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Antisemitism Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 04, 2016 4 Comments
The Vassar College Student Association  council is voting anonymously on March 6, 2016, on an anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions resolution proposed by Vassar Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Vassar Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). For details, see Vassar anti-Israel activists attempt stealth academic boycott Resolution. For years the BDS campaign on campus has been punctuated by crude and misleading accusations against Israel, and an implicit and sometimes explicit argument that Zionism is inherently racist. Overt anti-Semitism rears its head from time to time. In researching Vassar's history, I came upon an interesting historical contrast with the current situation. In November 1975, the U.N. General Assembly passed the notorious (and now rescinded) "Zionism is Racism" Resolution. Then U.S. UN Ambassador Daniel Moynihan spoke eloquently in rebuttal of spoke of the “infamous” Zionism is Racism act.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 03, 2016 5 Comments
One of the most controversial aspects of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is the academic boycott. That academic boycott has been condemned and rejected by the Presidents of over 250 American universities and colleges, and major groups such as the American Council on Education (1700+ Higher Ed Institutions), Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (216 Universities and University Systems), Association of American Universities (62 Universities). The American Association of University Professors (approx. 48,000 members) not only rejects the academic boycott, it also calls it a violation of academic freedom. Almost all resolutions introduced at student governments by groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) focus on divestment from companies allegedly aiding Israel's violation of Palestinian human rights. These are symbolic resolutions since student governments have no say on university finances; sometimes they pass, but more often they fail.

Posted by Jonathan Levin on March 02, 2016 1 Comment
Opponents of the Boycott, Divest and Sanction ("BDS") campaign against Israel won a significant tactical victory in hostile territory last month. In January, the city of Aviles, Spain - just inland of the Bay of Biscay on the northern shore of the Iberian Peninsula -  passed a resolution adopting BDS.  The Association for Action and Communication in the Middle East ("ACOM") a pro-Israel organization based in Madrid, filed a discrimination suit against the municipality. According to the Spanish-language El Commercio, in late February the city voted to rescind the BDS resolution, apparently as part of a settlement in the ACOM suit.  Google's translator function is passable:
Action Association and Communication in the Middle East (ACOM), which aims to improve all kinds of relations between Spain and Israel, hailed yesterday's decision of the City of Aviles to withdraw the boycott of Israeli products after the plenary session on Saturday approved, with the votes of PSOE, PP and Citizens, the annulment of the declaration last January 21 the Consistory incorporated Aviles to BDS Network (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against colonization, apartheid and Israeli occupation Palestine.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 01, 2016 4 Comments
Last week The Tower magazine broke the story of a "social justice writing" professor at Oberlin, Joy Karega, who engaged in some bizarre anti-Semitic and anti-Israel commentary on Facebook. The short version is that Karega, at least based on what she posts on Facbeook, sees Zionist and Jewish conspiracies almost everywhere, including claiming Israel was behind 9/11, and that the Charlie Hebdo attack and downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 were Mossad false flag operations. She also circulated and posted about the Rothschild family controlling the media and seeking global domination, so no mere anti-Zionist loon here. Karega Oberlin Netanyahu ISIS

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 27, 2016 9 Comments
The anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement always has used disruption and intimidation on campus as a tactic to initimidate Israeli and pro-Israel speakers and students on campus. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is a leader in this regard, but hardly alone. There have been two developments in the past year or two. First, using the intellectual pretext of "intersectionality," anti-Israel coalitions are build based upon (i) explicitly racial criteria of opposing "white settler colonialism," and (ii) co-opting unrelated social justice causes, such as Black Lives Matter and even rape crisis groups. Second, as reflected in our reporting and a recent study, disruption has become the preferred tactic, as divestment and other such efforts prove futile even when passed by student governments. Just today, for example, a boycott resolution which had passed the McGill University student assembly was voted down in an all-campus vote, Anti-Israel Boycott Resolution goes down in flames at McGill University.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 25, 2016 3 Comments
As documented before, Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY, has faced a waive of anti-Israel, and in some cases anti-Semitic, activity on campus for the past two years centered around the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The latest spark is a combined effort by Vassar Students for Justice in Palestine and Vassar Jewish Voice for Peace, to pass an anti-Israel divestment resolution targeting companies, including Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, that supposedly contribute to the oppression of Palestinians. The controversy has put a lot of pressure not just on the Vassar administration, but also the Vassar Student Association, which is considering the BDS resolution for a March 6 vote. The Miscellany News, the student newspaper, reports that the students on VSA just voted to take the BDS vote in secret:

