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Antisemitism Tag

German public broadcaster Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) withdrew its sponsorship of a Roger Waters concert in Cologne, after local activists objected to the allocation of public funds to former Pink Floyd frontman known for his support for the anti-Israel boycott campaign, German newspapers report.

The New School, a liberal Manhattan-based university, has garnered considerable controversy over a program on antisemitism that’s currently scheduled for Tuesday, November 28. The program is titled Antisemitism and the Struggle for Justice and it is designed to promote a book by Jewish Voice for Peace of a similar name. Criticism of the event has been almost entirely focused on the university’s “misguided invitation” to Linda Sarsour and the “absurdity” of this self-identified anti-Israel firebrand and boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement “poster girl” being asked to discuss the nature of contemporary anti-Jewish hatred and how best to tackle it.

In a number of recent posts, we’ve been covering the Palestinian effort at UNESCO to erase the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, Hebron and other historical sites in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). As we’ve discussed, since 2011 when the UN body recognized Palestine as a state, Palestinian officials have undertaken what amounts to a cultural jihad—hijacking the UNESCO agenda by repeatedly forcing its members to consider Jewish heritage sites as purely Islamic.

For a number of years we’ve been documenting anti-Israel activism on U.S. college campuses, carried out by student groups like Students for Justice in Palestine. In these prior posts we’ve described many instances when this virulent anti-Israelism has crossed over the line into blatant anti-Jewish animus, including at schools like Vassar, Oberlin, University of Illinois and at various California colleges and universities.

In a strongly worded resolution passed by the Green Party in the southern German state of Bavaria, the state unit of the party has rejected the anti-Israel boycott campaign, or the BDS Movement as antisemitic. The resolution titled "No to Antisemitism, no to BDS" (embedded and translated below) declared the Bavarian Green Party's intention to actively challenge the BDS activism in the state.

Now in its second consecutive year, the Nakba Tour is a speaking event that brings several Palestinian women registered as refugees in Lebanon to university, church, and other community venues across North America. The talks rightly highlight the many overwhelming challenges that Palestinians face in Lebanon, including the denial of basic civil rights and endemic discrimination.

Anti-Israel activists regularly, and with never-ending repetition, claim that Israel is an "Apartheid state" because if favors Jews over non-Jews. This accusation is a key part of the strategy to delegitimize Israel, and was developed in 2001 as part of the Durban conference boycott call. That boycott call, based on the accusation of Apartheid, was the foundation of the current Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, as I discussed in my lecture, The REAL history of the BDS movement.

When I woke up this morning and learned of the Las Vegas shooting, I fully expected all sorts of horrible hot takes and political exploitation. And Twitter has not disappointed in that regard. But I have to admit, as attuned as I am to anti-Israel activists hijacking causes and events to turn them against Israel, it never entered my mind that the Las Vegas shooting would be exploited in that manner.

The Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC), a national organization that supports pro-Israel and Zionist students on university campuses, has released a new report that summarizes the findings from nearly 1200 anti-Israel activities that took place on U.S. colleges during the 2016-2017 academic year. The report highlights a “growing intensity” of anti-Israel campaigns on certain campuses, but also notes a 40% decrease in BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns—from 33 in 2015-2016 down to 20 over the last year—and a 20% decline in overall anti-Israel activity during the same period.

A joint report released last week by the Institute of Jewish Policy Research (JPR), a London-based think tank, and the Community Security Trust (CST), the communal Jewish defense body in the UK, found an “unambiguous association” between antisemitic and anti-Israel attitudes in Britain. The report—an in-depth investigation and analysis of animus toward Jews, the role of hatred directed toward Israel, and the prevalence of bigotry across the political spectrum in Britain today—makes for a sobering read.

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is an anti-Israel extremist group that enables, legitimizes and mainstreams antisemitism by providing a façade and veneer of Jewish legitimacy for the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. As we’ve highlighted in almost 100 prior posts dating back to 2011, JVP isn’t a Jewish group. Rather, it’s a far-left wing group that purports to be inspired by the Jewish tradition of social activism.

There is a growing recognition of the anti-Semitic nature of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Anti-Israel activists claim BDS was a spontaneous 2005 call from "Palestinian civil society" for an academic, cultural and economic boycott of Israel to end "the occupation." (They are deliberately vague on what is occupied, and the leadership and activists make clear they consider all of Israel occupied.)

Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Israel organization which is a leading player in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, has released an “updated” video for its “Deadly Exchange” campaign. We wrote about JVP’s “Deadly Exchange” initiative in a prior post, With “Deadly Exchange” Campaign, Jewish Voice for Peace moves from enabling to promoting antisemitism. As we highlighted, the campaign blames Israel and major Jewish American organizations for policing problems in minority communities, including police shootings. JVP thus sets up Jews as part of and the driving force behind a white police power structure oppressing non-whites. As demonstrated in the prior post, those accusations are false, but pernicious. JVP holds Jews out as the cause of unrelated problems, and does so in terms meant to exploit and incite antisemitism and racial hatred and resentment.

The student government at the University of Frankfurt has condemned the anti-Israel boycott campaign as antisemitic, by unanimously passing a resolution last week. The university, also referred to as the Goethe University, joins the Leipzig University, which passed a similar resolution last year that rejected the BDS activism creeping onto German campuses. Taking the fight to the anti-Israel camp, the student body called for a boycott of the anti-Israel boycotters on the campus.

This is how the terrorists win, and civilization dies. From Australia, Bondi synagogue ban over terrorism risk leaves Jewish community shocked and furious:
A LOCAL council has banned the construction of a synagogue in Bondi because it could be a terrorist target, in a shock move that religious leaders say has caved in to Islamic extremism and created a dangerous precedent.