THE ORIGINS OF THE ISRAEL BOYCOTT
Even before the State of Israel was officially declared in 1948 , with the endorsement of the UN and backed by the immediate recognition of U . S . President Harry Truman , Arabs in British Mandatory Palestine and throughout the region declared war against the Jews . They sought to kill as many as possible , drive the rest out of the country , and end the Jewish state . That era of belligerency lasted over 30 years before Israel and its chief antagonist , Egypt , signed a peace accord in 1979 .
When it became clear that war could not defeat Israel , those seeking to bring Israel to its knees shifted tactics , and the Palestinian Intifada was born . It came in two waves of terror , running from 1987 to 1993 and then from 2000 to 2005 . These surges were premised on the idea that Jews were foreign colonizers who , like European imperialists in the Third World , could be driven out by making the cost of staying higher than the colonizers could bear . But the Palestinians learned during their terror campaigns that the threat of physical harm would not end the Jewish state , because the Jews knew that they belonged in Israel .
Next came the current stage in the long-running campaign against Israel — the movement to boycott , divest from , and bring sanctions against Israel , or “ BDS ” for short . By encouraging governments , churches , companies , universities , and individuals to
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