BDS Claims Credit For Absence Of Concerts In Israel During COVID

Barghouti paused for several seconds, then continued. “What’s the opposite of impotence?”

Tel Aviv, October 29 – Bloomfield Stadium in this teeming Israeli city hosts concerts in addition to its everyday function as an elite soccer venue, but the raging global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has led to the cancelation of any such entertainment events for the foreseeable future, a development that the anti-Israel Boycott, Divest, Sanctions movement insists it played an important part.

Activists in the global BDS movement, a loose consortium of like-minded, mostly anti-Israel and antisemitic groups, gave themselves a virtual pat on the back this week as they noted the absence of top-tier, or even mid- or lower-tier, entertainers coming to Israel to perform since this past spring. Even as most observers assume that the ongoing restrictions to stem the spread of COVID lie behind the empty international celebrity event calendar in the Jewish state, the BDS activists know the truth: that their two-decade effort to bring about Israel’s political, diplomatic, academic, economic, and cultural isolation has finally begun to bear fruit.

Leading BDS personalities voiced their satisfaction at seeing years’ worth of campaigning amount to something after all. “It’s been a long journey since Durban,” recalled Omar Barghouti, referring to a 2001 anti-racism conference in South Africa that devolved into an antisemitic hate-fest. “There, a number of international activists formally launched the BDS movement, even though everyone agreed to call it a Palestinian grass-roots initiative. Little did we know, lo these many years later, we could point to a noticeable reduction in the number of rock concerts by A-list artists in Israel. It’s an unfamiliar feeling, this, what do you call it…”

Barghouti paused for several seconds, then continued. “What’s the opposite of impotence?”

“Wow, we actually accomplished something!” gushed former Pink Floyd front man Roger Waters. “I mean, I mean, yeah, of course. We knew this would happen eventually. We’re a serious human rights movement, not some agglomeration of Jew-haters hiding behind a thin veil of concern for the Palestinian plight whose chief achievement to date has been the increasing intimidation and harassment of Jews on college campuses but not a single actual boycott, divestment, or sanction against Israel. Until now! This is excellent.”

Some activists expressed uncertainty over what to do now. “It’s like I don’t have a purpose anymore,” confessed Jewish Voice for Peace member Ismail Greene. “If no performers are scheduled to appear in Israel until at least next summer, and even that might be subject to COVID lockdown, how am I supposed to occupy my time? There’s no one to bully into canceling such performances. I might just have to fall back on yelling at Jews for existing, which is just an extension of Palestinian suffering.”

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