The Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. As we documented, BDS in its present form was conceived at the 2001 Tehran and later Durban conferences, as a tactic with the goal of the elimination of Israel as a Jewish-majority state.
Contrary to the popular mythology of the BDS movement, it was not the result of a 2005 call from “Palestinian Civil Society.” BDS was a continuation of the anti-Jewish Arab boycotts dating back at least to the 1920s, repackaged for Western “social justice” activism.
It is Israel’s Jewish character that is so deeply offensive to BDS. BDS easily meets traditional tests for anti-Semitism (e.g., applying standards to Jews applied to no one else, demonization based on supposed Jewish international control, blaming Jews for problems unrelated to Jews, and so on). Yet BDS strategically cloaks itself in “social justice” verbiage to fool gullible Western liberals into thinking it is about the post-1967 “occupation.”
While BDS fools many in the media, BDS reveals itself quite often.
Just recently we posted a video that included Ariel Gold, National Co-Director of Code Pink, chanting for an Intifada and the end of Zionism.
So extremist is the Code Pink anti-Zionism, that Gold and another Code Pink member disrupted prayers at the Western Wall to unfurl a BDS banner.
Code Pink Activists Ariel Gold (Ithaca, NY) & Ariel Vegosen (Oakland, CA) at the Kotel/Western Wall, Jerusalem Israel | November 10, 2015 | credit: IsraellyCool
If “Zionism” is the problem, why disrupt prayers at the holiest site at which Jews are permitted to pray? For more of our prior coverage of Gold and Code Pink, click here.
Similarly, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) presents itself as a Jewish group (it’s not) and for peace, yet openly honors and glorifies noted terrorist murderers Rasmea Odeh and Marwan Barghouti. Odeh was honored at a JVP annual meeting:
As we have documented here for years, under the leadership of Rebecca Vilkomerson, JVP has become a leading enabler and instigator of anti-Semitism as part of its anti-Zionist campaign, perhaps most ignobly revealed by its “Deadly Exchange” campaign, which seeks to blame Israel and American Jewish organizations for U.S. police shootings of blacks. JVP also hijacks and repurposes Jewish holidays, such as Passover, Hanukkah and the High Holy Days, into pro-Palestinian narratives. JVP is behind almost every campus and church-based divestment resolution, working to present a Jewish cover for anti-Jewish political activism. For more of our prior coverage of JVP, click here.
The U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation (now re-branded as the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights), run by Yusef Munayyer, also is a leading BDS group. It has embraced Rasmea Odeh, wishing her farewell when she was deported from the U.S. and hoping to meet her in “liberated Palestine.” USCPR’s role is to try to make inroads in Congress, but it is so toxic that it could not even find a congressman willing to sponsor an event on Capitol Hill once the true nature of USCPR was revealed. Among other things, one of the leaders of USCPR, Josh Ruebner, accused Senator Chuck Schumer of being an “Israel Firster,” a charge of dual loyalty. Nonetheless, Keith Ellison has appeared at its events and Munayyer continues to present himself as the supposedly-reasonable face of anti-Israel activism.
A quiet but key player in the BDS movement also is the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). This Quaker group received the Nobel Prize for helping Jewish victims of Naziism, but in past decades has turned into one of the most active BDS organizations. AFSC runs a BDS summer boot camp to train college students in BDS tactics, and often teams up with JVP. A Times of Israel author presents this summary of AFSC:
The American Friends and Services Committee (AFSC) is active in promoting BDS on campus, at the Presbyterian Church in the US, and in advocating for divestment from Hewlett Packard and Sodastream. According to its “Palestine-Israel Program Director, AFSC rejects “any project, initiative, or activity, in Palestine or internationally, that aims (implicitly or explicitly) to bring together Palestinians and Israelis (people or institutions) without placing as its goal opposition and resistance to the Israeli occupation and structural inequalities.”The NGO accuses Israel of “apartheid” – an accusation that fits under the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism – and promotes a Palestinian “right of return” that, if implemented, would effectually mean the elimination of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. AFSC is also a leader, along with the PFLP linked Palestinian NGO Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), in a campaign that exploits Palestinian children for political gain.
American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) is not a group we have covered a lot here. NGO Monitor and ADL have fact sheets on AMP.
AMP works mostly behind the scenes, including support of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a group we have covered extensively. SJP on many campuses serves as the street muscle of the BDS movement, disrupting lectures and appearances by Israelis and supporters of Israel. SJP’s toxic brand of campus activism has resulted in suspensions at multiple universities, and widespread criticism for its anti-free speech actions. We have documented dozens of such incidents. For more of our prior coverage of SJP, click here.
The groups above, and many outside the U.S., use access to Israel for their BDS organizing and agenda.
Israel has decided that enough is enough, and just issued a list of 20 groups, most of them European, whose top leadership and activists are barred from further entry. The announcement makes clear that criticism of Israel is not a ground for exclusion, the list is limited the leaders devoted to delegitimizing and destroying Israel.
The Times of Israel reports:
The Strategic Affairs Ministry on Sunday published a list of organizations it says promote the boycott of Israel and that, in cooperation with the Interior Ministry, it will block members of those groups from entering the country, including an American Jewish group.The blacklist covers some 20 groups the ministry said are part of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) and which it said consistently and openly work to delegitimize Israel.“We have moved from defense to attack,” Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan said in a statement that listed the targeted groups. “Boycott organizations need to know that Israel will act against them and will not allow [them] to enter its territory in order to harm its citizens.” …The groups, considered central to the boycott movement, “operate consistently, continuous and persistently against Israel, by way of pressuring entities, institutes, and countries to boycott Israel,” the statement declared.“The activities of the organizations are carried out by way of a false propaganda campaign, aimed at undermining Israel’s legitimacy in the world.”“Forming a list is another step in our campaign against the false propaganda of boycott organizations,” said Erdan, who is also public security minister. “No country would allow visitors who arrive to harm the country to enter it and certainly not when their goal is to wipe out Israel as a Jewish country.”
Here is the full list.
United States:
• AFSC (American Friends Service Committee)
• AMP (American Muslims for Palestine)
• Code Pink
• JVP (Jewish Voice for Peace)
• NSJP (National Students for Justice in Palestine)
• USCPR (US Campaign for Palestinian Rights)
Europe:
• AFPS (The Association France Palestine Solidarité)
• BDS France
• BDS Italy
• ECCP (The European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine)
• FOA (Friends of al-Aqsa)
• IPSC (Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign)
• Norgeׂׂ Palestinakomitee (The Palestine Committee of Norway)
• PGS Palestinagrupperna i Sverige (Palestine Solidarity Association in Sweden)
• PSC (Palestine Solidarity Campaign)
• War on Want
• BDS Kampagne
Latin America
• BDS Chile
South Africa
• BDS South Africa
Other
• BNC (BDS National Committee)
Needless to say, the boycotters are furious that they are barred. The pages of left-wing publications such as The Forward and Haaretz, as well as more mainstream publications, are being flooded with op-eds claiming the Israeli move is anti-democratic and anti-free speech. There also is a lot of bluster about how this is a badge of honor and proves how effective BDS is.
But the bottom line is that the BDS boycotters don’t like being boycotted.
Here are some tweets I send out about the Israeli action and the counter-reaction:
[Featured Image: Ariel Gold of Code Pink being detained during protest/riot at town of Biilin]
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