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ByDenis MacEoin, BY Denis MacEoin

Opinion

BDS: resistant to reason and knowledge

Academic Denis MacEoin discusses the debate surrounding the Israel boycott movement BDS

September 26, 2019 10:09
Protesters stage a demonstration outside Germany's Representative Office in Ramallah in the Palestinian West Bank on May 22, 2019, following the Bundestag's condemnation of the  BDS movement as antisemitic
3 min read

On Thursday 19 September, St Andrews University Union Debating Society hosted a debate under the motion, “This House Supports the BDS Movement”. 

The society claims to be the oldest of its kind in the world, and its debates are carried out with a degree of formality. This was not a casual dialogue.

The motion was proposed by a leading figure of the hard-left group Jewish Voice for Labour, Professor Jonathan Rosenhead, a scientist formerly of the London School of Economics. 

It was opposed by myself. I am not Jewish, formerly a lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University.