Jewish Life Digital Edition April 2015 | Page 22

The Biblical roots of BDS Uniting the nations of the world in a common hatred I BY Steve Apfel Plots and characters in Torah are said to portend what history will have in store for the Jewish people. That being so, the Balaam narrative foretold the plot against modern Israel: if war could not bring down the nation, then cursing would. The compelling intrigue with its twists and turns and bad forebodings is familiar enough. It begins with the desire of Balak, King of Moab, to stop the redeemed slaves in their tracks after unlikely victories over real armies. Military might was not behind the juggernaut Jews, so Balak understood. The power of the start-up nation, he learns, resided in their leader’s power of speech. Moses was the secret weapon. And this gave Balak an idea. If, by speaking with G-d, Moses could empower the Jews, then equally they could be disempowered by speech. So the king contracts with a pagan prophet for hire. A militant curser and master of talking donkey, Balaam was made for the job. This grandson of the 18 JEWISH LIFE n ISSUE 83 schemer Laban was born to curse. Up to now, he made a good living out of plaguing people to untimely and ugly deaths. The Near East was rife with practitioners of similar stamp, but here was a commission that would make Balaam immortal. He was offered a king’s ransom to badmouth G-d’s own people. The end game is not necessarily to wipe the wandering multitude off the face of the desert, but to keep them from going into the Promised Land. “Let us drive them out,” the king said at a meeting with the elders of Moab and Midian. It was not the Jews they feared, as much as the idea of a sovereign state. Homeless and stateless Jews were no problem; as far as the elders were concerned, Gd’s chosen could keep their difficult laws anywhere they liked; or almost anywhere. The Moabs and Midians were prepared to live and let live. But a Jewish people in possession of G-d’s own country – that would be a different kettle of fish. Happy with their deities and quaint perversions, they feared that a sovereign Israel would fundamentally make the world a different place. So it was imperative that Moses and his crowd be cursed into spiritual oblivion. Listen, myriad voices urge at a farahead point in history, at which time the people of Israel are living, and thriving, in the Promised Land, and “human rights” delegates by the thousands meet on the side of a game-changing conference at the Indian Ocean city of Durban. The year is 2001, and plots are afoot. Listen, the plotters gabble; war after war has left Israel not just intact, but invulnerable. Why not wage a different kind of war? This will be a war that Israel can’t win. Words will be our weapon. We’ll bring Israel to its knees through the power of negative publicity, condemn and demonise the Zionists to the point where they become a pariah people. We’ll unite the nations of the world in a common hatred. This was an intoxicating vision, and many entities and people bristling with pent-up scores to settle, were intoxicated by it. What could be simpler than picking on the worst international crimes in the book and laying them at Israel’s door! Apartheid came to mind first; who wouldn’t hate a country that implemented apartheid! Ethnic cleansing, war crimes and occupation came a close second, third and fourth. The prospect was enough to make the plotters salivate. With some imaginative marketing and PR, and with deep pockets to grease campaign wheels, it didn’t take long for the plan to take effect. Before Israel knew it, the court of public opinion was onto its case. From there on, it was all downhill. Setting an impossibly high legal and moral bar to clear, Israel was coerced into fighting terrorism with kid gloves. And another ‘plus’ for the mischief-makers: it cost Jewish lives. “Be not over righteous, nor too clever,” Ecclesiastes 7:16 warns the nation. And Shimon b Lakish adds: “Whoever shows mercy to the cruel will ultimately be cruel to those deserving of mercy.” And so it proved. Innocent Jews by the thousands have been murdered and maimed. Name-calling is a curse. The name ‘Zionist’, especially when linked to ‘Nazi’, is enough to make Jews young and old duck and dive like criminals. The name-callers are photographS: ILAN OSSENDRYVER feature