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BDS Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 21, 2017 8 Comments
Omar Barghouti is considered one of the co-founders of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Barghouti is a Qatari-born Palestinian who lives in Israel because he married an Arab Israeli woman. He also is a Class A propagandist and hypocrite. He demands that others boycott Israeli universities, for example, but also attended Tel Aviv University. Barghouti uses his presence in Israel to preach for the destruction of Israel, as we wrote in BDS Co-founder Omar Barghouti: “the right of our people to the 1948 lands is in danger”:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 19, 2017 5 Comments
A series of high profile attacks on conservative speakers on campus has created great controversy, even among many academics on the left. The scenes of physical assaults, incendiary projectiles fired at the student center, and bonfires lit at UC-Berkeley to stop an appearance by Milo Yiannopoulos’ gained media attention and raised questions about free speech on campuses. When a mob shouted down Charles Murray at Middlebury, physically assaulted his faculty host, and then jumped on and blockaded their getaway car, there was a howl of condemnation. The Middlebury incident in particular sparked much soul-searching in academia. The scenes at UC-Berkeley and Middlebury may have been shocking to many people, but not to those of us who support Israel. We have seen this movie many times before.

Posted by Mary Chastain on March 16, 2017 1 Comment
Hotel Kaiserwasser and Hotel Regina in Vienna, Austria, have canceled a BDS event by a British-Palestinian lawyer. News agency Heute.at reported that Hotel Kaiserwasser canceled the event due to charges of antisemitism and one employee received threats by the Jewish community. Some have disputed this:
“Nonsense,” said Raimund Fastenbauer, general-secretary of the 7,000-member Vienna Jewish community, adding that he informed the hotel about the “antisemitic character of BDS” movement targeting the Jewish state. The Hotel said it canceled the event due to “operational unfeasability,” according to Heute.at. Fastenbauer told the news site, “Nazis demanded, ‘Don’t buy from Jews,’ BDS formulates the [Nazi] demand in a similar way today.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 12, 2017 7 Comments
Rasmea Odeh will be a featured speaker at the 2017 annual meeting of Jewish Voice for Peace in Chicago, March 31st – April 2nd. The invitation has created controversy, particularly after Rasmea's involvement in the March 8, 2017, International Women's Strike and Day Without A Woman created widespread media attention. The JVP invite has been covered widely, including at Algemeiner, Jerusalem Post, Chicago Tribune, Daily Caller, Washington Free Beacon, and The Tower, among others. ADL also has commented on the invitation. Rasmea is listed as one of the featured speakers, on a Who's Who list of anti-Israel activists (image below is only partial list).

Posted by Miriam Elman on March 09, 2017 8 Comments
On Monday night (March 6), Israel’s parliament (the Knesset) passed in its second and final reading a law barring the entry of foreign nationals who have “knowingly and publicly” called for boycotting Israel or who “represent an organization” that calls for such a boycott. The law extends the ban to those foreign visitors (excluding permanent residents) who back the anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) movement and to those who support the boycott of settlement goods in Judea and Samaria/the West Bank. The legislation, which passed with 46 votes in favor and 28 against, was sponsored by center-right political parties and had been in the works for over a year, as discussed in detail in my prior post, Will Israel Bar Entry of Foreign BDS Activists?

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 07, 2017 4 Comments
Two violent attacks campus speakers have gained widespread media attention in recent months -- the attack on Milo Yiannopoulos' appearance at UC-Berkeley, and Charles Murray at Middlebury. Less violent, but still disruptive, attempts were made to shut down Rick Santorum and Michael Johns at Cornell, Christina Hoff Sommers at Oberlin, Georgetown and elsewhere. and other conservative speakers. Finally, there is widespread condemnation even from the left, particularly after Middlebury.

Posted by Miriam Elman on February 27, 2017 4 Comments
Breaking the Silence (BtS)—Shovrim Shtika in Hebrew—is a group of Israeli veterans who collect and disseminate ‘testimonies’ of alleged breaches of military ethics which they claim were witnessed and perpetrated by soldiers while they were serving in the West Bank and Gaza. BtS activists present themselves as patriotic Zionists who love their country. They also defend their organization as a whistleblower that works to keep the state moral by speaking out against IDF atrocities committed against Palestinians. But the reality is that BtS has long been discredited as a fringe group that acts to “fuel BDS.” The group once garnered a fair share of admirers during its formative years. Today it’s rejected by most of the Israeli mainstream public.

