A new initiative called the Gideon Project is enlisting Israel Defense Forces lone soldiers, referring to soldiers without immediate family in Israel, as volunteers to combat the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction (BDS) movement in the United States, Canada, and Europe.
The Gideon Project aims to pull the rug out from under the BDS strategy of garnering support for its cause by evoking values such as minority and human rights. The project is headed by the Reservists at the Front organization and the Lone Soldier Center, which issued a joint statement describing the project as a “challenging and unique Zionist mission, on the front lines of the fight against hate organizations.”
Within the project’s framework, the lone soldiers will deliver lectures on college campuses, in which they will underscore Palestinian leaders’ human rights violations within Palestinian society. The soldiers plan to confront audiences with the argument that supporting the Palestinian leadership encourages oppression, abuse, and acts of retaliation against Palestinian civilians.
“We have to take an active approach and work to persuade others through a conviction in the justness of our path,” said Amit Deri, chairman of Reservists at the Front. “We need to constantly strive toward meeting directly with the public of American and European students, and less with the Jewish audience, which is a captive audience.”
Originally posted at JNS.
