Migrating Birds Reject BDS, Fly Over Israel

One of the challenges to avian BDS would be identifying and selecting an alternative migration route that suits the ecological needs of the birds.

Hula Valley, September 25 – Advocates for the economic, cultural, and political isolation of Israel expressed frustration today that millions of birds continue to migrate over the Jewish State on their way to warmer climes, despite more than a decade of agitation to find an alternative route that does not imply legitimacy for the entity over which the birds fly.

The beginning of autumn last week ushered in the modest beginnings of the winter migration for several species of birds that summer in Europe and west Asia, though most of the migrating birds will begin their southward movement later in the season as the weather cools more perceptibly and daylight hours decrease further. Since the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement launched in earnest last decade, the continued choice of countless fowl to fly over and even land in Israel on their way to and from Africa each autumn and spring has proved disappointing and irksome to BDS activists.

“We’re not sure how to approach this anymore,” admitted Omar Barghouti, who pursued a Master’s Degree at Tel Aviv University while advocating for BDS. “All the ornithological experts we’ve consulted – obviously, only the ones who have renounced contacts with Israeli colleagues and institutions – agree birds can hear. That means they’re intentionally disregarding our admonitions to bypass the illegitimate Zionist entity, and the provide that entity with unwarranted positive associations.”

Rania Khalek, who writes for the scientific journal Electronic Intifada, notices a pattern. “It wouldn’t be beyond the Mossad to have recruited and trained all these flocks of birds to maintain the migration route they’d been using for eons,” she posited. “If they can operate sharks, birds of prey, boars, octopuses, and who knows what other kinds of wildlife for their nefarious ends, it shouldn’t be that difficult to locate, track, capture, recruit, train, equip, and provide constant follow-up training and support for up to a billion birds following these migration patterns every year, including each new generation of hatchlings every year.”

One of the challenges to avian BDS would be identifying and selecting an alternative migration route that suits the ecological needs of the birds, but that should not be an insurmountable obstacle, argued Barghouti. “We activists and Palestinians might choose not to give up the conveniences that Israel offers, such as education, technology, and medical advances,” he explained. “But that does not stop us from demanding that everyone else go cold turkey from everything Israeli, no matter what the cost. There’s little reason for us to make an exception to that pattern of behavior for a bunch of dumb birds.”