Bill’s BDS wisdom

As a leader of the progressive movement, Mayor de Blasio is swimming helpfully against an anti-Israel and anti-Semitic tide on America’s left flank. De Blasio on Saturday voiced strong opposition to the BDS movement, which calls for waging economic warfare against Israel through boycotts, divestment and sanctions.

Many BDS believers have signed onto the movement in protest of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. Some see Israel as oppressing Palestinians by virtue of a security wall that has prevented terror attacks. Some see Israel as occupying Palestinian land through its presence in the West Bank and so-called illegal settlements.

Leaving aside the merits of such positions, what many BDS supporters fail to understand is that the movement’s architects see Israel’s very existence as illegitimate. Ultimately, they aim to end Israel’s character as a Jewish state and homeland.

Helpfully, de Blasio focused squarely on the movement’s too-often-unspoken goal.

“We in the United States, or in any nation, you can disagree with a particular government’s policy at that moment in time, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t believe in that nation, or its right to exist, or its founding ideals,” the mayor said at the Hampton Synagogue in Westhampton Beach.

De Blasio also described BDS as “ahistorical,” meaning that it writes off critical facts in the histories of Israel and the surrounding region, including that Israel has been a Jewish homeland for several thousand years.

“There are plenty of people who support BDS who have advanced degrees and who call themselves progressives. I look forward to challenging them, because it’s ahistorical,” de Blasio said, assuming for himself a valiant mission.

Polls show that, increasingly, American progressives believe that Israel has been unjust to the Palestinians. While the point is intellectually defensible, a fair number also cross the line into supporting BDS — despite the underlying anti-Semitism of seeking to end the Jewish state.

The more the mayor educates his fellow liberals the better.