It is, however, in terms of symbolism that BDS’s record has been most successful. The more unions and councils vote to boycott Israel, the more isolation and exclusion of the Jewish state becomes the norm (that these institutions do not actually procure anything from Israel indicates that the symbolic effect is indeed their actual objective). And it is on university campuses that BDS has made its greatest symbolic strides. Several academic unions have voted to boycott Israel, including the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (although that boycott has now expired) and the Association of University Teachers (although this boycott was reversed in an emergency meeting a few weeks later). Those two unions merged to form the University and College Union, which has itself taken steps towards a boycott.

In America, several academic unions have resolved to boycott Israel, but they have encountered pushback, often in the form of college administrators trying to distance their institutions from declarations made by faculty. Vital though those mitigations are, they do not undo the toxic atmosphere that continuous calls for boycotts create.

That atmosphere is fed by student politics as well. Student unions are a constant BDS battleground. In the UK, student unions at Birkbeck, Brunel, Essex, Exeter, Goldsmiths, Kings College London, Kingston, Liverpool, SOAS, Strathclyde, Sussex, Swansea and University of Arts London, as well as the University of London student union, have backed boycotts of Israel. Several other unions have also endorsed divestment from G4S and other companies for their dealings with Israel. Last June, the National Executive Committee of the National Union of Students (NUS) endorsed BDS, joining the NUS Women Conference, Postgraduate Conference and Black Students Campaign. On other campuses, heated debates and (unsuccessful) votes on BDS motions have taken place, such that the idea of boycotting Israel is now par for the course at universities around the country, whether or not they actually do so.

An important contribution to the popularity of BDS on campuses is “Israel Apartheid Week”. Inspired by Durban I, this grotesque festival was first held in Toronto in 2005, the same year as the “final call” and launch of BDS. Now an annual feature on campuses around the world, this series of lectures and rallies equates Israel with the erstwhile South African regime and implies that the same activism — predominantly boycotts — is appropriate.

The symbolic effect of BDS, Israel Apartheid Week and other associated campaigns is that they put a spotlight on Israel that is not cast on any other country. This is part of a threefold double standard that is routinely applied to Israel. The first is that Israel alone is judged according to one metric while other countries are given a pass. This is quite obviously anti-Semitic. Not only is Israel not guilty of the many imagined sins attributed to it, but many states are guilty of far greater iniquities. And yet only Israel is subject to the boycotters’ wrath. Even the linguist and political radical Noam Chomsky, himself generally a supporter of boycotting Israel, has said that the BDS movement’s “hypocrisy is so transparent . . . why not boycott the United States?” And that is to say nothing of the world’s real rogue states.