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BDS Tag

Posted by Katy Grimes on April 30, 2016 2 Comments
A bipartisan bill in California to end taxpayer support for the discriminatory anti-Isarael Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement has been shelved, as less forceful measures work their way through committee. Assembly Bill 1552 by California Assemblyman Travis Allen, would have prohibited state entities from contracting with parties that engage in commercial discrimination, and boycotts on the basis of national origin, and sought to end the practice of California supporting such discriminatory or anti-Semitic efforts. “Rather than promoting peace, the BDS movement denies the right of the Jewish State to exist, regularly employing tactics designed to harm Israel,” said Allen in an exclusive interview in January.

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).

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 28, 2016 8 Comments
The Vassar student body voted the past two days on two anti-Israel referenda sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. For background on anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activism at Vassar, see Tuesday's post, Vassar students start voting on anti-Israel referenda. The results were just announced by email, and both referenda were rejected. The vote was close.  The BDS resolution was rejected 573 Against, 503 For. The spending resolution was defeated 601 Against, 475 For. Under the circumstances, with a years-long anti-Israel propaganda campaign supported by vocal faculty members, this must be considered a huge victory for the voices of reason on campus.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on April 28, 2016 2 Comments
Anti-Israel boycott campaign, the so-called BDS movement, and other anti-Israel groups are carrying out a coordinated campaign to hijack the May Day demonstrations in Germany with an aim of spreading their anti-Semitic and anti-Israel message. The blatant anti-Semitism and the hatred of Israel these groups propagates is getting so repugnant that it is unnerving even the old left-wingers who otherwise never missed a chance of criticising the Jewish State. The attempts by some moderate groups to keep anti-Israel agitators from taking over the Labour Day events have failed. A resolution tabled by a prominent left-wing activist Jutta Ditfurth seeking to expel openly anti-Semitic groups from the event was rejected overwhelmingly by the organising committee, forcing Ditfurth and her environmentalist group groups to leave the alliance.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on April 26, 2016 10 Comments
Right in time for Passover as tiny Jewish student communities across Germany were preparing for the Jewish holiday, several University campuses all over the country were hit by a major anti-Semitic cyber-attack. Last week, printers and photo copy machines on college campuses across Germany began spontaneously shooting off flyers filled with anti-Semitic contents. The Spokesperson of Jewish Society at the University of Bonn says, "​Just imagine sitting in your university and suddenly, dozens of anti-Semitic fliers with hate speech fly out of the printer next to you. Your university has usually been a safe place but now you face death threats against you, your family, and your friends, and you can't do anything to stop the attack. On top of that, you find out that your school was one of several in the country that was targeted." Bonn-based German newspaper General Anzeiger reports:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 24, 2016 14 Comments
Marc Lamont Hill is a professor at Morehouse College and a frequent TV Commentator. He also is coming out with a new book soon on social justice in the U.S. Lamont Hill also is a big supporter of the "Ferguson to Palestine" movement which uses the doctrine of intersectionality to connect Israel to inner city and racial problem in the U.S.  The only majority Jewish state in the world is held out as the connecting force of evil in the world. We wrote about his support in January 2015, when he was part of a Dream Defenders delegation to Israel and theWest Bank, Wow, Marc Lamont Hill drank the anti-Israel Kool-Aid. For that visit, Hill included this statement in a video about the trip:
We came here to Palestine to stand in love and revolutionary struggle with our brothers and sisters We come to a land that has been stolen by greed and destroyed by hate

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 23, 2016 8 Comments
By now, it is common for supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement on campuses to interrupt speeches and chant "Long Live the Intifada." At UT-Austin, the chant was shouted by a group from the Palestine Solidarity Committee as they interrupted an event put on by the Israeli Studies Department. The group was led by law student Mohammed Nabulsi, who will be interning at "Palestine Legal," which serves as the lawfare division of the BDS movement: Similar chants we have covered at Legal Insurrection include Northeastern University, San Francisco State, City University of NY, and UC-Davis. The Intifada is the bloody campaign of terror launched by Palestinians mostly against Jewish civilians.

