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BDS Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 20, 2016 10 Comments
We have followed the problems at Oberlin College for years. Rather than revisiting everything, please scroll through our Oberlin Tag. The most recent incident involved Professor Joy Karega, who posted blatantly anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on Facebook, including linking the Rothschild family to a global conspiracy. Karega Rotshchild Image Karega also accused Israel of attacking Charlie Hebdo as part of a false flag operation and being the equivalent of ISIS.

Posted by Miriam Elman on September 20, 2016 3 Comments
Yesterday the University of California at Berkeley rescinded its suspension of a course, Ethnic Studies 198: Palestine: A Colonial Settler Analysis—a vehemently anti-Israel, one-credit, once-a-week, student-led course. The entire purpose of the course appears to be political advocacy and organizing, in violation of university policy for an academic class. California Regents Policy 2301 provides:
“The Regents…are responsible to ensure that public confidence in the University is justified. And they are responsible to see that the University remain aloof from politics and never function as an instrument for the advance of partisan interest. Misuse of the classroom by, for example, allowing it to be used for political indoctrination…constitutes misuse of the University as an institution”.
The course was so obviously political advocacy that the course poster [see Featured Image and below] used the completely discredited BDS propaganda map which was so false and misleading that MNSBC apologized for once using it during a news segment.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 17, 2016 5 Comments
An informative approach to the anti-Israel Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement is to understand the nature of the BDS movement, and how it infiltrates, exploits and ultimately subjugates other Peoples and causes to the anti-Israel purpose. I have explored the numerous examples of such subjugation in my post, BDS is a Settler Colonial Ideology:
One of the foundational claims of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is that Israel is a settler colonial project without legitimacy. But as with the Black Lives Matters, LGBT, environmental and other movements, BDS proved damaging [to American Indian Studies]. BDS was capable of taking over the intellectual territory of other peoples, but it was not for the benefit of any movement other than BDS.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 15, 2016 3 Comments
Recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated an obvious truth. The demand that Jews leave Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") as part of a two-state solution is nothing less than a demand for ethnic cleansing that cannot be a basis for peace, Netanyahu: Ethnic Cleansing of Jews For Peace is Absurd: That video, and the truth underlying it, caused a fury because it took on a core (but false) international view that Jewish presence beyond the 1949 armistice line (pre-1967) is illegitimate at best, illegal at worst.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 14, 2016 3 Comments
Recently I have started making the point that BDS is a Settler Colonial Ideology that invades, conquers and subjugates other causes. Addressing the destruction of the American Indian Studies Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign after its leadership aligned itself with BDS and intersectionality theory, I recently wrote:
But as with the Black Lives Matters, LGBT, environmental and other movements, BDS proved damaging. BDS was capable of taking over the intellectual territory of other peoples, but it was not for the benefit of any movement other than BDS. It’s time for a reboot of terminology. Israel is not a settler colonial nation, but BDS is a settler colonial ideology.
[caption id="attachment_182766" align="alignnone" width="600"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff3d0E_PG-Y [Co-founder of BDS, Omar Barghouti, objecting to 'normalization' between Arabs and Jews][click image for video][/caption]While a new way of looking at the BDS movement, and turning around its false accusation that Israel is a Settler Colonial nation, the facts of BDS taking over other movements is something I have been documenting for years.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 13, 2016 6 Comments
I reported yesterday how one of the most extreme BDS groups, the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, was scheduled to hold an event on Capitol Hill on Friday. The U.S. Campaign is behind a lot of anti-Israel efforts, such as the demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention this summer. https://www.facebook.com/endthe0ccupation/videos/10154068584854442/ The event was first disclosed in an article in The Free Beacon, which noted that no Congressman would admit to sanctioning the event, which would have been necessary for the room to be reserved.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 12, 2016 11 Comments
The Free Beacon broke a story today about how The U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation is holding a forum on Capitol Hill supporting the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, Congress to Host First-Ever Forum in Favor of Boycotting Israel:
Congress is scheduled to host what insiders described as the first-ever forum in favor of boycotting Israel, according to congressional sources and an invitation for the event being circulated by an anti-Israel organization. The briefing is scheduled to take place Friday on Capitol Hill and will feature several speakers known for their criticism of Israel and support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, or BDS, which has been cited by Jewish organizations as an anti-Semitic movement. The event is being sponsored by the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, a pro-BDS organization that recently came under fire when it hosted a Democratic member of Congress who referred to Israeli settlers as “termites.” Senior congressional sources with knowledge of the event told the Washington Free Beacon that the Capitol Hill office in charge of reserving the event room would not disclose the name of the lawmaker sponsoring the event.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 10, 2016 3 Comments
We covered how anti-Israel activists promoting the boycott of Israel infiltrated the Black Lives Matters movement from the get-go, and have used their influence to turn the movement against Israel. That infiltration most recently showed up with absurd and defamatory accusations against Israel in the platform of the Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of 50 groups, If you are surprised #BlackLivesMatter joined war on Israel, you haven’t been paying attention. There has been pushback not only from Jewish groups, but also from black groups, Coalition of Missouri black church leaders rejects #BlackLivesMatter anti-Israel platform. Now, one cabaret owner has mounted his own mini-boycott against Black Lives Matters, refusing to allow a Broadway fundraiser for the group at his business. http://www.playbill.com/article/broadway-supports-black-lives-matter-concert-cancelled

