In 2013 a gay couple walked into a bakery in Oregon to order a wedding cake. The owners of the store refused to make and sell them one prompting a lawsuit that claimed that the gay couple were being discriminated against by the store owners.
Two years later, they won their case and were awarded $135,000 in damages to be paid by the store owners. The judge presiding in the case stated that even though people are allowed their religious beliefs, the law says you cannot discriminate.
According to The Blade’s logic in its editorial on June 3, “Boycott Israel’s boycotters,” when applied to this case, there should be no lawsuit, the free market should decide. If people choose to boycott the bakery for their discriminatory decision, then so be it.
The issue with the boycott, divest, and sanction movement has always been that it is anti-Semitic at its root, that instead of using the word Jew, it hides behind words like Zionist and Zionism, claiming Jews do not have the right to a state and self-determination. BDS supporters want to destroy the only democratic Jewish state that protects the rights of all its citizens, Jew or Arab, gay or straight, Christian, Muslim, or Jew by also using terms like “apartheid” to delegitimize Israel. Ask an Arab Supreme Court justice, the winner of Miss Transgender Israel who is Arab, or the winner of Israel’s version of Top Chef who is Arab, if they live in a state that discriminates against them because they are Arab and not Jewish.
BDS seeks to destroy the only Jewish state in the world for one simple fact: because it’s Jewish. How do we know? We know because those that claim to be “championing” Palestinian rights are conveniently silent when 1,500 Palestinians most of whom were women and children were murdered in the Syrian Yarmouk Refugee camp by the Syrian Government.
They are also silent when Egypt decided to demolish 1,000 Palestinian homes on the Egyptian side of the border with Gaza with no due process. They also do not care about Palestinians being discriminated against and living as second class citizens in Lebanon and Jordan. They are even silent when Palestinian children are used as human shields in Gaza by the terrorist organization Hamas that is backed by Iran.
I have not heard a single pro-Palestinian supporter call for a boycott against Syria, Jordan, Egypt, or Lebanon or Hamas in Gaza. Furthermore, this anti-Semitic group chants on a regular basis at their “peace” marches, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Which means that on Israel’s eastern border, the Jordan River and its western border, the Mediterranean Sea, they want Israel to be free of all Jews.
How is calling for an internationally recognized state’s destruction, peaceful?
When it comes to protecting against discrimination and anti-Semitism, you cannot turn a blind eye, be it a business or against a country. H.B 476 protects against such discrimination and five states have already fought against the anti-Semitic efforts of BDS and passed such legislation.
Scott Rothstein is the Jewish community relations chair for the Jewish Federation of Greater Toledo.
First Published June 25, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
