Publications
Memorandum No. 169, Tel Aviv: Institute for National Security Studies, September 2017
This article seeks to examine and explain the challenge of the current delegitimization campaign (with BDS as its central and prominent characteristic) by comparing it to similar challenges Israel has faced in the past. While delegitimization in its current form is more complex and welldeveloped than previous challenges, the underlying rationale is similar and involves three levels: Israel’s right to exist as a nation-state, Israel’s right to self-defense, and Israel’s right to explain its actions. On the first level, Israel’s opponents make great efforts to deny the legitimacy of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people by presenting it as a colonialist project born from the original injustice done to the native Palestinian population. The second level includes the efforts of Israel’s opponents to deny its right to defend itself against terrorism by condemning its responses as disproportionate, contrary to international law, and in blatant violation of basic Palestinian human rights. Finally, the third level constitutes the efforts made to deny Israel’s right to explain its actions either by boycotting and removing Israel from international forums or by assisting the media whose coverage of Israel is biased for various reasons and prefers not to emphasize or at times even present the Israeli position.