lands ” that Israel must stop “ colonizing ”? Does BDS object to the occupation that began in 1967 when Israel assumed control of the West Bank and Gaza , or does it object to the “ occupation ” created by Israel ’ s very existence ? After all , the Arab League boycott that is the antecedent of the BDS movement targeted the very presence of Jews — even without a state — in Mandatory Palestine . Hind Awwad , a leader in the BDS National Committee , makes the goal explicit : “ Israel is the oppressor , not the settlements .” The second demand implies that Arab citizens of Israel do not already have full civil rights — they do , including the right to petition Israel ’ s Supreme Court when they feel those rights are infringed upon . Finally , the third objective insists that Israel extend to Palestinians the opportunity to settle inside Israel , wherever their ancestors lived in 1948 .
“
There ’ s no Israel . That ’ s what it ’ s really about .
Norman Finkelstein , academic and anti-Israel activist
3
”
In any of the various two-state solutions that have been proposed , the goal has been to create a Palestinian state that will peacefully exist sideby-side with the Jewish state of Israel . This plan is undermined by the so-called “ right of return ,” which would allow millions of Palestinians — for the most part descendants of the Palestinians who left Israel during