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Antisemitism Tag

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 05, 2016 2 Comments
NATO has accepted Israel's request to establish an office at the headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. The decision went through because Turkey decided to stop opposing Israel's attempts at opening an office at NATO. A non-NATO country needs unanimous consent from all NATO members in order to collaborate with the organization.

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 04, 2016 8 Comments
Kuwait Airways has decided to stop all of their inter-European flights instead of accepting Israeli passengers. The Lawfare Project filed civil and criminal complaints against the airlines in Geneva, Switzerland, over their discrimination policies. They claimed the policy violated "the Swiss Penal Code as well as the Swiss constitution, which protects individuals from discrimination based on race, religion and ethnicity." "By cancelling these lucrative flight paths rather than admitting Israelis on KAC flights, the airline--a wholly owned instrumentality of the Kuwaiti government--is demonstrating its commitment to discrimination even while exposing itself to enormous pecuniary loss," wrote Lawfare Project in a statement.

Posted by Jonathan Levin on April 29, 2016 2 Comments
In the latest of a series of damaging embarrassments, Britain's Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has suspended two Labour MPs for anti-Semitic comments.  Naz Shah and Ken Livingstone were suspended for suggesting Israel should be relocated to the United States, and suggesting that Hitler was a Zionist.

Labour and Corbyn

Labour, Corbyn, Shah and Livingstone each have a history of anti-Semitic incidents.  In February, Legal Insurrection reported on the Oxford University’s Labor Club (OULC)'s anti-Semitism scandal, including the resignation of its President and a slew of complaints by other OULC members.  While the Conservative government ordered an investigation, we wrote in February:
The devil’s in the details, though.  Even the good news that the government will investigate apparently rampant anti-Semitism on UK campuses has strings attached.  Former OULC member and leader of the national Labor Party Ed Miliband called for current Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn to “personally look into” issues at OULC. Corbyn, in turn, is very much part of the problem.  He calls Hamas “friends” and has met with leaders from both Hamas and Hezbollah.  In September he spoke to the Labor Friends of Israel and refused to actually say the word “Israel.”  Corbyn’s website still peddles the malicious lie that “Israel must lift the ongoing siege of Gaza.”  The idea of Corbyn investigating anti-Semitism by a Labor-ite is insulting.
Things have only grown worse.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 28, 2016 6 Comments
David Horowitz doesn't pull punches in defense of Israel and western civilization. Perhaps his most famous moment was when he got an anti-Israel student at UC-San Diego to admit she supports extermination of Jews (watch to the end): Horowitz's Freedom Center has been posting provocative posters at various campuses. In February the posters showed SJP as Hamas executioners, because so many SJP members express support for the bloody Intifadas and back "the resistance" (which is what Hamas means in Arabic).

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 28, 2016 8 Comments
The Vassar student body voted the past two days on two anti-Israel referenda sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. For background on anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activism at Vassar, see Tuesday's post, Vassar students start voting on anti-Israel referenda. The results were just announced by email, and both referenda were rejected. The vote was close.  The BDS resolution was rejected 573 Against, 503 For. The spending resolution was defeated 601 Against, 475 For. Under the circumstances, with a years-long anti-Israel propaganda campaign supported by vocal faculty members, this must be considered a huge victory for the voices of reason on campus.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on April 28, 2016 2 Comments
Anti-Israel boycott campaign, the so-called BDS movement, and other anti-Israel groups are carrying out a coordinated campaign to hijack the May Day demonstrations in Germany with an aim of spreading their anti-Semitic and anti-Israel message. The blatant anti-Semitism and the hatred of Israel these groups propagates is getting so repugnant that it is unnerving even the old left-wingers who otherwise never missed a chance of criticising the Jewish State. The attempts by some moderate groups to keep anti-Israel agitators from taking over the Labour Day events have failed. A resolution tabled by a prominent left-wing activist Jutta Ditfurth seeking to expel openly anti-Semitic groups from the event was rejected overwhelmingly by the organising committee, forcing Ditfurth and her environmentalist group groups to leave the alliance.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on April 26, 2016 10 Comments
Right in time for Passover as tiny Jewish student communities across Germany were preparing for the Jewish holiday, several University campuses all over the country were hit by a major anti-Semitic cyber-attack. Last week, printers and photo copy machines on college campuses across Germany began spontaneously shooting off flyers filled with anti-Semitic contents. The Spokesperson of Jewish Society at the University of Bonn says, "​Just imagine sitting in your university and suddenly, dozens of anti-Semitic fliers with hate speech fly out of the printer next to you. Your university has usually been a safe place but now you face death threats against you, your family, and your friends, and you can't do anything to stop the attack. On top of that, you find out that your school was one of several in the country that was targeted." Bonn-based German newspaper General Anzeiger reports:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 14, 2016 10 Comments
Steven Salaita, you may recall, was the controversial anti-Israel professor whose hate-tweeting caused the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to decline to hire him for a tenured position. The University asserted that Salaita only had a contingent offer subject to Board approval, and that approval never happened. Salaita is active in the Boycott Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) movement and literally wrote a handbook for faculty to use to spread BDS within universities. There was rich irony in the person who sought a worldwide boycott of Israeli academics complaining when he allegedly was boycotted for his noxious views which played upon historical anti-Semitic stereotypes: https://twitter.com/stevesalaita/status/486703517751869440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Even a faculty supporter of Salaita, Prof. Feisal Mohamed, wrote (emphasis added):