Posted by Miriam Elman on April 21, 2016 9 Comments
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is a non-Jewish organization that gives cover to the anti-Israel boycott movement (BDS) and its political war on Israel by washing away the stains of anti-Semitism that are central to the BDS movement’s founding, actions and identity. As we noted in a prior post, JVP operates in multiple arenas to exploit Jewish culture and traditions, putting them into service for a vehemently anti-Israel propaganda campaign:
In its written materials and presentations, JVP reinforces that its anti-Israel positions are consistent with Jewish values. Toward this end, it usurps the Jewish life cycle and religious holidays by incorporating anti-Israel themes into traditional celebratory and commemorative events”.
This JVP identity theft of Jewish heritage and narrative is particularly visible at Passover, which begins April 22 this year.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 20, 2016 12 Comments
The American Studies Association (ASA) was the first significant-sized faculty association to implement the academic boycott of Israel. A lawsuit just filed by several distinguished members challenges the ASA boycott, seeks damages against individual officers and National Council members who advanced the boycott, as well as injunctive relief, arguing that ASA exceeded its purpose defined under its constitution and bylaws. A copy of the Complaint is embedded at the end of this post. The lawsuit could serve as a model for litigation against other faculty organizations which have been hijacked by anti-Israel activists.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 20, 2016 3 Comments
One of the most common questions I get when I give speeches about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has to do with its funding. BDS, including in the U.S., has plenty of money to organize, fly people around, and coordinate efforts across dozens of campuses and multiple countries. Yet BDS portrays itself as just a bunch of concerned people seeking to do social justice. The money angle, though, is barely exposed. Some of the funding comes from the fundraising efforts of tax-exempt groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and the U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation. Some of it comes from churches and church-related groups like Sabeel North America and American Friends Service Committee, which use their tax exempt status to fund anti-Israel activities. Meanwhile, faculty groups like the American Studies Association exploit and arguably violate their tax exempt status by promoting academic boycotts.

Posted by Occam's Razor on April 19, 2016 7 Comments
This post is an update on the upcoming vote to boycott Israeli universities at the American Anthropological Association (AAA). For previous coverage, see here and here. As a reminder, at the Denver meeting on November 20th, attendees passed a resolution calling for an academic boycott of Israeli institutions. The resolution is now being voted on by the general membership, starting April 15, through May 31. Passage of a boycott means, among other things, that AAA will not cooperate with Israeli universities or the Israeli Anthropological Association (IAA), will not supply journals and databases to them and will not allow graduates of Israeli universities to partake in career fairs. It calls upon its membership to do the same, and more: e.g. not attend conferences at Israeli universities, not accept grants from them; this in addition to the “common sense” boycotts that are probably already in place.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 14, 2016 10 Comments
Steven Salaita, you may recall, was the controversial anti-Israel professor whose hate-tweeting caused the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to decline to hire him for a tenured position. The University asserted that Salaita only had a contingent offer subject to Board approval, and that approval never happened. Salaita is active in the Boycott Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) movement and literally wrote a handbook for faculty to use to spread BDS within universities. There was rich irony in the person who sought a worldwide boycott of Israeli academics complaining when he allegedly was boycotted for his noxious views which played upon historical anti-Semitic stereotypes: https://twitter.com/stevesalaita/status/486703517751869440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Even a faculty supporter of Salaita, Prof. Feisal Mohamed, wrote (emphasis added):

