Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

BDS Tag

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:

Posted by Jonathan Levin on January 29, 2016 3 Comments
The National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB") decided earlier this month that unions may "endorse" the boycott, divest and sanction ("BDS") campaign against Israel without running afoul of the National Labor Relations Act's (the "Act") ban on so-called "secondary boycotts." But the case did not affirm that unions actually could engage in the boycott, since that issue was not before the Board. Nonetheless, some people inaccurately are spinning the decision as the NLRB giving BDS a green light. The issue arose when the the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (the "Union") passed a resolution endorsing BDS in August, 2015.  The Union is self-consciously radical - its website calls for "aggressive struggle," blames "bosses and bankers," and promises that it is "Fighting for Workers' Rights in the New World Order."  In addition to a slew of posts about BDS and "build[ing] solidarity" with Palestinians, the Union's Political Action update opposes the TransPacific Partnership, defends Venezuela's farcical "democracy" and effectively endorses Bernie Sanders:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 28, 2016 4 Comments
A coalition of anti-Israel students at the University of Waterloo obtained 4000 signatures to put a resolution to a full student body vote completely severing ties with several Israeli academic institutions:
In November 2015, the Federation of Students received a petition of over 4000 signatures to initiate a referendum for the following question:
"Do you think the University of Waterloo should sever ties with the following institutions due to their complicity in violations of the human rights of Palestinians: University of Haifa, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University, and the Weizmann Institute of Science?"
As per the Feds by-laws, "A Referendum for any purpose connected with the affairs of the Corporation may only be called by: A requisition in writing of either twenty-nine hundred (2900) voting members or at least ten percent (10%) of the voting members of the Corporation, whichever is fewer.." Feds President Chris Lolas was then to verify the validity of the signatures. It was determined that over 2900 signatures were from voting members of Feds, and a referendum was called.
The resolution would have been non-binding on the University, but would have committed student government to advocating for the boycott, including cancellation of a 2014 academic cooperation agreement with The Technion, frequently referred to as Israeli's MIT. This was not just a "divestment" resolution, it was a full-blown academic BDS resolution. The only other such vote I'm aware of in the U.S. was at Bowdoin College in May 2015, which overwhelmingly was rejected by the student body. After an intensive campaign from both the "Yes" and "No" (also here) sides, the results were just announced by the student government:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 28, 2016 3 Comments
We have covered the antics of Students for Justice in Palestine, and similar anti-Israel groups, many times, including pervasive efforts to shut down opposing pro-Israel viewpoints. The latest example is at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where SJP is objecting to and planning to protest the joint appearance of actor Michael Douglas and Nathan Sharansky. Douglas and Sharansky are appearing as part of a tour about 'Jewish Journeys,' as the Providence Journal reports, Michael Douglas, Natan Sharansky to discuss 'Jewish Journeys' at Brown:
Movie star Michael Douglas and onetime refusenik Natan Sharansky will discuss "Judaism, Israel and current-day anti-Semitism" at Brown University on Thursday.
The event is the kickoff of a three-university "Jewish Journeys" tour that will also take them to Stanford on Feb. 2 and the University of California Santa Barbara the next day. The 7:30 p.m. event at Brown's Salomon Center for Teaching is free, but registration is required.
Michael Douglas Natan Sharansky Jewish Journeys tour The topic of anti-Semitism and the delegitimization of Israel on campuses is a focus of the tour:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 24, 2016 14 Comments
A Wider Bridge is an Israeli group that promotes not only LGBTQ rights, it does so in the context of promoting cooperation across religious and ethnic lines. When A Wider Bridge was scheduled to hold a Sabbath event at the Creating Change conference in Chicago, the invitation initially was revoked under pressure from Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions groups, as A Wider Bridge described in this Press Release:
A group of American and Israeli LGBTQ Jews that was scheduled to appear at the largest conference of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer activists in the United States this week has been booted from the event because of pressure by anti-Israeli activists, the group says. U.S. nonprofit A Wider Bridge, which builds connections between American and Israeli LGBTQ Jews, was set to host a reception with leaders of Jerusalem’s Open House at the Creating Change conference, which is scheduled to take place in Chicago January 20 – 22. Last year the gathering, which is convened by the National LGBTQ Task Force, had 3,800 people attend.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 20, 2016 8 Comments
For several years we have been documenting the increasingly aggressive tactics of anti-Israel protesters on campus. Recently, an Israeli professor's guest lecture was disrupted at the University of Minnesota Law School, and the Palestine Solidarity Committee at UT-Austin (led by law student Mohammed Nabulsi) disrupted an Israeli Studies event: These tactics are nothing new. Students for Justice in Palestine branches at numerous universities have engaged in such tactics: 

