[will4274]

Au contraire, whataboutism is not always a logical fallacy. It can be simultaneously true that a) Israel is a human rights violator and b) BDS focuses on Israel to the exclusion of other human rights violators because of the anti-Semitic beliefs of their members.

Edit: a different explanation - it's true that "what about other human rights violators" is a logical fallacy in the context of Israeli human rights violations. But, our topic is immigration bans, and Israeli belief in BDS anti-Semitism and the corresponding ban on individuals entering the country is not necessary fallacious just because this point is irrelevant to the topic of Israeli human rights violations.

[bhouston]

> BDS focuses on Israel to the exclusion of other human rights violators because of the anti-Semitic beliefs of their members.

Ad hominem / Appeal to motive?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_motive

[grraaaaahhh]

Fallacy fallacy?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy

[will4274]

Again, logical fallacies only make sense in the context of a specific topic. People can actually be motivated by racism - regardless of whether Israel's actions are human rights violations.

In some cases, the leaders of BDS made anti-Semitic comments before joining/founding BDS. When a bunch of white supremacists join together to create an organization that accuses Afican countries of human rights violations, we acknowledge that that it's about a bit more than human rights.

For example, Omar Barghouti,the BDS founder believes that Jews don't have a right to self-determination, opposes the two-state solution (instead, he supports a single Palestinian state), and has no plan or suggestion for where Israelis should relocate. The UN recognizes that all people have a right to self determination.

My own experience is with the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) who threw rocks at the heads of Israeli students on my college campus and then published anti-Semitic fliers "to measure student viewpoints." SJP and BDS are closely associated.

[bhouston]

> People can actually be motivated by racism - regardless of whether Israel's actions are human rights violations.

I agree that people can be motivated by racism. I also think it is pretty clear that unfortunately Israel is pretty backwards with regards to human rights like a lot of the other Middle East countries.

You do not have to read BDS material to see that, just check Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch or any number of other international human rights organizations. Although I am sure you can play, if you wanted to, ad hominem bingo with those groups as well.