Americans’ support for Palestine ‘too little, too late’

Support for Palestine by American groups and institutions, including the US National Women’s Studies Association, is “too little; too late,” says a Denver-based author, yet calling such moves “necessary.”

Richard Forer, the author of Breakthrough: Transforming Fear into Compassion, told Press TV on Tuesday that the group’s recent decision to join the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel is “necessary” but does not stop him from being “pessimistic” about the situation in Palestine under the Israeli regime’s occupation.

The US National Women’s Studies Association announced last week that the decision was made after a 653-86 vote, conducted during the organization’s annual conference earlier this month.

Joining BDS “mobilizes public opinion,” Forer said, yet voicing doubts on whether it is actually going to bring about any real change, especially in the United States policy towards the conflict there.

“Israel has already consolidated so much of the (Palestinian) land under their control, so it’s a necessary movement for mobilizing the public consciousness but I’m not sure it’s going to have its intended effects, at least in my lifetime,” he said.

‘BDS should talk to US Jews’

Forer, a Jew himself, noted that the main target of the BDS movement in the US should be the Jewish community, many of whose members are “resistant” to the movement.

“There are a lot of Jewish people who are offended about what Israel does in their name… but there is possibly a far greater number, at least a lot of, more money in the hands of Jews to support Israel,” he noted.

The supporters of the movement are “small in numbers,” Forer said, however, noting that BDS was “growing.”