Posted by Miriam Elman on February 21, 2016 12 Comments
This spring three U.S. mainline churches, the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), the United Methodist Church (UMC), and the Unitarian Universalist Church (UU), will feature a number of anti-Israel BDS-related resolutions at their annual meetings. Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) activists are already anticipating that “2016 could be the biggest year yet for church divestment”. The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (USCEIO), an anti-Israel umbrella group for the BDS movement, recently released a call to action encouraging supporters to sign petitions, and follow and ‘like’ the efforts of anti-Israel member groups within these liberal Protestant churches via emails and social media. UCEIO, Huge News on church divestment Below we highlight what’s in store in the months ahead in the anti-Israel movement’s ongoing campaign to hijack America’s liberal Protestant churches.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 17, 2016 12 Comments
For the past two years we have been reporting on extreme anti-Israelism veering into anti-Semitism at Vassar College, in Poughkeepsie, NY. We have relentlessly documented a series of shocking events. Among other things, in 2014 Jewish students who stood up at a campus-wide forumwere mocked and jeered by a raucous crowd of students and faculty, a class was picketed and a professor forced to cross a picket line of ululating students because the course involved a trip to Israel (and the West Bank), Students for Justice in Palestine posted a Nazi cartoon on social media, and pro-Israel displays were vandalized. Just recently, a Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolution campaign kick-off by SJP and Jewish Voice for Peace, followed by a faculty-sponsored event at which Israel was accused of engaging in an experiment to “stunt” Palestinian bodies, led to anti-Semitic messages on campus Yik-Yak. Just recently, SJP sold t-shirts honoring Palestinian airplane hijacker Leila Khalid. https://www.facebook.com/SJPatVC/photos/a.569972329734862.1073741828.569630543102374/1026058340792923/?type=3 The reaction from the Vassar President to alumni complaints and concerns was to blame the messenger, accusing "online publications" and "social media" of mischaracterizing the campus atmosphere.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 16, 2016 5 Comments
On Monday night, February 15, 2016, the student government council at the University of Illinois - Chicago unanimously (14-0) passed a divestment resolution proposed by Students for Justice in Palestine and a coalition of other student groups. That passage is being promoted by anti-Israel activists, including Jewish Voice for Peace, as a major victory for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campus movement. But passage of the resolution isn't the real story. The real story is that the resolution that passed did not single out Israel, and applied to any and all alleged human rights abuses anywhere in the world, specifically also mentioning the United States, China, Britain and other countries. As such, the watered-down resolution amounted to a universal statement of principles, not a condemnation of Israel. The UIC Coalition for Peace, which included pro-Israel students, can claim this as a victory for fair treatment of Israel.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on February 16, 2016 0 Comments
British Prime Minister David Cameron’s government has proposed new directives to combat anti-Israel boycott in the United Kingdom. Under the proposed regulations, universities, city councils, state-run health services and other government-funded public organisation will be not be allowed to discriminate against products made in Israel. The announcement comes on the heels of a bill introduced in the US congress to combat anti-Israel boycott campaign. “The Combating BDS Act of 2016" wants to give more power to the states to act against businesses that boycot or divest from Israel. According to the reports in British media, Cabinet Office Minister Matthew Hancock is expected to announce the details during his trip to Israel in coming days, citing concerns that such campaigns directed towards Israel fuel antisemitism. The London-based newspaper The Indepedent reports:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 15, 2016 17 Comments
Vassar College has been rocked by a series of anti-Israel, anti-Semitic events. Apparently the President of Vassar, Catharine Hill, has received numerous alumni complaints and concerns, because she issued a statement to alumni seeking to allay their concerns. But in the process, the President sought to shift the responsibility by blaming "online publications" and "social media" for the controversy. I don't know if the President included Legal Insurrection in her criticism, but please scroll through our Vassar College Tag so you can see how thoroughly we have documented all our reporting. As background, anti-Israel activism has led to anti-Semitic incidents in 2014 and 2016. Among other things, in 2014 Jewish students who stood up at a campus-wide forumwere mocked and jeered by a raucous crowd of students and faculty, a class was picketed and a professor forced to cross a picket line of ululating students because the course involved a trip to Israel (and the West Bank), Students for Justice in Palestine posted a Nazi cartoon on social media, and pro-Israel displays were vandalized.