Posted by Miriam Elman on April 10, 2016 13 Comments
In a recent post, we highlighted how Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) is being promoted in America’s liberal Protestant churches. As we discussed, a malicious strain of anti-Israelism has taken root in these progressive churches largely because of a deep-seated organizational dysfunction:
A vocal and strong minority within the church have led the charge, aided and abetted by a host of venomously anti-Israel Palestinians and their useful fools—a coterie of Jewish enablers. Together, they’ve pushed hard for divestment and boycott initiatives against Israel, gaining an institutional footing by exploiting the language of human rights, monopolizing the discourse, and drowning out dissenting voices”.
UCEIO, Huge News on church divestment Our focus in the prior post was on three U.S. mainline churches—the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), the United Methodist Church (UMC) and the Unitarian Universalist Association (Church) (UUA). All three will feature a number of anti-Israel resolutions at their annual meetings this spring. "Officials" of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) recently decided to divest from three companies in its portfolio that do business in Israel and allegedly assist in the violation of Palestinian rights. That investment decision is not the end of the story, however.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 07, 2016 6 Comments
We have been documenting a clear shift in tactics by anti-Israel campus activists, led by Students for Justice in Palestine joined by other groups. The shift is towards disruption of Israeli and pro-Israeli speakers on campus in order to create a hostile campus environment. We have reported on several such recent disruptions, including at UC-Davis, University of Chicago, University of Minnesota Law School, UT-Austin, Kings College (London), U. Windsor, University of South Florida, and anLGBTQ Shabbat Event in Chicago. Even events that are not disrupted are protested, such as the appearance of actor Michael Douglas and human rights hero Natan Sharansky at Brown University. It happened again yesterday at San Francisco State University, where anti-Israel activists have co-opted student protests over proposed budget cuts. International Business Times reports:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 06, 2016 4 Comments
On March 28, 2016, I gave a lecture at the University of Chicago Law School, When Does Anti-Israelism Turn Into Anti-Semitism. The lecture was sponsored by the Office of the Dean of Students and the Louis D. Brandeis Center, Inc. The video is embedded below and includes PowerPoint slides, which also are embedded below. After laying out the background on the rise of anti-Semitism tied to the gross demonization of Israel by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, I discussed the Sharansky 3-D Test, and the State Department guidelines, as to when anti-Zionism crosses into anti-Semitism. I then used various images as a Rorschach test. Here are a couple of the images (all the images are in the video and slide show). Slide - Carlos Latuff Octopus

Posted by Occam's Razor on April 05, 2016 4 Comments
We wrote earlier about the upcoming academic Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) vote at the New York University graduate student union. In that context we mentioned similar efforts underway at the City University of New York (CUNY) and Columbia. Well, it didn’t take long! The Doctoral Students Council at the CUNY Graduate Center has just announced that a vote on a resolution calling for the boycott of Israeli academic institutions will take place at their meeting on April 15th. CUNY Graduate_Center_Flags_460px_306px

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 02, 2016 0 Comments
British civil and governmental societies are undergoing a soul searching as to the role Britain plays in funding terrorism against Israel and the BDS movement. As Jonathan reported, Britain Rocked By Revelation Of Taxpayer-Funded Palestinian Terror:
Great Britain’s Foreign Office and Department for International Development (“DFID”) have funneled million of Pounds, at least, to terrorists.  The report from the Daily Mail details how the UK’s policy of spending .7% of revenue on foreign aid distorts priorities and leads it to fund terror.  The Daily Mail report builds on a broader investigation from Palestinian Media Watch (“PMW”) evidencing the Palestinian Authority’s (“PA”) attempts to hide banned payments to terrorists from Western donors.
Anti-Semitism acting under the banner of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement also has garnered attention recently in Britain, British Campus Anti-Semitism on Display During Israel Hate Week:

Posted by Occam's Razor on March 30, 2016 4 Comments
We reported previously on the deceptive anti-Israel Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign at NYU, in which BDS supporters try to co-opt unrelated divestment movements, such as fossil fuel. This campaign has now morphed into a boycott petition at NYU’s Graduate Student Union (GSOC-UAW Local 2110). Meanwhile the deceptive tactics continue. This episode illustrates, yet again, the strategy of pro-Palestinian activists in taking over student governments and other associations and hijacking them for their own agenda. If all goes according to plan, there will be a referendum on a Boycott and Divestment petition that includes a call for Academic Boycott and a call to shut down NYU-Tel Aviv). The referendum, open to all union members, is tentatively scheduled for April 18-22. NYU GSOC Logo We cover below the following: I. Some background on anti-Israel activity at NYU II. Background on SJP's Divestment campaign at NYU III. Background on BDS at the University of California's union last year IV. Background on NYU's new radicalized union. V. Discussion of the petition itself (including (a) the process; (b) campaigns and (c) the substance of the actual resolution) VI. The opposition campaign and counter-petition (which NYU faculty, students, and alumni can still sign) VII. Conclusion
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