context, various Jewish organizations - most notably
Jewish Voices for Peace - have in fact supported BDS.
By so-doing, they contested the equation of Jewishness with the state of Israel. As a consequence, they
also contested the framing of criticism of Israel being
anti-semitic. This position is particularly important in
the United States, where the Department of State’s definition of anti-semitism includes certain types of criticism of Israel , allowing Palestine solidarity activists to
be routinely accused of anti-semitism, sometimes with
detrimental effects on their careers .
More broadly, framing Palestine solidarity as part of
a broader struggle against racial discrimination has allowed Palestine solidarity organizers to build alliances
with marginalized groups within North America, particularly the United States. These alliances are based on
historic and contemporary experiences of oppression
and discrimination that minorities share with Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and within
Israel’s 1948 borders, as well as opposition to on-going
military and security cooperation between the Israeli
military and US police forces . One of the most recent
examples of this type of solidarity took place on August 15th of this year, when over 1,000 Black US intellectuals signed onto a statement demanding justice for
Palestinians and expressing their support for the BDS
movement . In the context of Canada, where the indigenous question is more visible in the public sphere than
in the United States, Palestine solidarity activists have
repeatedly