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BDS Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 29, 2015 16 Comments
It was a classic Friday night document dump -- information released after the daily news cycle had ended on a Friday, and a long two-plus days until the Monday news cycle started. It's a tactic we are used to seeing from politicians disclosing bad news. It's not a tactic people expected to see from the Virginia State Bar, a government agency operating under the authority of the Virginia Supreme Court, tasked with regulating admission to and administration of attorneys in the Commonwealth. The Virginia State Bar should not be confused with the non-governmental, voluntary Virginia Bar Association. The Friday night document dump was an email from Virginia State Bar President Kevin Martingayle that a mid-year legal seminar in Jerusalem was being cancelled because of discriminatory Israeli policies. The move came as a complete surprise, because the Jerusalem Seminar already was accepting registrations, and was completely planned out in all detail including transportation and hotel. Virginia State Bar Mid Year Legal Seminar Update 2-27-2015 cropped There does not appear to have been any public forum or discussion of the potential cancellation at which supporters or Israel or those interested in maintaining the political neutrality of the Virginia State Bar could respond or provide alternative information. Such a public airing is important because the anti-Israel boycott movement frequently issues false or misleading accusations of Israeli travel restrictions.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 27, 2015 3 Comments
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, conceived at the anti-Semitic 2001 Durban NGO Conference and rolled out with a 2005 boycott call from "Palestinian Civil Society," is a weapon to isolate, demonize and dehumanize Israel and Israeli Jews. As documented here hundreds of times, the goal of BDS is the destruction of Israel, though it is packaged in vague social justice language that leads many naive and ill-informed progressives to think it is only about the "occupation" of the West Bank. In fact, the leadership and founders of the BDS movement consider all of Israel "occupied" territory which must be liberated. That's why a leading chant at rallies is "From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free." The BDS movement has gained a lot of public attention in the past couple of years and is a hot topic of discussion, particularly at academic organizations like the American Studies Association, which have been taken over by anti-Israel faculty activists. The BDS movement's relentless false and defamatory propaganda against Israel is a key factor in the rise of anti-Semitic violence in Europe and even on some U.S. campuses. When a Synagogue in Paris was attacked in the summer of 2014, it started with a BDS rally. BDS is, in my terminology, the mother's milk of modern anti-Semitism.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 18, 2015 14 Comments
In August 2013, we noted that Jews in Europe past their expiration date, based on the superb article You Only Live Twice by Michel Gurfinkiel in Mosaic Magazine:
There is no future left for Jewish communities in Europe. That’s the inescapable conclusion of You Only Live Twice by Michel Gurfinkiel in Mosaic Magazine. The lengthy article is a long trip down the death during World War II and then rebirth of Jewish communities in Europe, and how that rebirth is being snuffed out by renewed anti-Semitism from multiple directions, particularly leftist demonization of Israel and Islamist anti-Semitism. This Leftist-Islamist coalition, centered around hatred of Israel, is a topic we’ve explored here many times in connection with anti-Semitism in Malmö, Sweden, on British campuses, in the BDS movement, in the academic boycott movement, among other places. The fact is that while intellectually one can distinguish anti-Israeli fervor from anti-Semitism, in reality, on the streets of Malmö and Paris, and elsewhere in Europe, they are one and the same.
