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Antisemitism Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 20, 2016 7 Comments
It was one of the most notorious statements of the academic boycott movement against Israel. Shortly after the American Studies Association adopted the academic boycott of Israel in December 2013, and a firestorm of condemnation by University Presidents and associations erupted, then ASA President Curtis Marez justified singling out Israel because "one has to start somewhere":
The American Studies Association has never before called for an academic boycott of any nation’s universities, said Curtis Marez, the group’s president and an associate professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, San Diego. He did not dispute that many nations, including many of Israel’s neighbors, are generally judged to have human rights records that are worse than Israel’s, or comparable, but he said, “one has to start somewhere.”
In that single phrase, "one has to start somewhere," was the hypocrisy and essential anti-Semitism of the BDS academic boycott movement laid bare.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 12, 2016 2 Comments
Palestinian incitement to hate and attack Jews has been a frequent topic here lately. It is not just a key cause of the current so-called "Knife Intifada" (which also involves shooting and other forms of attack), but also an impediment to any chance of peace. It is a top-down (from the Palestinian Authority, Fatah, and Hamas) and bottom-up (social media) phenomenon that is particularly focused on young children and teens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBtEDMsl_SM Here is another example, from PalMedia Watch:

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 27, 2016 8 Comments
People inside the Labour Party have accused party leader Jeremy Corbyn and his office of hampering the party's campaign to keep Britain in the European Union. From The London Times:
Alan Johnson, the former home secretary, said that it often felt as if figures in the leader’s office were “working against the rest of the party and had conflicting objectives”.

Posted by Miriam Elman on June 19, 2016 5 Comments
Since 1967 — when Israel liberated the Jewish holy sites in eastern Jerusalem — the Temple Mount has been administered by agreement through the Islamic Waqf, a Jordanian-funded trust which oversees the site’s day-to-day religious functions. The Temple Mount is the most sacred site in Judaism, sanctified as the place where the Jewish Temples existed in biblical times. It’s a place where Jews should have basic rights, including the freedom of movement and worship. But as we’ve noted in several prior posts (see here, here, here) because of the profoundly discriminatory “status quo arrangement” set in place in 1967 and subsequently upheld by Israel’s courts, Jews are prohibited from praying there for fear of potentially upsetting Muslim worshippers, stirring up tensions, and triggering violent Muslim backlashes.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on June 16, 2016 2 Comments
What should be first of its kind, a leading German bank has shut down an account connected to the anti-Israel boycott campaign -- also know by the acronym of BDS. Commerzbank, Germany’s second largest bank, closed the account of anti-Israel and pro-BDS website “Der Semit”. The action is expected to have implications for other banks providing services to groups affiliated to the BDS campaign throughout Germany. Israeli Minister for Public Security Gilad Erdan welcomed the decision taken by Commerzbank and urged other European banks to take similar steps against anti-Israel and anti-Semitic groups raising funds and carrying out transactions in Europe.

Posted by New Neo on June 13, 2016 11 Comments
Not long after being introduced to the internet about 20 years ago, I realized that despite the internet's many wonders, anti-Semitism was also rife online. The internet gave this old hatred with a long pedigree new and sturdy legs. Do a search for some topic connected with the Holocaust, for example, and pretty quickly you'll encounter the manifold Holocaust deniers and websites devoted to spreading anti-Semitic lies about all manner of Jewish things and all points of Jewish history. These sites are slick, numerous, and wide-reaching, and I have little doubt that they have increased the number of anti-Semitic people in the world who are firmly convinced that they are privy to the truth about Jews.

Posted by Dexter Van Zile on June 08, 2016 2 Comments
For the past decade, anti-Israel activists in the United States and Europe have called on pension funds, universities and churches to sell their stock in companies that do business with Israel, particularly its defense establishment. They have also called for people and governments to boycott Israel, its products and services. It’s part of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign that seeks to isolate Israel from the international economy and force the Jewish state to make concessions to the Palestinians. BDS proponents say they want to promote human rights and peace between Israel and the Palestinians, but it’s hard to ignore that their criticism is nearly always directed at Israel while groups like Hamas and Hezbollah are given a pass. The effect is not to promote peace, but to portray Israel’s efforts to defend itself as immoral and indefensible.

