The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has exposed the hypocrisy of leftists and many liberals who have been silent as President Barack Obama restores relations with Cuba and welcomes it into the Organization of American States without insisting on any improvement in Havana’s human rights record, or an end to its aid and support for terrorist groups, globally. This stands in diametric contrast to the disposition and conduct of the same leftists and liberals who, citing concern for Palestinian human rights, advocate severe boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

 ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “Israel is the only functioning democracy in the Middle East which upholds American values by protecting human rights and freedoms, including freedom of religion, conscience and sexual orientation –– yet leftists and many liberals actively demand and clamor for the imposition of boycotts, divestment and sanctions upon Israel.

  The distinction reveals a discernible discriminatory bias. Leftists and liberals who seek to ostracize Israel through boycotts, divestment and sanctions are not fixated on human rights, necessarily, or on the life and welfare of those targeted by terrorists.

“In contrast, the Castro regime in Cuba still incarcerates thousands of political prisoners, denies its citizens political freedoms, and forestalls pluralism. Cuba, further, preserves its policy of funding and defending terrorists, contrary to U.S. security interests.

 “Cuba continues to harbor the Basque terrorists of ETA and the Columbian Marxist terrorists of FARC. Approximately 70 American criminal fugitives, some belonging to the defunct Black Liberation Army, are currently harbored by Cuba, as well.

 “In short, this is a repressive regime that continues to abuse human rights at home and promote terrorism abroad. Yet, the same leftists and liberals who clamor for ostracism and punitive measures against Israel are deafeningly silent when President Obama, far from maintaining a boycott on Cuba, restores diplomatic relations with Havana and welcomes it into the Organization of American states, without expecting any quid pro quo from Havana to cease human rights abuses and support for terrorism globally.

 “The distinction reveals a discernible discriminatory bias. Leftists and liberals who seek to ostracize Israel through boycotts, divestment and sanctions are not fixated on human rights, necessarily, or on the life and welfare of those targeted by terrorists. If so, leftists could not remain silent as Cuba is brought in from the cold and readmitted regionally into the family of nations, without agreeing to improve its political and human rights record.

 Advocacy of boycott, divestment, and sanctions is not, then, the leftist reply to human rights abuses.

 Rather, the aggressive campaign to boycott and divest from trade with Israel reflects a sad, bitter truth. The BDS campaign is further evidence of what many leftist liberal Jews refuse to acknowledge, that there continues to be an ancient and obsessive hatred of Jews. This hatred known as anti-Semitism is now, transferred onto the State of Israel, and results in the promotion of the isolation of Israel and abhorrence of the State. It is a popular fixation fed by the media and public appetite for decrying actions by the Jewish State, rationalized and camouflaged as concern for Palestinian human rights.

 “This is not about promoting Palestinian human rights, this is about denying Jewish human rights.”