A message to BDS: We’re tired of your BS

In the wake of BDS being tried and passed on my Binghamton University Campus, alongside a multitude of other colleges across the country, I want to express the emotions that many Jewish and Zionist college students are feeling on their respective campuses.

I am tired. 

For the past six months, I have been EXHAUSTED.

I am tired of reading the horrible and graphic news.

I am tired of the amount of denial there has been about what happened on the evil day of October 7th.

I am tired of women’s voices being silenced and I’m tired of the silence of the #MeToo movement when Jewish women are raped and tortured.

I am tired of bullying and threats on social media directed at me and other Jews.

I am tired of counting another day of the hostages facing unimaginable brutality.

I am so emotionally exhausted thinking about how Hamas has rejected numerous offers to end the war, choosing instead to perpetuate suffering and destruction.

I am tired of the claim that Israel targets schools, mosques, hospitals and ignores the fact that Hamas hides inside of them.

I am tired of the argument that the antisemitic rhetoric in the BDS Movement’s bylaws is supposedly not antisemitic.

I am tired of people using the argument of “free speech” as a front for hate speech.

I am tired of explaining to people why the little sliver of land in the Middle East is rightfully the ONLY Jewish state in the world.

I am tired of the world’s microscopic focus on Israel.

I am tired of the exclusion of Israel as opposed to any other regime in the world that is so much more dangerous and intolerant of human rights.

I am tired of privileged college students, in a country that was ONCE COLONIZED itself, in a world of FORMERLY COLONIZED countries, fixating on one tiny country 6,000 miles away that was established LEGALLY and with UN Recognition.

I am tired of asking why there’s no BDS against the countless countries throughout the world, like China, Russia, Egypt, Pakistan, Venezuela, or the Philippines, which are actually committing human rights abuses far worse than anything Israel has ever done.

I am tired of Israel celebrating women’s rights, gay rights, different religions, free speech, democracy, and still being the “oppressor” at all times.

I am tired of Israel constantly being accused of genocide or having to convince people that the war is against Hamas, not the Palestinian people.

I am tired of defending the only country in the Middle East that celebrates the LGBTQ+  community on the streets of Tel Aviv.

I am tired of defending the only Middle Eastern country that allows women to work in all professions, that allows women to have any conversation or action on abortion and reproductive issues.

I am tired of defending the only Jewish homeland that is still the home to all three major religions of the world.

I am tired of the legitimacy of Israel becoming a country being called into question.

Tired of the way Israel is assumed to be the only post World War II-era country created by the UN when there were so many others — including Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon in the Middle East — that were created at the same time.

Tired of the way that Israel is considered a colonizer, when there have been Jews living there continuously for thousands of years.

Tired of the way people forget that nearly 1 million Jews were expelled from Arab countries in 1948, leaving behind property and possessions.

I am tired of people telling me what is or isn’t antisemitic.

That hating a Jewish country isn’t the same as hating the Jewish people, when so many Jewish people consider ISRAEL THEIR HOMELAND.

I am tired of the way that after all of this evidence, you won’t find it in you to maybe consider that Israel is defending itself.

I am tired of the line, “Well, BDS won’t bring antisemitism to OUR campus, OUR campus is different.”

I am exhausted.

BDS is poison. BDS is THE gateway drug on college campuses to blatant antisemitism. BDS is going to divide college campuses and do nothing to promote peace, unity, or meaningful change. I am tired thinking about what will happen as a result of passing these one-sided and profoundly biased BDS proposals throughout the country.

I am tired, but we will not rest until it is defeated.

Together we will prevail.