Posted by Jonathan Levin on February 12, 2016 2 Comments
There has been quite a bit of BDS-related legislative activity in the several weeks, with two anti-BDS measures moving through Congress, and activity in several state legislatures.  While the legislatures universally oppose BDS, President Obama has weighed in in opposition to Congress's pro-Israel legislation.

Federal Anti-BDS Legislation

First, Wednesday afternoon Senators Mark Kirk (R. - IL) and Joe Manchin (D. - WV) and Representatives Bob Dold (R. - IL) and Juan Vargas (D. - CA) filed a bill to help states divest from BDS-supporting companies.  According to Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon:
The new bill, which was filed Wednesday afternoon, marks an aggressive push by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to combat the growing Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, otherwise known as BDS, which advocates in favor of economic war against the Jewish state. The bill would provide legal shelter to states seeking to divest taxpayer funds from any company that has backed the BDS movement. It also would set a legal precedent granting safe harbor for private investment companies to do the same.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 11, 2016 12 Comments
We previously reported on the anti-Semitic messages sent at Vassar College after the launch of a Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) student campaign by Vassar Students for Justice in Palestine and Vassar Jewish Voice for Peace. The messages also followed fast on the heels of a faculty-sponsored anti-Israel speech by Rutgers Professor Jabir Puar in which, among other things, she accused Israel of conducting an experiment in “stunting” growth of Palestinian bodies, Vassar faculty-sponsored anti-Israel event erupts in controversy. Not much was known about the anti-Semitic messages except that they were sent via the anonymous campus app Yik Yak. Here is an example which was posted on Facebook by the Vassar Jewish Student Union:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 08, 2016 15 Comments
Once again, Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY, is mired in controversy regarding anti-Israel activities on campus involving Vassar faculty. The controversy surrounds the February 3, 2016, appearance of Rutgers Associate Professor Jasbir Puar at the invitation of several Vassar departments, including Jewish Studies. At the outset of the appearance, according to the Vassar alumni/parent/friends group Fairness to Israel (FTI), a request was made by the Vassar professor introducing the speaker not to record the event, although it was acknowledged that it was legal to do so:
Before I give my brief remarks, I would like to request that you silence your devices you brought with you so as not to disrupt the conversation with Professor Puar is conducting with us today. I would also like to request on her behalf and on behalf of the rest of the assembly that you refrain from recording this evening’s proceedings, in the spirit of congeniality and mutual respect, though it is not against the law, to record someone vocation professional labor without informing them, it is quite unseemly and violates the modest contract of trust essential to the exchange of ideas.
Requesting non-recording of an open, public event on the pretext that non-recording is "essential to the exchange of ideas" is odd.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 05, 2016 3 Comments
Concentrated, intense anti-Israel activity at Vassar College in early 2014 resulted in gross displays of anti-Jewish hostility, as I documented at the time, Anti-Israel academic boycott turns ugly at Vassar. Thirty-nine Vassar professors signed a letter in the student newspaper supporting the academic boycott of Israel, and aggressive protests by Students for Justice in Palestine created a pervasive climate of fear on campus. When I was invited by a student group to speak on campus, no academic department would co-sponsor my appearance despite the fact that several departments co-sponsored the appearance the week before of the anti-Israel activists Ali Abunimah and Max Blumenthal. The hostility following my appearance on campus was so intense that Vassar SJP circulated on social media a Nazi cartoon. Since then, there has been near continuous anti-Israel activism on campus, including an appearance by the leader of national Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and a dining hall boycott of Sabra Hummus (which later was reversed).

