For the record, BDS is an anti-racist issue

by Hilary Aked   

Following a wave of accusations made against some members of the Labour party for claims of anti-Semitism, the saga reached absurd new lows last week, when long-standing anti-racist activist Jackie Walker was suspended. Among Walker’s alleged crimes was her refusal to condemn the boycott of Israel.

While some of the accusations levelled are justified, others reek of a witch-hunt in which vocal critics of Israel, in particular supporters of the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement, are wildly painted as racist by Israel’s supporters. But the reality is precisely the opposite: the BDS movement is about dismantling a racist system of control and oppression akin to the movement against South African apartheid.

In his weekly column, the Guardian’s Gary Younge reminded last week that ‘racism is a system of oppression, not a series of bloopers’. Although his point was made in relation to the…