Amid much fanfare, anti-globalization crusader Naomi Klein visited Israel, Gaza and the West Bank last month. This is, of course, the same Naomi Klein who is front and centre in promoting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, and who has described Gaza and the West Bank as Israel’s “laboratories” where Palestinians “are no longer just targets; they are guinea pigs.”

So what then was the reason for Klein’s trip to the region? Why would someone who calls for a boycott of Israel actually go there? Well, never at a loss to rationalize her actions, she claims she came ostensibly to launch the Hebrew translation of her book The Shock Doctrine. And when challenged on why she would support the Israeli publisher whom she’d contracted to do the translation – when surely this broke her boycott – she explained that the book’s proceeds would go to the publisher and not to her. “In other words,” she stated, “I am boycotting the Israeli economy but not Israelis.”

Yet while Klein’s apparent generosity is no doubt seen as commendable by her many minions, I can attest, as someone who grew up in apartheid South Africa, that BDS is a decidedly blunt instrument that strikes indiscriminately at anyone who drifts into its cross hairs. It’s the essence of a collective punishment that would almost certainly be condemned by Klein and her followers were it to be applied in any other situation – and rightly so.

But aside from the flawed premise that underpins Klein’s separation of the Israeli people from their state, there is the even more fundamental fallacy that it was BDS that, according to her, “was the dynamic that ultimately ended apartheid in South Africa.” This assertion, though frequently parroted, actually rings rather hollow.

In fact, sanctions were thought to have had relatively little to do with the eventual demise of apartheid. Instead, political and labour unrest generated from within the country was considered to be a much more powerful catalyst. And what had the most impact internationally was not sanctions; it was the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s – which undercut Communist support for the African National Congress, thus ending Moscow’s proxy war against the South African regime. A peaceful transition of power to Nelson Mandela then became feasible.

Nonetheless, while there is no proof that BDS campaigns are actually effective, it’s evident that they do have other uses along the way to their often spurious objectives. As we’ve already seen in Israel’s case, they provide an added vehicle for negative stereotyping, discrimination, bullying and demonization. Klein’s motives need to be seen in this context and vigorously countered.