The BDS movement - Boycott, Divest, Sanction - against Israel is anchored in an objective we have seen play out over issues ranging from climate change to wearing fragrances: Making support for the unloved position or behavior politically, culturally and socially untenable.
By way of example, I was recently at a small gathering of friends in the entertainment industry where the subject of climate change came up. I made a remark that I thought was pretty harmless, something to the effect of "I don't know what to believe anymore." You would have thought I had come out endorsing child abuse, such was the histrionic reaction anchored in the assumptions that a) I was not someone who thought very much about climate change, which was per se a character weakness and b) I did not fully embrace the only position one could reasonably take on the issue. I had not, after all, denied climate change, I had simply made the point that I was out of my depth in reaching a scientific conclusion on the subject. Regardless, I quickly earned myself the status of being the skunk at the picnic.
Much of what becomes politically incorrect is more like a gotcha game of Simon Says than it is a "debate over the issues." If you say the wrong thing - or even the right thing in the wrong way - you are ejected from polite society.
Last summer, presidential candidate Martin O'Malley found himself in the skunk position when he responded to a question about the Black Lives Matter movement by stating "all lives matter." Dead man walking. Without getting into a debate over the merits of this movement, which surely is making resonant arguments, I'll simply make the point that O'Malley blew himself up with three words that are shibboleths of being in a loathsome cultural camp.
The key variable in winning a modern propaganda war such as BDS is what I think of as "getting the lower hand" - establishing that your side is the weak side. In a battle like BDS, perceived weakness is strength and perceived strength is a handicap. This is why Palestinian terrorist organizations have long planted themselves as "human shields" squarely in venues associated with vulnerability such as schools, hospitals and seemingly harmless neighborhoods: So when Israelis attack these strongholds, the optics convey a stronger conventional force attacking a weaker one. "Why is that tank plowing over a small house?" the reasoning goes. ("Because there is a terrorist hiding inside.")
Adding to the BDS problem is that Jews are not perceived as a minority despite representing about 2 percent of the US population and .2 percent of the world population. Jews are seen as an elite. Attacking an elite cannot qualify as bigotry or, even worse, "insensitivity," because elites are, by definition, oppressors who assumed their position by inheritance (unearned) at best and legerdemain at worst.
Those who are concerned about the BDS movement in the United States have often argued that the antidote lies in education about shared values between Israel and our country. This assumes that the BDS crowd has an interest in education. They do not: Their interest is validating their self-perception by first defining, then inflicting harm upon, a villain.
My operating theory about "hearts and minds" battles is that they are, in the end, less about who people publicly like than who they secretly dislike, and hating Israel permits anti-Semitism by allowing it to be rationalized under the banner of support for a victim. As a general rule, whoever succeeds in wrapping themselves in the mantle of victimhood wins the PR war. The Palestinians have unequivocally won this battle.
This theory cuts two ways, however. Israel may never become a fashionable cause to openly support, but in the wake of the twin insanities of American campus political intolerance and Islamist violence around the world, a silent majority may be forming in some quarters that may increasingly support unfettering Israel to do what it needs to do to survive.
During the 2002 Intifada, much of the critical media coverage of Israel reversed after photos surfaced online and in mainstream outlets of Palestinian children strapped with suicide explosives. While U.S. audiences may not have found the Israelis to be especially cuddly, they abhorred these images and everything they stood for. They further supported any party that was actively fighting jihadist movements.
Herein lies what must become the key pillar of fighting the BDS movement: Illustrating wherever possible precisely who and what this movement, when all of the noble platitudes are stripped away, supports. The success of an effort like this greatly depends upon timing, and the present timing couldn't be better for taking countermeasures against BDS.
In recent weeks, campus activists, including BDS, have gone from being bellwethers of legitimate dissent to being increasingly seen as radical, if mentally unhinged. There are even efforts afoot to essentially merge Black Lives Matter with BDS, which defies credulity and will likely prove to be a little too cute for even the most indiscriminate protestors. Moreover, the tragedy in Paris, not to mention the unrepentant march of Islamist extremists elsewhere, has further helped crystallize precisely what the Israelis chronically face.
It is these points that must realistically anchor a robust pushback on BDS, and leveraging the current mood is the new variable that may matter most.