Posted by Jonathan Levin on April 12, 2016 5 Comments
While anti-Israel propaganda is common on college and university campuses, there appears to be a filtering down to the public education system. We already have seen attempts to proselytize students into becoming "freedom fighters for Palestine" at an Ithaca, NY, third grade class.  Now the Newton (MA) Public Schools are embroiled in controversy over anti-Israel bias in the public high schools.

Alleged Anti-Israel Bias At Newton South High School

Last week, Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT) released a video about the years-long controversy over Newton South High School's curriculum for teaching about the Middle-East.  The issue first arose in 2011:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 06, 2016 4 Comments
On March 28, 2016, I gave a lecture at the University of Chicago Law School, When Does Anti-Israelism Turn Into Anti-Semitism. The lecture was sponsored by the Office of the Dean of Students and the Louis D. Brandeis Center, Inc. The video is embedded below and includes PowerPoint slides, which also are embedded below. After laying out the background on the rise of anti-Semitism tied to the gross demonization of Israel by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, I discussed the Sharansky 3-D Test, and the State Department guidelines, as to when anti-Zionism crosses into anti-Semitism. I then used various images as a Rorschach test. Here are a couple of the images (all the images are in the video and slide show). Slide - Carlos Latuff Octopus

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 02, 2016 0 Comments
British civil and governmental societies are undergoing a soul searching as to the role Britain plays in funding terrorism against Israel and the BDS movement. As Jonathan reported, Britain Rocked By Revelation Of Taxpayer-Funded Palestinian Terror:
Great Britain’s Foreign Office and Department for International Development (“DFID”) have funneled million of Pounds, at least, to terrorists.  The report from the Daily Mail details how the UK’s policy of spending .7% of revenue on foreign aid distorts priorities and leads it to fund terror.  The Daily Mail report builds on a broader investigation from Palestinian Media Watch (“PMW”) evidencing the Palestinian Authority’s (“PA”) attempts to hide banned payments to terrorists from Western donors.
Anti-Semitism acting under the banner of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement also has garnered attention recently in Britain, British Campus Anti-Semitism on Display During Israel Hate Week:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 26, 2016 6 Comments
This is getting to be a really, really sick habit. The other day we posted videos of anti-Israel protesters disrupting a makeshift memorial to those killed in the Brussels terror attack, by ripping up, standing on and covering up a small Israeli flag, Of course: Israel haters disrupt Brussels Memorial site: https://twitter.com/afagerbakke/status/713399122510888960 Something similar happened today, as reported by a DW News (Germany) correspondent Dana Regev.

