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Sara A. Colb is the deputy director of ADL New England.
Last month, the Belfast City Council stepped well out of its local government lane to weigh in on matters of foreign policy, which it is ill equipped to do. The council voted, as reported by the Bangor Daily News, “to divest from companies that activists say have contributed to the disproportionate killing of tens of thousands of Gaza’s residents” and “prohibit future investments in such firms for as long as the occupation and attacks on Gaza continue.”
While the desire to see an end to this war is one most of us share, Belfast’s action to divest, and the Boycott Divestment, and Sanctions [“BDS”] movement that gave rise to it, do little to promote peace in the Middle East. They can, however, cause real harm here at home.
For context, it’s important to understand the history of the BDS movement. BDS is an international movement that began in the 2000s, roughly two decades before the current conflict. Under the guise of protesting certain actions of the Israeli government, it is a movement that opposes Jewish self determination on any portion of contested land and aims to dismantle Israel as a Jewish state. At its core, the goal of the BDS movement is to replace much of Israel with a Palestinian state. By delegitimizing and pressuring Israel through the diplomatic, financial, professional, academic and cultural isolation of Israel, Israeli individuals and Israeli institutions, it has increasingly targeted Jews and others who support Israel’s right to exist. By insisting upon isolation, and rejecting Israel’s very right to exist as a Jewish state, the Anti-Defamation League warns, BDS’s efforts actually undermine rather than advance the only option for achieving sustainable peace — a two-state solution.
The Belfast City Council took up the divestment measure after local supporters of BDS “reached out to Mayor [Eric] Sanders urging the City Council to consider municipal divestment from companies that are described by BDS as ‘part of [Israel’s] prolonged military occupation, apartheid, and genocide,’” according to the town manager’s report on the Nov. 19 meeting.
Such incendiary and inaccurate language can promote a deeply biased and false view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and current war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. It ignores the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023 — the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust — as well as the estimated 100 hostages from Israel still being held in Gaza, and holds Israel singularly responsible for all violence in the region. Indeed, proponents of BDS were claiming Israel was committing genocide for several years, well before Israel’s post Oct. 7 military operation against Hamas in Gaza.
While I cannot speculate about the motivations of individual council members in voting for divestment, I can speak to the impact. Delegitimizing the world’s one Jewish nation has consequences for Jews. The vast majority of American Jews and Americans in general believe in Israel’s right to exist. Furthermore, since for the vast majority of Jews in the U.S. and around the world, Israel is an integral part of their Jewish identity, actions that demonize Israel and single it out for unique treatment directly harm the Jewish community.
In the year that followed the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, ADL tracked over 10,000 antisemitic incidents in the United States, the highest number ever recorded in a year since ADL began tracking, representing a 200 percent increase over the number recorded in the same period the prior year.
At a time of skyrocketing antisemitism, divestment measures risk further exacerbating the hate and isolation that so many Jews are already experiencing. Where such action will also have no impact on this war, it simply cannot be justified.
