Stop Noodging; We’ll BDS The Non-Jewish Causes As Soon As We Get Rid Of The Jews

by Roger Waters, washed-up musician

Credit: Eddie Berman via Wikimedia Commons

London, July 23 – My social justice allies and I have grown weary of partisan accusations of “hypocrisy” surrounding my support for Boycott, Divest, Sanctions measures against Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians, while we supposedly “ignore” or “downplay” the ongoing persecution of other peoples, and those partisan accusers – probably paid Hasbara trolls – try to silence our efforts by alleging that we act out of antisemitic motives. Balderdash. When we say, in response to questions why we never agitate for sanctions against other regimes, “You’ve got to start somewhere,” we mean it. Only by sheer coincidence do all BDS advocates happen to pick the same somewhere as their starting point. We’ll get to all the others after we finish there. Something final to solve the problem, as it were.

Palestinians have suffered dispossession, death, blockade, dehumanization, and settler violence unlike any other people, in the sense that the other people suffering from dispossession, death, blockade, dehumanization, and settler violence don’t have Jews as their enemies. That distinction makes the Palestinian cause, and the BDS we urge the world to adopt to assist the Palestinian cause, more urgent than any other people’s persecution or suffering: given the precarious nature of Jewish existence – their population has not even reached its pre-1939 levels yet – who knows how much longer they will be around, and therefore how much longer anyone will have the opportunity to fight for a cause that has Jews as the enemy? This may be the last chance the world gets. I certainly hope it is.

The Kurds are a a glorious, patient people, and their cause merits attention – right after we deal with Israel. Sorry, but anyone facing misfortune that we can attribute to malign Jewish activities such as Jews asserting sovereignty in the ancestral Jewish homeland takes priority over irrelevant folks with the lack of foresight not to choose Jews as their foe. That goes for the Uighur Muslims of China, as well. The images of them being shackled and herded onto trains to be taken to concentration camps and forced-labor factories are certainly a shocking thing to behold within living memory of Nazi depravities against Jews and other minorities, but, unfortunately, that doesn’t create a strong enough link to Jews for us to start demanding BDS against the Chinese Communist Party.

Also, it would risk reminding everyone that Jews can be victims, too, and we can’t let anyone develop sympathy for Jews.

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