Earlier this summer the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) held a BDS camp. The BDS (Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions) movement, which we have covered extensively, targets Israel.
These groups claim only to seek an end to the “occupation” of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. That territory, as we’ve covered here many times, is not illegally occupied.
AFSC has a long history of demonizing Israel and seeking to delegitimize Israel under the seemingly benign Quaker movement name. AFSC is one of the most active BDS supporters, providing support for BDS groups on and off campus:
AFSC seeks the de facto destruction of Israel as a Jewish state by pushing for a “right of return” for all Palestinian refugees, based on the false claim that such right of return is required under U.N. Resolution 194. In fact, as readers know, there were as many Jewish refugees from Arab countries as the other way around.
There’s a very telling remark at the end of Philadelphia Jewish Exponent’s Philly-Based Quaker Group Criticized For BDS Camp:
Alexis Moore, an AFSC spokeswoman, said her group rejects “the idea that BDS is anti-Semitic. We are not targeting a country.” Instead, it is targeting specific companies like Israeli-owned Sodastream, that has its home fountain soda maker factory on the West Bank. “We see nothing anti-Semitic in the use of these non-violent tactics. Our work is rooted in human rights and equal justice for everyone.”
By mentioning SodaStream she gives away her game.
You see, SodaStream is a prime example of coexistence. Palestinian workers there make good salaries and have room for advancement. If there was a place in the Middle East that demonstrated “equal justice,” SodaStream would be an excellent example of that.
On the other side, Mahmoud Abbas recently said, ahead of the John Kerry sponsored peace-talks, that there would be no Jews allowed in a future Palestine. That call for ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank and East Jerusalem (which would include the historic and ancient Jewish Quarter and The Western Wall) is typical of anti-Semitic agitation against Israel in Palestinian media.
In Gaza, the dwindling Christian population finds itself under ever increasing pressure to convert or leave.
So if there was one government in the Middle East that stood for “human rights and equal justice,” it would be Israel. That Israel is targeted by BDS instead of Fatah and Hamas despite their blatant violations of basic human rights shows the true intent of the organization.
The AFSC’s accomplices in running this camp is JVP, whom we’ve discussed previously. JVP claims to be adhering to Jewish tradition as a justification for their anti-Israel activities, even though there’s nothing Jewish about the organization save for its membership list.
The cost of this camp was only $100 for five days so clearly, it was highly subsidized. So the next question is whose agenda are the AFSC and JVP promoting (aside from their own)? Though JVP is opaque when it comes to its funding, FresnoZionism offered some speculation a few years ago.
Yitzchak Santis of NGO-Monitor, identified a few funders:
In sharp contrast, JVP’s funding sources are non-transparent. Its website carries no information on its donors. There are no annual reports or other financial data. Limited financial information is available through public IRS documents and other databases. NGO Monitor has found that JVP’s budget in 2011 (the last year such information was available) was nearly $900,000. JVP has received funding from the Violet Jabara Charitable Trust (an Arab-American foundation that also supports the virulently anti-Israel Electronic Intifada), the Firedoll Foundation, and the Wallace Global Fund, which all contribute to numerous anti-Israel groups.
Despite the protests of the AFSC that they are not antisemitic, Alana Goodman at the Washington Free Beacon citing the Simon Wiesenthal Center, succinctly explained the problems of the BDS movement.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center report said the BDS program meets Natan Sharansky’s “three D’s” test for anti-Semitism: It follows “double-standards” by criticizing Israel while overlooking human rights abuses across the Arab world; “demonizes” Israel by comparing its actions to those of Apartheid regimes; and attempts to “delegitimize” the Jewish state by targeting its existence.
They are not seeking to correct injustice, but to perpetrate a new one.
Meanwhile as anti-Israel groups in North American engage in a political war, training the next generation of activists to delegitimize Israel on campuses across the United States, terror groups in the Middle East have set up their own training camps. Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas teach children military tactics in their summer camps. The UNRWA teaches its campers that Israel has no right to exist.
No word if AFSC or JVP objects to this anti-human rights and anti-equal justice indoctrination.
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