Does Anti-Semitism Run Concurrent with the BDS Movement?

“I can tell you that many protesters who advocate for ‘Palestine’ would find themselves not so welcome in its territories. The outspoken feminists at the National Women’s Studies Association who endorse BDS and attack the Jewish state would not be so loud on the streets of Hebron.”

When Manny Yekutiel first introduced his café in the Bay Area in November of last year, it was this Israeli’s intention that the restaurant double as a “civic social gathering space.” As a progressive Jew, Mr. Yekutiel hosted speakers from the Black Lives Matter movement as well as speakers from movements that focused on urban sustainability. “I wanted to create a central, accessible, and affordable place to go to become a better informed and more involved citizen,” he told the San Francisco Examiner upon opening Manny’s in the Mission District. If you were to read next, then, that one morning while Mr. Yekutiel went to unlock the café, he would discover one of his windows had been smashed and a Star of David had been graffitied on the outer wall, you might naturally conclude that it was the work of some neo-Nazi group on the far right. And you would be wrong.

The vandalism, and the weeks of protests which followed thereafter (where potential customers were blocked from entering Manny’s), was coordinated by multiple local left-wing groups, among which were The Lucy Parsons Project, the Black & Brown Social Club, a group called Gay Shame, and the Brown Berets. The Lucy Parsons Project in particular wrote in a letter to San Francisco media that their protest was due to Mr. Yekutiel espousing “Zionist, pro-Israel ideals” that they “would not tolerate or accept in [their] community” (as if it was in any way up to them who the community chose to accept or tolerate). While these types of “political cells” represent the fringiest of the fringe of the left, and rarely have more than ten members at any given time, the alarming aspect of this story is how these fringe clubs feel emboldened by the Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions movement (BDS)— which has become increasingly mainstream— to act out their anti-Semitism as “anti-Zionism.”

Lest you fault me for drawing a dishonest connection between anti-Semitism and “anti-Zionism,” I’ll change the story above only slightly to show you what I mean.