"I realize that boycotts conjure up hot-button memories for Jews, but once we accept that Israel is the overwhelmingly powerful party in the equation, I think we can see the BDS movement for what it is and what it isn't. BDS is not a weapon of the powerful against the powerless, a la the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses in 1930s Germany. The Palestinian BDS call is more accurately akin to the Montgomery Bus Boycott in the American civil rights movement or the divestment movement against South African apartheid. It is a form of nonviolent direct action directed by an oppressed people who seek popular support for their liberation.
....it is enormously painful for many Jews to see Israel targeted in this way. But if Israel is becoming a pariah, that's due largely to its own actions. Defenders of Israel complain that BDS delegitimizes Israel; I'd say that, up until now, Israel has been doing a very good job of delegitimizing itself. Israel simply cannot consider itself to be "the only democracy in the Middle East" if it insists on implementing policies that put it on the road toward apartheid."
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