Posted by Miriam Elman on January 31, 2016 9 Comments
In November 2015, The Nation, a prominent progressive magazine, published an essay by controversial professor Steven Salaita which raised complaints from a prominent Rabbi that the essay crossed the line from legitimate criticism of Israeli policy to anti-Semitism. As we noted in many prior posts, Salaita is a virulently anti-Israel academic who had a contingent offer at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign rejected in 2014. He sued and got a money settlement, but not the job. Salaita's since become “enshrined as a symbol” in the American academy of the trouncing of academic freedom and the trampling of shared governance protocols. Salaita's essay in The Nation brought harsh criticism from a Professor of Jewish thought and culture:
Apparently it’s Zionism that ails the neoliberal university, along with everything else amiss in the world. You can read here his goodbye at the Nation. What reads like it was taken straight out from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the complaint that Zionism occupies the American mind and the American university expands as a logical next step on the basic view from the tweets and the book that “Zionists” are enemies of humanity, supporters of war crimes, adorn themselves with the teeth of Palestinian babies, etc, etc. Don’t be surprised when the next stage in on-campus Palestinian solidarity activism takes aim at purging U.S. academe of “Zionism,” namely Birthright, Hillel, study abroad in Israel, Israel Studies, and Jewish Studies.
The essay also prompted Rabbi Jill Jacobs, a leading voice in American Jewish Conservative circles, to write in complaint. In a Letter to the Editor sent to The Nation in November, Jacobs contended that Salaita’s article contained a series of disturbing anti-Semitic statements.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 30, 2016 8 Comments
In January 2015, we reported on how anti-Israeli Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement supporters hijacked a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day event on the San Mateo Bridge. Some Stanford students turned a Black Lives Matter march into an anti-Israel event by unfurling a huge Palestinian Flag on the bridge span at its highest point.  Hundreds of motorists were trapped, and they caused accidents. One of the key activists involved was Kristian Davis Bailey, a leader of attempt to demonize Israel by tying Zionism to problems of non-whites in the U.S. through the theory of "intersectionality." [caption id="attachment_113857" align="alignnone" width="600"]https://twitter.com/farah_salazar/status/558214869648814080 [January 2015, San Mateo Bridge, image via Farah Salazar Twitter][/caption]It is a highly racist approach, seeking to exploit racial tensions by portraying Israel -- and Israel alone -- as the cause of problems it has nothing to do with. As we saw recently in Chicago at an LGBT conference and Oberlin College, because "intersectionality" theory portrays Israel as uniquely evil in the world, the distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism quickly blurs. This year, we are aware of two attempts to co-opt the memory of Dr. King by putting on anti-Israel events as part of MLK Day activities. There likely were many more that we don't know about. At George Mason University, the MLK Day Program featured and event by Students Against Israeli Apartheid showing an anti-Israel film.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 29, 2016 11 Comments
Columnist Jonathan Capehart at The Washington Post has a rather extraordinary column on the "anti-pinkwashing" near-riot at the Creating Change conference in Chicago on Friday night, January 22. The column is extraordinary in that it reflects a growing realization even in the mainstream media that the thin line between rabid anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism has been crossed in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. We covered the situation in our post, Jewish Voice for Peace helps disrupt Israeli LGBTQ group Sabbath event, which has video and images, and explains the tactic:
The pinkwashing charge is essential for BDS on U.S. college campuses because BDS has trouble squaring its support for regimes (including Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, not to mention most Arab countries) which abuse and persecute gays with BDS’s attempt to co-opt the progressive movement. Hence, the pinkwashing claim that Israel’s promotion of its gay-friendly policies is actually a greater evil than the abuse heaped on gays in areas controlled by Israel’s enemies.
If you want to get a sense of how threatening the anti-Israel crowd was, view this video from a group that appears to support the protest. Imagine yourself in the conference room with hundreds of people screaming just outside the doors and trying to push their way past security. Also note the chants of "mic check" -- a phrase made famous during the Occupy Wall Street protests:
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