That was a year before the 2014 Gaza conflict, which so many blame for the rise of anti-Semitic violence in Europe. Anti-Semitism and violence directed at Jews in Europe are not about Gaza.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 15, 2015 4 Comments
We have been tracking the descent of the American Studies Association into an anti-Israel political operation ever since the ASA's boycott of Israel was proposed in late November 2013. Scroll though our American Studies Association Tag for the full history. The ASA move was part of the larger Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement academic, cultural and economic boycott of Israel. Most recently, we covered the ASA's discriminatory admission policy at its Annual Meeting in November 2014, which by ASA written policy was to exclude representatives of Israeli academic insitutions and was to apply a discriminatory litmus test to Israeli faculty members. After a threat of legal action against the hosting hotel under California's anti-discrimination laws, the ASA changed its policy and announced that even Bibi Netanyahu was welcome at the annual meeting. There was some small hope that the ASA would reconsider or at least moderate its academic boycott ways, but that seems highly unlikely in light of recent elections of a new president-elect and governing national council. The ASA's 2015 Election Results solidified the grip of the BDS movement on the supposedly educational tax-exempt organization.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 14, 2015 5 Comments
This is an all too familiar occurence, including at far away places like U. Galway and close to home places like Cornell. Israel haters of various flavors take over stages, attempt to shout down speakers, and in some cases physically attack. It just happened a few days ago at the University of Sydney, in which anti-Israel students attempted to prevent retired Colonel Richard Kemp from speaking. The Australian Jewish News reports, Anti-Israel protesters run riot at Sydney uni:
A LECTURE by retired army colonel Richard Kemp at the University of Sydney was disrupted by at least a dozen screaming students who fought with security on Wednesday afternoon. The students had burst into the room shouting “Richard Kemp, you can’t hide, you support genocide” and wrestled with security guards before being removed from the hall. Kemp was giving a lecture about ethical dilemmas of military tactics and dealing with non-state armed groups. According to the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council’s Glen Falkenstein, protesters stood on chairs, began to push students and shout loudly at those who objected to their behaviour.
As is often the case, anti-Israel faculty often instigate or support the attackers. In this case, according to the Australian Jewish News report, it was infamous anti-Israel faculty member Jake Lynch:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 10, 2015 3 Comments
On a few occasions we've touched upon the toxic anti-Israel rhetoric from Max Blumenthal, son of Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal: In his earlier days, Blumenthal turned his wrath on James O'Keefe, Andrew Breitbart and others he deemed part of the vast right-wing conspiracy: (language warning) Then he turned on Israel with a viciousness of propaganda rarely seen.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 09, 2015 3 Comments
On Sunday, March 1, 2015, we provided on-scene coverage of Code Pink's "Shut Down AIPAC" protest. The most notable feature of the protest was the waving of Hezbollah flags. Code Pink managed to get some press coverage even though it didn't shut down AIPAC, or even an itsy, bitsy part of AIPAC, because five protesters were arrested, including two from Ithaca, my current place of residence. One of the arrestees, Ariel Gold, may be familiar to readers from prior coverage of Gold's efforts to have GreenStar Food Coop in Ithaca boycott Israeli products and products co-owned by Israelis, such as Sabra and Tribe Hummus. Gold is employed as a professional organizer for Friends of Sabeel - North America, a group which works to weaken American Christian support for Israel, and is a leader of Ithaca Jewish Voice for Peace. You may recall that when I spoke on local progressive radio against the boycott movement, Gold called into the control room to complain about me in the middle of the interview! Publicity, of course, was the real goal of the Code Pink protest. If all you knew about the arrests was the press coverage, you'd think that the arrests were not the goal, but the byproduct of protesting. Much as the Pallywood fake or staged photo ops are used to gin up press coverage against Israel, however, so too were the arrests at AIPAC. It was pure Pallywood, arrests contrived for the cameras. They weren't arrested for protesting. They were protesting to get arrested for publicity. Don't take my word for it. A Legal Insurrection reader who saw our coverage of the protest sent along a video of Gold speaking at a post-arrest event, in which she admitted it was all a set up:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 07, 2015 11 Comments
One thing I've learned over the years is to screen shot, save on Wayback Macnine, or download any key evidence found on the internet.  Too many times I've gone back to a link and it's gone, and Google Cache can't be counted on to have preserved the evidence. So when I learned in early February that a UCLA student applying for a student judicial board slot was questioned by the Student Council as to whether she could be fair because she was Jewish and involved in Jewish groups, I wrote it up, UCLA student gov’t candidate challenged for being Jewish (February 12, 2015). I also downloaded the over 4 hour live feed, and excerpted the approximately 40 minute segment, which I uploaded to YouTube. As mentioned yesterday, discriminatory questioning of the Jewish student by the UCLA Student Council has gone national, Mainstream media wakes up to BDS-Anti-Semitism connection. It's a good thing I saved the evidence, because the Student Council took down the original live stream video, as HuffPo explains, UCLA's Student Council Tries To Hide Video Of Its Members Questioning A Jewish Student (emphasis added):
The university's [Undergraduate Students Association Council] typically posts recordings of its meetings on YouTube. But the student government took down the footage of a Feb. 10 meeting where several students questioned whether Rachel Beyda, a Jewish candidate for the school's judicial board, could be "unbiased" given her religion. Various news reports on the controversy this week prompted the hosts of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" to call on the university to put the video back online Friday. But the university told The Huffington Post that the decision to pull the video was made by the USAC's internal vice president's office.... The group StandWithUs, a pro-Israel education and advocacy organization, is circulating a clipped video of the controversial meeting. Legal Insurrection, a conservative blog, has uploaded the full video of the meeting as it pertains to Beyda's nomination.