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 17, 2016 8 Comments
Oberlin College is an institution in turmoil over the past several years, and anti-Israel activism is part of the problem. Now, over 200 alumni are claiming the anti-Israel activism has created a hostile environment for Jews, and the alumni are demanding the college take action to address the problem. The issue of when anti-Israelism crosses into anti-Semitism is a hot topic on campuses recently because of the very aggressive tactics of anti-Israel campus groups, and the intense demonization of Israel. "Intersectionality" analysis is used by anti-Israel activists to try to co-opt the Black Lives Matter movement and other similar movements:
Every real or perceived problem is either blamed on or connected to Israel. The concerted effort to turn the Black Lives Matter movement into an anti-Israel movement has at its core the claim that Israel is the root of problems of non-whites in the United States. Thus, if a police chief somewhere attended a one-week anti-terrorism seminar in Israel years ago, every act of brutality by a cop on the beat is blamed on Israel.
When City University of New York Students for Justice in Palestine, for example, tried to turn the Million Student March into an anti-Israel event and blamed high tuition on Zionists, the CUNY Vice Chancellor called it “thinly-veiled bigotry, prejudice, anti-Semitism.” At Vassar College, SJP circulated a Nazi cartoon after weeks of anti-Israel activism that included picketing a course which involved travel to Israel. Prof. Miriam Elman laid out the history and analysis in Fighting The Hate: When Does Anti-Israel Become Anti-Semitic? As described below, it appears Oberlin may need to go through a similar self-evaluation.

