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BDS Tag

Posted by Miriam Elman on October 24, 2017 7 Comments
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.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on October 17, 2017 4 Comments
Last week, Austria's National Union of Students (ÖH), the country’s leading student body, passed a sternly worded resolution condemning the anti-Israel boycott campaign -- or the "Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions” Movement -- trying to get a foothold in the country. The student body raised concerns about the "growing presence of the antisemitic BDS campaign" on Austrian college campuses and vowed to combat the antisemitic agitators trying to infiltrate student politics.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on October 09, 2017 7 Comments
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.

Posted by Miriam Elman on October 07, 2017 6 Comments
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.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 03, 2017 6 Comments
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.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 02, 2017 9 Comments
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.

Posted by Miriam Elman on September 24, 2017 6 Comments
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.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 19, 2017 5 Comments
The Cornell campus currently is in turmoil over two racial incidents. In one, a student shouted "build a wall" near the Latino Living Center. At least two reports (Campus Reform and The New American) claim the student was Hispanic and said it to mock Trump. The Cornell administration has declined to confirm or deny those reports, referring me instead to prior general statements from university officials. I may have more on that in a subsequent post.

Posted by Miriam Elman on September 17, 2017 6 Comments
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.

Posted by Miriam Elman on September 10, 2017 7 Comments
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.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 06, 2017 12 Comments
For several years, anti-Israel activists have sought to hijack other causes in order to turn them against Israel. A key component of these hijackings is so-called "intersectionality," the concept that Israel is the unifying evil force in the world that ties together problems far distant from Israel, including alleged police brutality against and inequality among non-whites in the U.S. Israel thus serves the organizing purpose that Jews historically served in international conspiracy theories.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 25, 2017 2 Comments
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.)

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 17, 2017 24 Comments
The anti-Israel Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is notorious for campus violence and disruption directed at Israelis and pro-Israeli students and faculty. We have featured dozens of incidents of shout-downs and disruptions of events, including physical acts of intimidation. Many of these incidents are discussed in our post, With campus shout downs, first they came for the Jews and Israel. In an extremely dangerous development, anti-Israel pro-BDS faculty are organizing a nationwide campus Antifa network.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 13, 2017 9 Comments
On August 12, 2017, a farewell gala event honoring Rasmea Odeh was held in Chicago by a coalition of anti-Israel groups, and attended by several hundred people. This coming Thursday, August 17, 2017, Rasmea will be sentenced in federal court in Detroit after a guilty plea to immigration fraud. By her plea agreement, Rasmea will be deported and will lose her U.S. citizenship, but will not serve any further jail time.

Posted by Miriam Elman on August 10, 2017 4 Comments
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.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on August 07, 2017 1 Comment
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.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 05, 2017 8 Comments
I have frequently pointed out that the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) movement not only is deeply rooted in historical anti-Semitic movements and boycotts, but also shares common ideals and membership with anti-American movements. Much as Iranian Islamists consider Israel the Little Satan and the United States the Great Satan, so too leftist and Islamist BDS supporters share a hatred of Israel and the United States. Israel is hated not just because it is Jewish, but also because it is viewed as an outpost of American-led oppression of non-whites, colonialism and imperialism. Under the now-fashionable doctrine of intersectionality, Israel is held out as the unique connecting force among capitalist and American-imperialist evils, much as the Jew has been held out in history through anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
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