Posted by Mike LaChance on March 25, 2016 6 Comments
A makeshift memorial to the dead in Brussels has taken shape in recent days as people have left flowers, candles, flags and other items to mourn the loss of the victims. Two recent incidents however have marred the memorial, both involving the flag of Israel. Here's the first, via the New York Post:
Woman in hijab rips up Israeli flag at Brussels memorial Video emerged Thursday of a hijab-wearing woman tearing up an Israeli flag at a makeshift memorial for victims of the Brussels terror attacks.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 23, 2016 3 Comments
In a post on Monday I noted a Report (pdf.) suggesting "Principles Against Intolerance" and containing a condemnation of anti-Semitism, was coming up for vote today at the University of California Board of Regents, UC Regents should seize its Moynihan moment on anti-Zionism. The key language in controversy was both the general condemnation of anti-Semitism, but most specifically a mention of anti-Zionism in a "contextual statement" that was not part of the Principles themselves (emphasis added):
"During the 2014-15 academic year, the Regents received correspondence and public comment from a variety of sources expressing concern that there has been an increase in incidents reflecting anti-Semitism on UC campuses. These reported incidents included vandalism targeting property associated with Jewish people or Judaism; challenges to the candidacies of Jewish students seeking to assume representative positions within student government; political, intellectual and social dialogue that is anti-Semitic; and social exclusion and stereotyping. Fundamentally, commenters noted that historic manifestations of anti-Semitism have changed and that expressions of anti-Semitism are more coded and difficult to identify. In particular, opposition to Zionism  often is expressed in ways that are not simply statements of disagreement over politics and policy, but also assertions of prejudice and intolerance toward Jewish people and culture. Anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and other forms of discrimination have no place at the University of California...."
In that post, I noted the arguments for and against the Report. Those arguments played out today before the Regents in a public comment period.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 22, 2016 2 Comments
The anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement at Vassar College has been unusually ugly and aggressive in the two-plus years I've been covering developments there. In my first post on March 27, 2014, Anti-Israel academic boycott turns ugly at Vassar, I detailed -- based on interviews with professors who witnessed the events first-hand and documents provided to me -- the picketing of a course because it involved travel to Israel, and the vitriol directed not only at the professors at a campus-wide Open Fourm, but also at Jewish students who spoke out in defense of Israel:
What transpired was anti-Israel vitriol directed at Professors and students taking a course that involved travel to Israel and the West Bank, an intimidating protest outside a classroom, and a campus forum in which the Professors and Jewish students were belittled, heckled and mocked in such crude ways that it left even critics of Israel shaken.
The two professors targeted, Jill Schneiderman and Rachel Friedman, later wrote in the Vassar student newspaper about the "climate of fear" that had descended on campus:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 21, 2016 3 Comments
On November 10, 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed the infamous “Zionism Is Racism” Resolution 3379:
"Determines that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination"
The Resolution came on the heels of the failed 1973 Yom Kippur attempt by Arab armies to destroy Israel with Soviet backing, and the 1973 Arab oil embargo to pressure the West to abandon Israel. Resolution 3379 was not phrased as anti-Jewish hatred. It was framed in terms of anti-Zionism, a rejection of the Jewish people's right to self-determination in the homeland of the Jewish people. But the anti-Zionist phraseology did not fool anyone, least of all United States Ambassador to the United Nations Daniel Patrick Moynihan. In what would become one of his most famous speeches, Moynihan rose to denounce the Resolution as anti-Semitic and to declare it a "great evil... loosed upon the world."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 14, 2016 6 Comments
At one level, you could put this post in the "tell me something I don't already know" category. For several years I have been documenting anti-Israel activity on campus, typically part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and carried out by groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). At the same time, I've pointed out many instances where such anti-Israel activity crossed-over into overt anti-Semitism, including at places like Oberlin and Vassar. (And that's putting aside whether the radical extremist anti-Israelism itself is anti-Semitic.) So the correlation between anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism seems obvious. When the only Jewish-majority nation in the world is demonized and dehumanized based on factual falsehoods and distortions under standards applied to no one else, it is no surprise that the hate manifests itself in hatred not just of Israel, but of Jews.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 11, 2016 11 Comments
Disruption of Israeli or pro-Israel speakers and events is becoming all too common on college campuses, including by groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and similar groups. The purpose is to make sure that Israeli and pro-Israel points of view cannot be presented without incident, and to create a campus climate of intimidation. We have reported on several such recent disruptions, including at University of Minnesota Law School, UT-Austin, Kings College (London), U. Windsor, University of South Florida, and an LGBTQ Shabbat Event in Chicago. Even events that are not disrupted are protested, such as the appearance of actor Michael Douglas and human rights hero Natan Sharansky at Brown University The latest was the disruption of an appearance at UC-Davis by Israeli diplomat George Deek, who also happens to be an Arab Christian. Israel On Campus Coalition reports:
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