Speaking to BDS activists, Barghouti called on Palestinians to cut all ties with Israel, while other speakers promoted “popular resistance,” which is code for violence against Israeli civilians.
By Steven Emerson, Algemeiner
Omar Barghouti — co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement — calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. Like other BDS activists, he continues to deceive international and Western audiences by claiming that the BDS movement is a primarily peaceful tool for protesting Israel. And last month’s annual BDS National Committee (BNC) conference in Ramallah was no exception.
Speaking to Palestinian BDS activists at the conference, Barghouti called on Palestinians to cut all ties to Israel, while other speakers promoted “popular resistance” (or violence), the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center reports.
Barghouti specifically demanded that the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Palestinian society as a whole end all relations with Israel. He also said that the BDS movement is against “members of the Zionist media” appearing on Arab media outlets.
He even called for an end to security coordination, the most visible form of normalization between Israel and the Palestinians, despite Israel’s success in shoring up the Palestinian Authority (PA) against Hamas attempts to take over Judea and Samaria. Barghouti believes Palestinian security cooperation with Israel is a step towards wider Arab normalization with Israel — something he vehemently opposes.
During the conference, Omar’s relative, Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the National Initiative Movement, admitted that anti-Israel activists sought to turn BDS into a “national culture” and integrate its ideals as part of the wider “popular resistance” campaign against Israel.
In the conference’s opening speech, PLO Executive Committee member Wasel Abu Yousef similarly referenced BDS as an important component of the “popular resistance.”
Palestinian leaders of various stripes often invoke the term “popular resistance” as a veiled reference to terrorism and violent Palestinian campaigns targeting Israeli civilians.
While the PA and Fatah are not actively involved in the BDS movement, their formal participation during the latest conference suggests that Palestinian leaders see BDS as a legitimate method to counter Israel.
BDS — which seeks to isolate Israel economically and culturally — is considered anti-Semitic because it singles out the world’s only Jewish state and ignores countries with far worse human rights records.
Barghouti also criticized forms of economic normalization between Palestinian and Israeli businesses, despite the interdependent nature of both economies. Israeli firms play an important role in the stability of Palestinian society by providing a sizable number of Judea and Samaria residents with meaningful employment.
In the past, Barghouti openly supported Palestinian terrorism against Israel, the Meir Amit Center report showed.
“No, we most definitely have a moral and legal right to an armed resistance against the military occupation of our land, even according to international law, as long as we attack legitimate targets, that is, the occupation, settlers, and people who are armed,” Barghouti said in a 2010 interview with al-Adab magazine.
Many BDS demonstrations feature extremists chanting calls for Israel’s destruction.
“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” “there is only one solution — intifada revolution,” and “the people of Palestine will wipe the Zionist entity off all the world maps,” are just some of the slogans and statements picked up by an exclusive IPT video- of a December 2017 rally in New York City.
Barghouti frequently visits Western countries, particularly the United States, to spread BDS-related propaganda and activities. He promotes a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and “rejects the existence of a Jewish nation state,” the Meir Amit report says.
Like the BDS movement overall, Barghouti’s main objective is to facilitate a “right of return” for Palestinian refugees and their families abroad to up-end the Jewish majority in Israel. And like other anti-Israel activists, Barghouti couches his disdain for the Jewish state while speaking to Western audiences by invoking vague concepts like “democracy” and “justice.”
U.S.-based Islamists embrace a similar strategy and support the BDS movement’s overarching objective.
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) San Francisco chapter director Zahra Billoo, for example, acknowledged in November that she is “not going to legitimize a country [Israel] that I don’t believe has a right to exist.” She also has denounced Muslim leaders who oppose the BDS movement.
Billoo, like other U.S. Islamist figures, consistently opposes any type of engagement or interfaith dialogue with organizations that support Israel.
CAIR’s Los Angeles chapter Executive Director Hussam Ayloush has referred to“zionazis” and openly called for Israel’s termination, while Florida director Hassan Shibly refused to condemn Hamas and vilified “Israel [and] its supporters” as the “enemies of God and humanity.”
In September, a leading American BDS group, the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), held a conference at which speakers minimized non-violent ways to protest Israel.
It is common for pro-Palestinian activists to sanitize terrorist attacks as “legitimate resistance” at such events, but three USCPR speakers came right out and made a case for violence, going much further than “boycotts and divestment.”
The Meir Amit report makes clear what Barghouti and his BDS movement are really about. They want a world in which Israel has been replaced; the only distinction is whether that’s done through mass terrorism or through deceit-laden boycott drives.
Steven Emerson is considered one of the leading authorities on Islamic extremist networks, financing, and operations. He is the Executive Director of The Investigative Project on Terrorism, a non-profit organization that serves as one of the world’s largest storehouses of archival data and intelligence on Islamic and Middle Eastern terrorist groups.
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