Lee Zeldin Quotes

In South Africa, we could not have achieved our freedom and just peace without the help of people around the world, who through the use of non-violent means, such as boycotts and divestment, encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the Apartheid regime.

I've been fighting BDS before people even knew that BDS existed.

I believe in a nonviolent movement of boycott, divestment, sanctions.

The BDS movement goes way beyond any legitimate, reasonable criticism of a government.

You have to be careful how you're using the word boycott.

I am against boycotts in general: boycotts against us as well as anything and everything that can be boycotted.

As Nelson Mandela has pointed out, boycott is not a principle, it is a tactic depending upon circumstances. A tactic which allows people, as distinct from their elected but often craven governments, to apply a certain pressure on those wielding power in what they, the boycotters, consider to be an unjust or immoral way.

When you say to Israelis, 'European boycott,' they think it means that this year they won't get Camembert cheese on time... That is not the case.

Boycotts are not something to be taken lightly.

The founder of the BDS movement is blatantly anti-Semitic.

BDS has been used as a tactic to raise awareness for Palestinian people, including women and their children.

I refused this evening at Oxford University to debate with an Israeli, a supporter of the apartheid state of Israel. The reason is simple: no recognition, no normalisation. Just boycott, divestment and sanctions, until the apartheid state is defeated. I never debate with Israelis nor speak to their media. If they want to speak about Palestine – the address is the PLO.

Only if we accept the proposition that the state of Israel is the exclusive and legitimate representative of the Jewish people would a movement calling for divestment, sanctions and boycott against that state be understood as directed against the Jewish people as a whole.

Sanctions and boycotts would be tied to serious political dialogue.

We believe that the world, too, can destroy apartheid, firstly by striking at the economy of South Africa.

I can say unequivocally that the boycott does not work. It's never complete enough to have impact unless it's backed by force, and I don't think anybody in America seriously proposes that.

A boycott is, inherently, a blunt instrument. It is an imperfect weapon, a carpet bomb, when all involved would prefer a surgical strike.

Sanctions historically are quite counterproductive in the sense that if you impose sanctions on your enemy, it tends to strengthen your enemy.

What always happens if you have automatic sanctions legislation is it puts enormous pressure on whoever is in the executive branch to fudge an evaluation of the facts.

Sanctions will not produce capitulation.

I think the only way to actually move China in a positive direction is to disengage from China, to decouple our economy, our cultural ties, our sporting ties so that you put pressure on their regime.

We cannot have policies that punish people for taking action. Imagine the further harm it would have caused if the federal government banned civil rights leaders from boycotting buses in Montgomery, Alabama, or banning divestment from Apartheid South Africa.

I applaud Lt. Gov. Mark Hutchison and the legislators in the Nevada State Senate who have introduced SB 26 to fight the BDS movement in Nevada.

Usually, boycotts sometimes don't really accomplish anything besides the fact that you show you that don't agree with what's going on.

If the BDS Movement was isolated to a few tenured college outliers, that would be easy enough to handle. Unfortunately, it is not.