1. Financing
Unlimited Financial Resources
“Israeli ministry paying for anti-BDS propaganda in major news outlets”
From Israel’s low-profile Ministry of Strategic Affairs (formed in 2006), to their spy agency Mossad, to the well-funded schools and huge programs of the Herzliya Institute, to Sheldon Adelson funding the Israeli Right, to the troops of lobbyists working to push through anti-BDS legislation around the world, to the “army of trolls” Israel pays to post Israeli government propaganda on facebook and other social media, the money behind the anti-BDS campaign appears to be a bottomless well. It also includes, directly or indirectly, US government funds and material support from Evangelicals whose Christian Zionist theology gives Israel unquestioning support.
Mairav Zonszein reports on this campaign in the New York Review of Books [links in original]:
- This effort, backed by millions of dollars, has systematically quashed advocacy for Palestinians rights in American political discourse. It is why any endorsement of a boycott against Israel—even one narrowly targeting the products of Israeli settlements—can be deemed anti-Semitic and why BDS activists have been placed on blacklists and spied upon.
BDS supporters are working against a massive and powerful tide. Nelson Mandela spoke about perseverance in the face of depraved power, saying "It always seems impossible until it's done." To try and counteract massive forces may appear futile at first, but large and powerful forces have been toppled before, and in recent history in fact. The dismantling of the Soviet Union and Apartheid South Africa are examples from which to draw inspiration. The same can be said of former colonies gaining independence from colonial empires. Britain, France and Spain all held colonies around the world which they had to release, sometimes after violent uprisings, in the 20th Century.
Although unlimited financial resources do provide much power to those who have them, they are not the final world because they do not represent the masses. In regard to Israel, money is part of a top-down behemoth representing the elite and powerful. On the other hand, grassroots movements such as the BDS Movement have people power, which is organic, rooted, and tenacious, even in the face of monied power and interests. Like a moving train, a well-organized movement for justice is hard to derail. The BDS Movement is such a train and with all the people-power behind it, it is steadfastly moving forward.
Speaking about the US civil rights struggle of the 1960s, Lori Ginzberg, professor of history and women’s studies at Penn State University states,
- I think that then as now, grassroots organizing is the key to making real social change. … Politicians make changes because there are movements, some of which take extreme positions, that push them. What those movements do is they push ideas onto the agenda and make them legitimate and move things in a direction that can actually result in political change.
As advocates of justice for those whose voices are often silenced, BDS supporters aim to work in coalitions with other justice movements, mobilizing power in ways that no amount of money can match. Ordinary people are doing extraordinary things, catalyzing a movement for real change, and in the process discovering that we are the change we have been waiting for.
An American folk song, repurposed for the US civil rights struggle in the 1960s, reminded activists to “keep your eyes on the prize, and hold on.” Similarly today, to stand against the millions of dollars poured into denying Palestinian rights requires steadfastness in our focus on advocacy for justice. The history of other struggles teaches that the work is slow but steady. And that eventually, justice will be done.
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.
~ Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
American Civil Rights Leader
Keep your eyes on the prize
And hold on!
poem
— WE —
“We are the ones we been waiting for”
Just listen to yourselves and we will wait no more
No need for another Malcolm or Martin
When you stand ready at the door of greatness
Seeds sewn by Sojourner have now sprouted in her likeness as true
New answers to old questions now lie in the hands of youth
Man or woman in the mirror now serves as your proof
that we are the ones we've been waiting for
Challenge is to realize your worth
But not before we understand our birthright to the throne
Our fate is our own
We are the clones of pharaohs and queens
We do not stand alone
We are the people
To end WAR
We Are Responsible
To conclude the long WAIT
We Acknowledge It's Time - Now
Yes we are the ones we've been waiting for you
A community of self
Individuality the wealth that makes the collective unique
New reality that we hold the answers we seek
We need not lean on the crunch
Our government too much overrated
Our concerns too often debated and debated and debated and debated
Yes we are the one we’ve been waiting for
Just listen to yourself and we will wait no more
No need for another Malcolm or Martin
when you stand ready at the door of greatness
Seeds sewn by Sojourner have now sprouted in her likeness as truth
New answers to old questions now lie in the hands of youth
Man or woman in the mirror now serves as your proof
that we are the ones we've been waiting for.
(After June Jordan’s – “A Poem for South African Women”)
Copyright 2008 – Nathan M. Richardson
From the collection “Voices from the Wombs of Wisdom”
