Rep. Ben McAdams spoke recently at the First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City. He responded to a question about his support of legislation condemning the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement pressuring Israel for its human rights violations against Palestinians.
McAdams condemned this nonviolent, pro-human rights movement and claimed that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.
Israel most certainly is not a democracy for the non-Jewish population both in Israel (treated as second-class citizens) and the neighboring Palestinian territories militarily occupied by Israel for over half a century. Israel is a democracy as much as South Africa was during the apartheid regime.
Boycotts are a time-honored American political tradition, including the Boston Tea Party, boycotts of products made with slave labor, the Montgomery bus boycott, the United Farm Workers boycott of grapes and the boycott of businesses operating in apartheid South Africa (upon which the modern BDS movement is modeled).
To condemn this contemporary human rights movement and to subordinate Americans’ free speech rights to the interest of apartheid Israel is a disgrace for any politician, especially one as intelligent and informed as McAdams.
Bob Brister, Salt Lake City