by Dr. Asaf Romirowsky
The recent farce surrounding the non-visit of US Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar to Israel highlighted the pernicious self-delusion and zero-sum exclusion of the BDS worldview
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Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, official photos via Wikimedia Commons
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BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,270, August 29, 2019
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The recent farce surrounding the non-visit of US Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar to Israel highlighted the pernicious self-delusion and zero-sum exclusion of the BDS worldview, which polarizes American politics regarding Israel.
It is a great and quintessentially Israeli irony
that Arab members of the Knesset have repeatedly proposed establishing
an official Nakba Day – in other words, a day that commemorates the
founding of the state as a catastrophe of historic proportions. While
the Knesset’s Ministerial Committee on Legislative Affairs eventually
banned such proposals, their persistence up to that point indicates how
deeply ingrained 1948 is in the Arab psyche, including among modern day
elected representatives.
The Nakba Day proposals were by no means unique.
The Knesset has allowed Arab members to express anti-Israel views for
decades, including calls for the country’s destruction and denials of
its right ever to have existed at all.
Former Arab MK Hanin Zoabi consistently called for
the termination of the state of Israel and sailed on the Mavi Marmara
in its 2010 bid to break Israel’s security blockade of Gaza. In April
2018, she once again called for the State of Israel to be dissolved and replaced with either two states — one secular and one Palestinian – or one binational secular state.
Shortly after the second Lebanon War, MK Azmi
Bishara expressed sympathy for Hezbollah, defining it as a resistance
movement. According to Bishara, Hezbollah was fighting a war brought on
by an Israeli government led by “mediocrities, cowards and opportunists”
who were responsible for “barbaric vandalism and the deliberate
targeting of civilians.”
Israel affords these opportunities in its
Parliament to its democratically elected officials. It is unlikely that
the US Congress would stand for calls by its members to give aid and
comfort to its enemies and, indeed, to destroy America completely.
Congresswomen Tlaib and Omar have taken it upon
themselves to question Israel’s right to exist and to promote its
destruction through BDS. To put it bluntly: it is apparently bad form to
advocate anti-American positions in Congress (other than to question
the legitimacy of President Trump), but a Congressperson can express
views that seek the destruction of American allies and still come off as
a patriotic.
In BDS World, where there is no room for facts,
supporters strive to create an appealing political façade for the
benefit of left-wing progressive circles. Israel scored no points for
denying entry to the Congresswomen, or even for showing a humanitarian
gesture toward one of them. This was a lose-lose scenario that dealt in
relative outcomes. Had Tlaib and Omar made the trip, Israel could have
taken control of the story. Instead, Israel allowed it to be told by the
BDS movement and its leaders.
US-Israel relations have been through worse, and
they will survive this too. But the incident is worth contextualizing
within the US-Israel political framework. Tlaib and Omar displayed
remarkable audacity in openly lying about their trip, both in advance
and then again after it was canceled. They falsely claimed they were
planning to meet Israeli officials when their itinerary included only
‘Palestine’, Palestinians, and supporters of Palestinians.
Tlaib’s actions proved that her visit was never
meant to be an impartial trip to the scene of the conflict. Nor was it
about seeing her grandmother. The point was to showcase the so-called
“occupation.” Such manipulations, compounded by the soft power enjoyed
by pro-Palestinian groups, magnify a fictitious reality. They allow
those groups to hijack the narrative of peace, justice, and human rights
while yearning for Israel’s destruction.
US-Israel relations do not exist in vacuum, and US
opinion is neither monolithic nor frozen in time. It has undergone
significant shifts since 1948, with some groups becoming more favorable
toward Israel and others less so. Nevertheless, as polls illustrate,
support for Israel has become an American value, even if some elected
officials feel otherwise. Sustaining this requires work and
perseverance.
It is a serious challenge to get past the
self-delusion and zero-sum exclusion of the BDS worldview, which
polarizes American politics regarding Israel, and convey the actual
reality of the Middle East. The normalization of antisemitism in
American politics and culture – together with our growing collective
dependency on technology and the general tone of politics – reduces
complex issues to sound bites and drives polarization and ignorance.
Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/tlaib-omar-bds/
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