Posted by David Gerstman on May 31, 2016 12 Comments

Singling Out Jews in Yellow

Shortly before the Senate vote on the nuclear deal with Iran was supposed to take place (but was filibustered by Democratic supporters of the deal), The New York Times *helpfully* provided a list letting everyone know which Jewish lawmakers were against the deal, with the names highlighted in yellow.

New york times congressional jew tracker iran deal senate

The New York Times, after the expected (and deserved) outrage, removed the "Religion" column from the list but acknowledged no wrongdoing, "[under] Times standards, the religion or ethnicity of someone in the news can be noted if that fact is relevant and the relevance is clear to readers." Nonetheless due to readers' outrage, it adjusted the list.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 22, 2016 12 Comments
It was the selfie heard round the world. Zakia Belkhari, a young Belgian Muslim woman of Morrocan descent, took a series of selfies in front of a group of anti-immigration protesters last week. The images went viral on social media and across the progressive media. Vox.com termee it a "brilliant" symbol of peace and defiance in the face of "Islamophobia" and "hate." http://www.vox.com/2016/5/17/11692306/muslim-selfies-islamophobia-protest-antwerp-belgium

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 07, 2016 16 Comments
I doubt many people know the name Babi Yar, or what happened there. Unless you read Legal Insurrection. If I polled 10,000 college students, I'd be surprised if more than a handful ever heard of it. Babi Yar is a large ravine in Kiev, Ukraine. [caption id="attachment_170714" align="alignnone" width="600"]http://collections1.yadvashem.org/notebook.asp?lang=ENG&dlang=ENG&module=search&page=next_list&rsvr=7@7&param=%3Cdlang%3EENG%3C/%3E%3Cnob%3E28%3C/%3E%3Cstart_entry%3E91%3C/%3E%3Crsvr_id%3E7%3C/%3E%3Clang_id%3EENG%3C/%3E%3Cquantity%3E15%3C/%3E%3Cvalue%3Ebabi%20yar%20murder%20site%3C/%3E%3Cindex_name%3ECONPL%3C/%3E%3Ccollector%3E0%3C/%3E%3Clif%3ECONPL%3C/%3E%3Crsvr_ser%3E@@7%3C/%3E%3Cdispq%3Ez1zPlaces:%20z3zbabi%20yar%20murder%20site,%20Literal%20%20z1zDatabanks:%20z3zPhotos%20Archive%3C/%3E%3Cquery_name%3Ejaguar50_4504_451103%3C/%3E%3Cnum_of_items%3E0%3C/%3E%3Cquery_index%3E@CONPL%3C/%3E%3Cthumb%3E0%3C/%3E%3Csmode%3Edts%3C/%3E%3Cbook_id%3E6443%3C/%3E%3Cview%3Ealbum%3C/%3E%3Cmainimage%3E/arch_srika/4001-4500/4135-4303/4147_102.jpg%3C/%3E&param2=&site=sapir [Babi Yar ravine, image via Yad Vashem][/caption]In September 1941, after the Nazis conquered what at the time was the Ukrainian Socialist Republic, part of the Soviet Union, the roundup of Jews was ordered. Ukrainian collaborators gladly assisted in the round up, particularly of Jewish women.

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 05, 2016 2 Comments
Iowa Governor Terry Branstad confirmed he will sign a bill that will not allow public companies to do business with firms involved in Israel boycotts. Iowa's Senate passed House File 2331 last week in a 38-9 vote. The legislators hope the bill counters "efforts of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement." Palestinian groups began the movement in 2005 as a way to money and goods from Israel. "I just think it is wrong to be boycotting our friend and ally, Israel," declared Gov. Branstad. "There is a lot of opportunity for us to do business with them, and I don’t believe we ought to be penalizing Israel, of all countries. They are one of our best friends and allies. This is something I strongly support."

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).
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