Note to Philly BDS Activists: You will fail.

Opponents of the Jewish state’s existence – such as CiF contributors Ali Abunimah, Tel Aviv University student Omar Barghouti, and Ahmed Moor – will be converging on my native city of Philadelphia (at the University of Pennsylvania) on February 4th and 5th for a BDS Conference.

As our friend and ally Jon, of the anti-BDS blog, Divest This!, put it:

“An international lineup of BDS advocates will meet, greet and try to breathe life in a ‘movement’ that has yet to achieve a single major victory after more than a decade of effort.”

Divest This! has even created a unique page to combat the Philly event, titled “PennBDS-Oy!”

Since I know a few of the local Philly anti-Zionist Jews who will likely participate in the conference on how best to isolate my nation, and, in the off-chance they read this post, here’s some advice.

As always, you will fail miserably at your efforts.

Not only does Philly have an especially well-organized pro-Israel community, which includes college Zionist activists, my friend Lori Lowenthal Marcus and her group Z Street, and my former colleagues at the local office of the Anti-Defamation League, but, more broadly, Israel, my new country, has one weapon which we’ll continue to deploy that you have no answer to: Our success.

In addition to our undeniable regional advantage in every conceivable democratic category, we continue to achieve economically, academically and socially to a degree  remarkably disproportionate to our size.

Though our right to exist as a Jewish state is axiomatic and unreserved – and we need not demonstrate our utility to gain the privilege granted to all other nations unconditionally – our achievements stand as a testament to what you’re up against when you engage in cognitive warfare against us.

Israel has the 2nd highest ratio of university degrees in the world, produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation by a large margin, has the largest number of startup companies than any other country except the U.S., and has the largest number (per capita) of biotech companies.  

What we may lack in natural resources we more than make up for in grit, determination, and hard work.

Further, unlike our Arab neighbors, our liberal values are consistently demonstrated by our free and fair elections, our independent judiciary, our democratic legislature (which even grants rights to political parties opposed to our existence), our free and feisty press, and the rights afforded to women, religious minorities, and the LGBT community.   

My nation – the first sovereign Jewish state in 2000 years – is a proud, robust, dynamic, and thriving pluralistic democratic Jewish state, and there is little you can do to thwart our will to survive.

Finally, here’s a small reminder of what a small group of thoughtful, committed supporters of the Jewish state can do in the face of a coordinated anti-Zionist campaign: 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZWiTtZsHLvY]

Am Y’srael Chai! (The Jewish nation lives).

Related articles

• BDS to World: “We’re not losers” – Part 1 (cifwatch.com)
• Ali Abunimah Tweets for a third violent Intifada (cifwatch.com)
• CiF Watch exclusive interview with Smadar Bakovic, who fought anti-Zionist bias in UK Academia & won! (cifwatch.com)