Lord Sacks releases anti-BDS animation video

Former Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks has launched an online animated video against the Israel boycott movement, saying it is a “prelude to Israel’s elimination”.

Lord Sacks, a celebrated author and leading moral light, said the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign was “dangerous,” ahead of Israel Apartheid Week, which gains traction across University campuses.

He said the six-minute whiteboard animation examines “what lies beneath the BDS campaign, why it is so dangerous, and why Jews, humanitarians of all faiths and of none, and all those who value a free society, must stand up against it”.

The video includes graphics of a tree’s roots wrapping around Israel and smothering it, as Sacks argues that the BDS campaign “looks less like a campaign for human rights, and more like a campaign against Israel’s very right to be”.

He adds: “I support the rights of Palestinians to a state of their own, and the right of Palestinian children to a future of dignity and hope, but the BDS campaign will achieve neither of these things.”

Referring to the battle against “vicious hatred of Israel that occurs online,” he said the video would act as one resource with which to do so, adding that it will be translated into Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.