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 06, 2016 6 Comments
The controversy over the disinvitation of Shimon Dotan, an Israeli filmmaker and NYU professor whose film was to appear at a conference next year at Syracuse University, continues to reverberate and grow. The background is set forth in prior posts: Syracuse Symposium Place of Religion in Film w border

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 06, 2016 2 Comments
Former UCLA law student and Graduate Student Association (GSA) president Milan Chatterjee has left the school after constant harassment from the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and anti-Israel hate. All because he decided to remain NEUTRAL. The Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) has led numerous smear campaigns against Chatterjee, even bringing in the ACLU and Palestine Legal (PL) to bring him down. Chatterjee has had enough, especially since UCLA administrators have done nothing to help him.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 05, 2016 5 Comments
One of the foundational claims of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is that Israel is a settler colonial project without legitimacy. It is a claim repeated in mindless rote fashion, as if repeating it ten times in every discussion is a litmus test for being truly anti-Zionist. The claim is that Jews have no historical claim to the land of Israel, that they are outsiders imposed upon the region by colonial powers upon the indigenous Arab (mostly Muslim) population. The point of this post is not to address all the lies and distortions build into the settler colonial claim, which is an inversion of history. In fact, the Muslim conquerors who replaced the indigenous Jewish and other populations are the settlers who colonized the area. Zionism is the liberation movement of the indigenous People of the region. That many centuries have passed since Arabs from Arabia and northern Africa settled the area through force does not change the fact that they are not the indigenous Peoples. But that's an argument for another time. This post is about how BDS itself has become a settler colonial ideology, which imposes itself on other peoples and other struggles, conquers, and subjugates the goals of others, particularly people of color, to the anti-Israel agenda.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 03, 2016 3 Comments
The academic boycott movement against Israel has achieved very little so far, though it has poisoned the campus atmosphere with its anti-academic freedom message. There is no university or college in that United State that I'm aware of even considering the academic boycott of Israel. The academic boycott resolutions at faculty organizations have had limited success, limited to the humanities and social sciences, and even there the only significant sized group to adopt the boycott was the American Studies Association in December 2013. The move to hijack faculty groups continues, and we can expect more boycott resolutions this annual meeting season in the fall and winter. The information spread against Israel by these faculty members is consistently false and misleading, and always one-sided. It is a critical part of the international effort to delegitimize and dehumanize Israeli Jews, and needs to be fought for that reason regardless of the relative lack of success. Lacking institutional success, the BDS war on campus has devolved into trench warfare at a very personal level.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 02, 2016 5 Comments
Shimon Dotan, a prominent Israeli filmmaker who also is on the faculty of New York University, was disinvited from a conference on "The Place of Religion in Film" to be held at Syracuse University next year. The conference is co-sponsored by the University of Nebraska, which extended an invitation to Dotan to show his film, "The Settlers," at the conference. The invitation was nixed in an email from Syracuse University Professor Gail Hamner. You can read the full email in our prior post, Israeli filmmaker disinvited at Syracuse U: “BDS faction on campus will make matters very unpleasant”. Here is the key wording for the email (emphasis added):
I now am embarrassed to share that my SU colleagues, on hearing about my attempt to secure your presentation, have warned me that the BDS faction on campus will make matters very unpleasant for you and for me if you come. In particular my film colleague in English who granted me affiliated faculty in the film and screen studies program and who supported my proposal to the Humanities Council for this conference told me point blank that if I have not myself seen your film and cannot myself vouch for it to the Council, I will lose credibility with a number of film and Women/Gender studies colleagues. Sadly, I have not had the chance to see your film and can only vouch for it through my friend and through published reviews.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 01, 2016 10 Comments
I was aware of this situation of faculty supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement getting an Israeli filmmaker removed from a campus conference at Syracuse University, but had to wait for The Atlantic to report on it. It's one of the most outrageous examples I have seen of how the BDS movement has poisoned academia. It also proves that BDS is lying when it says it only boycotts institutions not individuals. It also reflects the so-called "silent boycott" where Israelis face discrimination below the radar even when contrary to university policy. It involved Israeli filmmaker Shimon Dotan, who was going to screen his film "The Settlers," which had been shown at the Sundance Festival, at a joint U. Nebraska - Syracuse University conference next March, “The Place of Religion in Film” (pdf.) Dotan also teaches at NY University.
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