BDS BEARS SCRUTINY

READER Peta Fitzgibbon calls on Tasmanians to boycott Puma (Letters, September 17) because it commits the heinous sin of supporting the national soccer association of the only democracy in the Middle East – Israel.

The pretext is that Israel’s soccer association has teams in West Bank settlements, but the BDS campaign would never acknowledge that Israel captured the West Bank in a defensive war, nor that the Palestinian Authority has rebuffed several Israeli offers of a Palestinian state there.

While it claims to be about settlements and human rights, the

BDS campaign shows no interest in the world’s human rights abusers, including many in the Middle East, and many statements from its leaders have made clear its aim is to try to weaken Israel to contribute to its destruction.

The parliaments of Germany and Austria have passed motions condemning the BDS movement as antisemitic, and other European countries, many US states and Canada have passed anti-BDS legislation. I suggest readers similarly dismiss BDS.

George Greenberg

Hobart