The networks are using our video as their source:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 06, 2015 10 Comments
Long time Legal Insurrection readers know that for years we have been sounding the alarm over the connection between the gross anti-Israel propaganda which demonizes and dehumanizes both Israeli Jews and supporters of Israel, and anti-Semitism. Scroll through our Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) tag for several dozen over 200 stories over the years. We reported on February 12, 2015, that UCLA student gov’t candidate challenged for being Jewish. Now the story has gone mainstream, with an article in The NY Times, In U.C.L.A. Debate Over Jewish Student, Echoes on Campus of Old Biases:
It seemed like routine business for the student council at the University of California, Los Angeles: confirming the nomination of Rachel Beyda, a second-year economics major who wants to be a lawyer someday, to the council’s Judicial Board. Until it came time for questions. “Given that you are a Jewish student and very active in the Jewish community,” Fabienne Roth, a member of the Undergraduate Students Association Council, began, looking at Ms. Beyda at the other end of the room, “how do you see yourself being able to maintain an unbiased view?” For the next 40 minutes, after Ms. Beyda was dispatched from the room, the council tangled in a debate about whether her faith and affiliation with Jewish organizations, including her sorority and Hillel, a popular student group, meant she would be biased in dealing with sensitive governance questions that come before the board, which is the campus equivalent of the Supreme Court.
As I have pointed out, this is part of a larger movement to ban pro-Israel and almost always Jewish students from involvement in campus politics. Morning Joe addressed the situation (note - the video they mention was taken down, but Legal Insurrection has posted a complete version of that portion of the event):

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 05, 2015 8 Comments
We are in the midst of "Israel Apartheid Week."  In the U.S. it lasts from February 26-March 12 -- which is more than one week, but anti-Israel groups always take liberties with terminology and numbers. On campuses we will see mock "Apartheid Walls" (referring to the Israeli security barrier); but we will not see any mock suicide bombers, whose relentless self-detonation killed 452 Israeli civilians in 2002 leading to construction of the barrier (a wall in some places, but mostly fencing). Student groups like Students for Justice in Palestine, will chant and scream slogans like "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free."  I believe them when they say that. The BDS movement is about the destruction of Israel, even if some naive supporters think otherwise. Guess who is a big, big fan of Israel Apartheid Week? None other than the Supreme Leader of Iran, that beacon of freedom and justice for all, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, who tweeted this greeting: https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/572834761250639873 He has good reason to gloat.

