Ali Abunimah

Tzipi Livni (left), says Israel is living in a “bubble.” (Matty Stern / US Embassy Tel Aviv)

While Israeli hasbara (propaganda) initiatives continue to bravely deny that the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is having any impact, two statements from prominent politicians indicate otherwise.

Israeli justice minister and war crimes suspect Tzipi Livni, who is in charge of the moribund negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, told a conference last week that Israel was living in a “bubble.”

Boycott advancing “exponentially”

“Livni said that a country usually only finds out the cost of living in a bubble after it bursts, such as in the case of South Africa,” Ynet reported.

Noting that there was a growing international movement focused particularly on boycotting Israel’s illegal colonies in the occupied West Bank, Livni warned, “It won’t end there. The boycott is moving and advancing uniformly and exponentially … Those who don’t want to see it, will end up feeling it.”

Livni said that Israel was turning itself into “a lone settlement in the world.”

“Greatest threat”

Livni nominally supports a “two-state solution,” including the transfer of Palestinian citizens of Israel to a Palestinian bantustan in a fraction of the West Bank.

But at the other side of Israel’s extremely narrow political spectrum, there is agreement about the threat of BDS.

Ayelet Shaked, chair of the Habayit Hayehudi party, warned that a “two-state solution” would be “national suicide,” The Jerusalem Post reported yesterday.

Habayit Hayehudi, with 12 seats in parliament and a member of the ruling coalition, calls for outright annexation of the entire West Bank.

Shaked called “for an Israeli response to the cultural and academic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, saying it was the greatest threat faced by the country,” according to The Jerusalem Post.

It’s clear that where the so-called “international community” of governments has done nothing but coddle and appease Israel, international grassroots activism is at last making its most intransigent and racist leaders feel some pressure.

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