Rep. Dan Frankel: Pittsburgh BDS efforts won't bring peace

Local activists made a mad dash effort this month to get enough support for a Pittsburgh ballot referendum that would punish local entities for any ties with Israel. Volunteers with clipboards could be found at dance parties and outside of local bars, seeking signatures from a population young enough that maybe they’ve not previously encountered the “Boycott, Divest and Sanction” (BDS) movement, but I can report that it is far from new.

The BDS strategy was crafted more than 20 years ago by Palestinian activists who rejected painstaking efforts to work toward peaceful coexistence between an independent Palestinian state and Israel. Its founders deny any legitimate Jewish connection to Israeli land, and thus will settle for nothing less than the wholesale elimination of the state of Israel.

“Definitely, most definitely,” said BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti. “We oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine.”

So, in 2016, when I helped lead the successful passage of a Pennsylvania law banning any such government effort to single out the Jewish state and attempt to drive it out of existence, we faced virtually no opposition. The United States House of Representatives, too, easily passed legislation denouncing BDS efforts.

It was clear to most that holding up Israel as a human rights offender above all others — including China, Syria, Sri Lanka, Russia or Saudi Arabia — was preposterous. And it remains preposterous — and antisemitic — today.

How can Israel be the only nation in history to merit intervention from the City of Pittsburgh?

Israel is a democracy with a robust public square, not unlike the United States. I hear about it in every phone call with my sister, who was in the streets protesting the actions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu long before and since Hamas managed to perpetrate its gruesome attack Oct. 7.

Am I worried that a Pittsburgh referendum or even 100 just like it could crush the Israeli economy? No. Data shows how little impact this movement has had in Israel.

But, of course, advocates for BDS have seen that data, too. Why would they stick with a failing strategy, and why would I bother to oppose it?

BDS may have little effect on Israel’s economy, but it could have a significant effect on the plight of Jews worldwide.

The movement singles out Israeli policies and divorces them from the historical context.

It calls for Israel to lay down its arms, with no acknowledgement that to do so would be to guarantee its obliteration by enemies on all sides. It calls also for all the descendants in the history of Israeli land to return and have full rights, but it is silent on the hundreds of thousands of Jews who were expelled from the Middle East, Africa and Europe in the 20th century. Where should their descendants go?

These disingenuous demands lay the groundwork to delegitimize Israel and isolate Jews everywhere.

Increasingly, we are seeing anger at decisionmakers in Israel being directed at blameless and powerless American Jews. Jewish family homes, businesses, children in a coffee shop and a synagogue have all been targets in Pittsburgh since the beginning of the war in Gaza, as if Israeli Defense Forces decisions are being made in Squirrel Hill living rooms or by any individual wearing a kippah in public.

It’s dangerous, and my Jewish constituents are terrified.

I believe that many signers of the petition in Pittsburgh simply want an end to the human tragedy that is taking place in Gaza, and are seeking to have any opportunity to feel like they are contributing to the onset of peace. I want that, too. But BDS efforts get us no closer to peace.

Cutting ties with Israeli academic institutions, punishing local synagogues for their links to the Jewish homeland and financially penalizing Pennsylvania small business do far more to harm and isolate our neighbors here in Pittsburgh than do anything to help the people of Gaza.

Rep. Dan Frankel, a Democrat, represents the 23rd District in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.