 778,000 Palestinians in Gaza). This growth belies any claims of genocide or ethnic cleansing against Palestinians. Hamas’ central military tactic is to use civilians as human shields. To that end, it has spent 16 years embedding its extensive terror infrastructure in and under mosques, schools, hospitals, and homes.  
     
    In contrast, Israel has gone to greater lengths to avoid Palestinian civilian casualties in wartime than any military in modern recorded history. Israel targets enemy military assets (armed combatants, rocket launchers, terrorist headquarters, etc.), not civilian populations. Palestinian civilian deaths during military operations are tragic, but, in fact, the ratio of Palestinian civilians to Hamas and Islamic Jihad combatants killed in Gaza is vastly lower than that achieved by any other in warfare.    
     
    Moreover, throughout the war, Israel has provided and facilitated the delivery of massive amounts humanitarian aid – food, water, medicine – to Palestinians in Gaza, whereas Hamas regularly diverts this aid, especially fuel, for its war effort. Israel has continued to do this even though Hamas continues to hold and torture Israeli hostages without allowing International Red Cross visits or adhering to any other principle of International Humanitarian Law.     
     
    It must be emphasized that Hamas initiated the current conflict and is thus fully responsible for every death, especially as its terrorist militants hide behind Gazans and Israeli hostages. And still, Israel has minimized civilian deaths in its just war of self-defence.   
     
    Contrary to these libelous accusations, the historical record shows that Israel consistently seeks peace with its neighbours. Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt in 1979 in exchange for peace and has since also made peace with Jordan, the UAE, Sudan, and Morocco.  
     
    Conversely, Palestinians have regularly rejected peace. Under the Oslo Accords negotiated with the PLO (which became the “Palestinian Authority”) in the 1990s, Israel began withdrawing from six West Bank cities, only to suffer waves of Palestinian terrorism from 2000-2003, during which more than 1,000 innocents were murdered. In 2005, Israel withdrew completely from Gaza, and yet Hamas broke through Israel’s border on October 7, 2023, to commit the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust.     
     
    The current conflict and the reaction to it represents an existential threat not only to the existence of the world’s only Jewish state but also to Jews around the world. The Hamas charter and most Palestinian documents call for Israel’s annihilation “from the River to the Sea.” Chants to “Globalize the Intifada” also endorse the mass murder of Jews anywhere and everywhere. While many in Canada may not understand that much of the pro-Palestinian rhetoric against Israel they robotically repeat explicitly urges the murder of every Jew, those like Ayatollah Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah (an Iranian proxy army, based in Lebanon), who said: “If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice I do not say ‘the Israeli’,” are more forthcoming about their intentions.   
     
    Israel, like any country, is not perfect, but the apocalyptic call by too many Palestinians and their supporters for the ‘elimination of Jews’ (not “just” Israel’s destruction) is wholly unacceptable.