BDS Groups Claim Credit For COVID-Related Drop In Israel Tourism

“This time it’s really our doing.”

Berkeley, August 20 – Activists who call on companies, states, organizations, governments, and individuals to refrain from any dealings with the Jewish State as a way of pressuring the latter into concessions to Palestinian ambitions declared today that the sharp decrease in flights to Ben-Gurion Airport from around the world over the last six months results from their public campaign efforts.

SARS-CoV-2 has killed more than three quarters of a million people since scientists first identified the pathogen toward the end of last year, even as country after affected country sought to contain the disease’s spread by limiting incoming flights, closing borders, minimizing shipping, and curtailing numerous activities associated with increased risk of exposure to the virus. BDS advocates insist the reduction in visitors to Israel comes from their own ongoing push to isolate the country over its treatment of Palestinians.

“2020 has been a banner year for BDS, when our labors finally bore fruit,” declared musician Roger Waters, a prominent BDS activist. “It took serious commitment and years upon years of often-thankless work to raise awareness and demand action, but the world finally woke up to the moral truth. It’s a proud moment for the movement.”

“This isn’t like other times when we claimed a victory even though the reasons for an entity canceling a planned event or contract with Israeli companies happened for unrelated business considerations,” added Waters. “This time it’s really our doing.”

Israeli hotels and other tourist destinations have suffered severe drops in revenue as the limited scope of activity that the Ministry of Health has ordained cannot sustain many of the businesses that require higher volume to survive, let alone prosper. Jobs in the hospitality industry – hotels, bars, restaurants, and the like – have disappeared accordingly, many of them once the only course of income for Palestinian workers, whom the BDS movement purports to support.

“Well, we can blame coronoavirus for those job losses,” suggested Justin Assol, a Park Slope, Brooklyn BDS activist. “Obviously we’re all about human rights and the dignity of Palestinians, so you can’t hang that on our movement. I mean, would you call Antifa ‘fascist’ when they engage in fascist behavior? You can’t, because their very name is against fascism. Same here.”

The campaigners cautioned one another to remain vigilant. “This isn’t something that, once established, lasts without continued action,” a message to various chapters read. “We will need to maintain the pressure on corporations, governments, and other institutions – in addition to bullying anyone we suspect of sympathy for Jewish self-defense and sovereignty – in order to make this achievement sustainable. Not to worry, though – no one will be forced to relinquish the Israeli components in their mobile devices, because things that inconvenience us aren’t included.”

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