Posted by Julius Kairey on March 04, 2015 6 Comments
If Israel were an Arab country, it would receive near-universal praise as a paragon of justice. Its robust protections of freedom of speech, along with frequent and open elections, would make it the only Arab state in which people have a real say in the operation of their government. Israel would be celebrated as the only gay-friendly state in a region of rampant anti-gay persecution. Its strict prohibition of the traditional practice of honor killings — where women accused of disgracing the family name are murdered by their male relatives — would be lauded as proof of its progressive and egalitarian values. And its modern capitalist economy, driven by a dynamic high-tech sector, would be the model for other Arab nations seeking to lift their people from the depths of poverty. Of course, Israel isn’t an Arab nation, and it is treated according to this double-standard. It is the world’s only majority-Jewish state, and it is surrounded by Arab theocracies, dictatorships and monarchies, each of which have gone to war in a failed bid to end its existence. And yet, Israel’s remarkable history of repeated triumph in the face of seemingly insurmountable adversity receives little sympathy among some “left-wing” segments of communities across the nation. It is not immediately obvious why this is so. Israel’s history reads like a liberal success story.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 02, 2015 19 Comments
We previously reported extensively on the blockade of the San Mateo - Hayward Bridge on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day by a group of protesters. What started as a #BlackLivesMatters protest was hijacked by anti-Israel protesters who draped the Palestinian flag across both sides of the bridge at its highest span. http://abc7news.com/483891/ The action was extremely dangerous, trapping hundreds of motorists and causing multiple traffic accidents. One vehicle with a 3-year-old child in medical distress reportedly had to be rerouted. 68 protesters, most of them Stanford University students, were arrested.

Posted by Amy Miller on March 01, 2015 11 Comments
Today, I braved an ice storm to video protests at the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference in Washington, DC. The nasty weather didn't stop a group of around 60 anti-Israel activists from storming the steps of the Washington Convention Center and blocking at least one entrance to the conference grounds. Code Pink and other anti-Israeli groups went into a frenzy against AIPAC, the "Israel lobby," and what they believe is the "Apartheid" State of Israel. I also saw harassment of men, women, and children who had done nothing to deserve it except make the mistake of revealing their conference badge before they reached the door. Those who were obviously religious Jews (based on their head coverings, clothing, and facial hair) got it worse.  There were shouts of "Go Home" hurled at the attendees. There was also the Hezbollah flag flying overhead, as this video shows.  There were chants that "BDS is the best" (Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement), and "The State of Israel's Got to Go."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 27, 2015 4 Comments
On Thursday, I had the pleasure of giving a presentation to House staffers on the BDS movement, and the role Congress legitimately can play in addressing the new form of the century-old Arab boycott of Jews in the land of Israel. I spoke about pending legislation, as well as possible additional legislation. The moderator for my presentation was David Hazony of The Tower Magazine: Back at CPAC, I spent some time on "Radio Row," where many high profile radio talk shows have set up booths. I've been fortunate to interview with several of them, including Larry O'Connor of WMAL in D.C. ...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 24, 2015 8 Comments
By now, most of you have heard of Steven Salaita, whose unhinged (that's a charitable description) tweets apparently caused the University of Illinois Board of Trustees not to approve his contingent offer of tenured employment. Shortly after UI at Urbana-Champaign Chancellor Phyllis Wise indicated that she would not forward the contingent offer to the Board (though she later did so), I noted the irony of protests that Salaita's academic freedom was being infringed, Steven Salaita controversy points to the hypocrisy of anti-Israel academic boycotters:
I have argued strenuously against the academic boycott of Israel, led by people like Steven Salaita, on a number of grounds. Not the least of those grounds is that academics who insist on violating the academic freedom of Israelis and those who wish to interact with Israelis do damage to the system in its entirety.... There is a related point to how academic boycotts have a negative ripple effect. On what ground do the academic boycotters of Israel claim their own academic freedom if they are so quick to deny it to others?

Posted by Miriam Elman on February 22, 2015 6 Comments
One day before the terror attacks in Copenhagen, during a Friday, February 13 sermon, Hajj Saeed, the imam of the city’s Al-Faruq Mosque rejected inter-faith dialogue with Jews calling it a “malignant idea”. There can be no reconciliation with the Jews, said Saeed; it would be like trying to “reconcile Truth with Falsehood”. It’s easy to dismiss Saeed’s words as the rantings of a hater. In fact, that’s what people involved with interfaith organizations tend to do. Everyone pretends as if Muslim preachers the world over aren’t saying these things. The only problem is that they’re getting harder to ignore. These days it seems like a week doesn’t pass without hearing about some hostile imam or sheikh shouting “death to the Jews”, or some angry mob harassing Jews on the streets.
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