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 23, 2017 2 Comments
CPAC 2017 has shown its support for Israel in numerous ways, but the panel on the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) provided excellent points to defeat the movement. "BDS isn't about taking Israel out of business," said Lisa Daftari from Foreign Desk News. "It's about taking Israel off the map."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 12, 2017 2 Comments
You may recall the incident in the summer of 2015 involving Jewish American musician Matisyahu. His appearance at the Spanish Rototom Reggae festival was cancelled after threats from local Spanish activists from the Boycott, Divestment and Movement (BDS) movement. Spain has a particularly malicious BDS movement, which until recently, has had success convincing municipalities to boycott Israel, creating so-called Zionist-free zones. Those municipal boycotts have been declared to be illegal discrimination by Spanish courts. Matisyahu made a name for himself as a religious Jewish Reggae singer with hits advocating peace, such as One Day.

Posted by Miriam Elman on February 10, 2017 11 Comments
On Wednesday, the New York State Education Department apologized for including an ‘anti-Israel’ political cartoon on its global studies Regents Exam. The exam was administered to 10th graders back on January 24. In an earlier post on the controversy, we wrote that critics—including students, teachers, and a prominent NY politician—had charged that the cartoon was offensive anti-Israel propaganda.

Posted by Miriam Elman on February 02, 2017 23 Comments
Anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda are common on America’s college and university campuses. But as we’ve highlighted in a number of recent posts, this discriminatory and biased messaging and materials appears to be filtering down into the public education system. In a post last April we noted how anti-Israel materials have been systematically introduced into the curriculum of a Newton, MA high school. Then at an Ithaca, NY third grade classroom we recently documented efforts to indoctrinate kids into becoming “freedom fighters for Palestine”:

Posted by Miriam Elman on February 01, 2017 4 Comments
On Monday Jan. 30, Israel’s parliament (the Knesset) was set to pass into law a bill that bars BDS (boycotts, divestments and sanctions) advocates from the country. The bill would extend the ban to those who back the anti-Israel BDS movement as well as those who support the boycott of settlement goods in Judea and Samaria/the West Bank. The bill has been in the works for over a year, passing its first Knesset reading back in November.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 31, 2017 18 Comments
It's not like I told you so. But I told you so. Many, many times. To those in the U.S. academic community who support the academic boycott of Israeli academics because they don't like the policies of the Israeli government, I warned that they better prepare for the day when foreign academics start to boycott them for the actions of the U.S. government. That day has arrived sooner than I thought. Though the boycott of U.S. academics being mounted is much less severe than the boycott sought against Israel, it's a boycott nonetheless.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 14, 2017 8 Comments
I was going to write something profound and deep tonight about the takedown of Legal Insurrection's YouTube account after the Modern Language Association filed three (3) copyright claims with YouTube relating to my coverage of the arguments made at an MLA annual meeting town hall in favor and against the academic boycott of Israel. *Perhaps* it was total *coincidence* that three (3) claims were filed considering that YouTube has a well-known three strikes rule -- three claims and they may remove your channel and account. Which is what happened even before I knew there was a copyright claim by MLA (it never contacted us). *Eventually* we'll find out *why* three (3) claims were filed. I sure hope people are not deleting emails, that would look really bad.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 12, 2017 126 Comments
UPDATE: As of approximately 7:30 p.m. on January 13, 2017, our YouTube Channel was restored, though there are still legal battles to come over the videos. ------------- YouTube took down Legal Insurrection's Channel without any prior notice based on "multiple third-party claims of copyright infringement," but we never received any claims of infringement. We have lost hundreds of videos, including a lot of original content on important news subjects. You now will see disabled videos in hundreds of our posts. I have no idea what the supposedly offending videos are. We are pretty careful when it comes to copyright, so I'm suspecting that someone about whom we posted a video made the claims. We've filed the appeal forms, but if anyone has a contact at YouTube, I'd appreciate the help. Please email me.

Posted by MLA17 Attendee on January 08, 2017 5 Comments
As reported extensively on this site, the Modern Language Association held its annual convention this weekend in Philadelphia. At the meeting a resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions was defeated and a resolution opposing academic boycotts was passed and is now before the general membership. For coverage see here and here. I am an MLA member, and I was there. Unfortunately, for professional reasons, I am not able to write under my own name. Such is the nature of the BDS academic boycott. The under-the-radar boycott is for real, even as pro-BDS faculty push for a formal boycott such at that attempted at MLA. Here's what I observed, and what I think the implications are for the academic boycott movement - and the opposition.
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