Past Israeli governments were mistaken when they failed to heed the warnings of the growing boycott of Israel. They downplayed the signs, as though they were the very first cells of a political cancer. The opposition bypassed the boycott and did not push the government past its indifference on the matter. It did not understand the issue at hand either. Now, it has come out in full force as the Palestinians eschew diplomatic negotiations in favor of dealing with their grievances in the international arena, which is comprised of various forms of boycott and propaganda: From the hostile propaganda of the Breaking the Silence organization in Zurich, Switzerland, to the call for FIFA to ban Israel, and the social and economic pressure to avoid any deals with Israel, as we saw on Wednesday with the dramatic and surprising admission from the CEO of telecom giant Orange in France. Anti-Semitism rejoices. Innocent Israelis who see the boycott in a favorable light may wonder what the connection is between refusing to buy a product from Ariel and an exhibition in Switzerland that is hostile to IDF soldiers. There is a connection, like the one between a verdict and a sentence. It's all once piece, all under one umbrella -- undermining Israel's right to exist. In the beginning, the boycott efforts were negligible. It is still a small movement, but it is growing, and it has finally started to concern the government. Israel's enemies -- a broad Palestinian-Arab-anti-Semitic coalition -- have been beating their drums, and the Jewish response has only just begun. Over the weekend, businessman and philanthropist Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Dr. Miriam Adelson, will host a conference of Jewish philanthropists in the United States to discuss ways to combat the recent surge in anti-Israel boycott efforts, while in Israel and other parts of the world everything is moving slowly and with a considerable sense of detachment. When it became clear that Breaking the Silence was taking their activities to the international arena, just like the Palestinians, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely tried to thwart their efforts in a democratic manner by dealing with the Swiss government, but she did not succeed. Among other things, she was disappointed to discover that the local Jewish community was afraid of taking to the streets to protest and that the Israeli embassy was helpless. The same was true at the entrance to the FIFA Congress, when Israel was nearly banned from the global soccer organization, and also at the prestigious American universities found to be using Arab money and oil to encourage the academic boycott of Israel. The same goes for the ports, where boycott activists took over, stopping blue-and-white cargo ships from unloading their stock. On Wednesday in the Knesset, a depressing picture was painted. Sitting beside Meretz Chairwoman Zehava Galon was an unidentified MK who made comments throughout Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked's speech. Why? What for? Shaked could have assumed that only MKs from the Joint Arab list would heckle her, but apparently so would those from Meretz. Wait a minute, why? Do Meretz members not know that the boycotters will not bother to separate the wheat from the chaff? That they will not check at the Genoa port which goods are from Ariel and which are from Nahariya? That they will boycott everything blue-and-white? And what is so outrageous to Meretz members when we say that the boycott is a new form of anti-Semitism? There is simply no reason for Meretz to get so worked up over such a statement. Or perhaps Meretz is not what we thought. Either way, the British National Union of Students that voted in favor of the boycott, the exhibition in Zurich and the malicious bibliographies published by U.S. academics teach us that the coalition between the Palestinian Authority and the anti-Semites has found itself a new venue to assemble against the Jewish people, and not only against the settlers. The war is at our gates.