Posted by Miriam Elman on January 16, 2016 5 Comments
Last week I drove out to Rochester, NY to give a talk titled ‘Fighting the Hate: When Does Anti-Israel Become Anti-Semitic?’. Sponsored by ROC4Israel, a new pro-Israel organization that we featured in a post back in October, my lecture centered on how legitimate criticism of Israel can be distinguished from criticism that crosses the line into anti-Semitic hate speech. A video of my 60 minute lecture, which also captures its accompanying PowerPoint slide show, is now available on YouTube (full embed lower in post). Below I highlight the main themes. I break the hour-long lecture into segments so that readers can click on to those parts of the talk that are of most interest.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 14, 2016 7 Comments
The trend for the BDS movement is to make demonization of Israel the center of the progressive universe through the theory of "intersectionality." Israel is placed at the center of all evil in the world, the unifying focus regardless of the issue:
Every real or perceived problem is either blamed on or connected to Israel. The concerted effort to turn the Black Lives Matter movement into an anti-Israel movement has at its core the claim that Israel is the root of problems of non-whites in the United States. Thus, if a police chief somewhere attended a one-week anti-terrorism seminar in Israel years ago, every act of brutality by a cop on the beat is blamed on Israel. So too, Students for Justice in Palestine protesters in New York City even blamed high tuition on Zionists, leading to rebukes by administrators against such thinly-veiled anti-Semitism. The Jew once again is made the source of all evil, the conspiratorial puppet-master controlling all and responsible for all. And Israel alone receives such treatment and is used as the link to connect all injustices in the world.
This anti-Semitic use of "intersectionality" theory flourishes because a generation of students -- many of whom now are faculty -- have been schooled based on lies about the creation of Israel and the Arab refugees created in the civil war and invasion by Arab armies. In that false narrative, the Jews are wholly evil and the Arabs are wholly innocent.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 09, 2016 11 Comments
This story is almost too unbelievable to be true, but it is true. Ezra Nawi is not just another Israeli leftist activist. He was one of the most prominent Israeli activists engaged in direct action to interfere with Israeli military activities in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank"). Nawi's actions brought him accolades abroad. He was featured in a favorable NY Times article in 2009:
For his activist colleagues, Mr. Nawi’s instinctual connection to the Palestinians is valuable. Ezra Nawi was in his element. Behind the wheel of his well-worn jeep one recent Saturday morning, working two cellphones in Arabic as he bounded through the terraced hills and hardscrabble villages near Hebron, he was greeted warmly by Palestinians near and far.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 09, 2016 10 Comments
I really had expected the worst regarding the anti-Israel resolution being voted on at the Business Meeting taking place at the American Historical Association's Annual Meeting in Atlanta. For full background and details, see our prior post, American Historical Association to Consider Anti-Israel Resolution. The Times of Israel also had an extensive write-up today, in which I was extensively quoted. If the Resolution had passed the Business Meeting, it likely would have gone to a full membership vote. I thought the Resolution had a chance because, as I was quoted in The Times of Israel:
“The way these business meetings go is most people don’t show up,” Jacobson said. “Most don’t even go to the annual meeting, and most who do go to the annual meeting don’t go to the business meeting. It comes on the last day, late in the afternoon, when a lot of people have already left town. So if you have an organized group of a couple of hundred people, they may be able to get this through the business meeting because they are the ones most motivated to show up.”
The vote just took place, and the Resolution was soundly defeated, 51 for, 111 against.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 07, 2016 2 Comments
Spain has a particularly virulent anti-Israel movement both in the form of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, and rogue judges who threaten to issue warrants for the arrest of Israeli officials. As to BDS, recall it was the Valencia BDS group that got American Jewish singer Matisyahu banned from a reggae festival after he refused to sign a declaration denouncing Israel. The decision was reversed after an outcry and statements by the Spanish government that the action was illegal discrimination. The Spanish court system just dealt another blow to BDS efforts, finding that excluding Ariel University, located beyond the 1949 armistice line in Samaria (West Bank), from academic programs in Spain constituted illegal discrimination. The Jerusalem Post reports, In setback for BDS, Spain awards West Bank school €70,000:

Posted by Occam's Razor on January 06, 2016 1 Comment
We wrote previously about the scheduled anti-Israel resolutions at the seasonal faculty association meetings in 2015-2016. We are now in the midst of this season, with the American Historical Association (AHA) annual meeting in Atlanta this week. Once again, we see an attempt to politicize a reputable scholarly organization by a small group of radicals with an anti-Israel agenda. On the table at the AHA Business Meeting on Saturday, January 9, 2016, is a resolution condemning Israel's alleged mistreatment of Palestinians in education. Under the AHA Constitution, if the resolution passes the Business Meeting, it goes to the AHA Council for approval, non-concurrence or veto. If the Council votes not to concur, it goes to a full membership vote.[*] Unlike resolutions at the American Studies Association in 2013 (which passed) and currently at the American Anthropological Association (pending a membership vote), the AHA resolution does not explicitly call on the AHA to adopt the academic boycott of Israel pushed by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Rather, the AHA resolution is similar to the resolution which previously failed to pass a membership vote at the Moddern Language Association in 2014, denouncing Israel for allegedly violating the academic freedom of Palestinians. But the AHA resolution is just as much a part of the BDS agenda, and would set the stage in later years for a full BDS resolution at AHA. Where BDS supporters think they can pass a full academic boycott they do; where they think they can't, they try interim steps. I analyze the AHA resolution below.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 01, 2016 6 Comments
A somewhat unlikely story, via The Washington Post, These singing sisters are wildly popular in Yemen. And they’re Israeli Jews:
With their ebony hair and Yemeni accented Arabic, singing sisters Tair, Liron and Tagel Haim would probably not seem out of place on the streets of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. But the sisters, collectively known as A-Wa, or “yes” in Arabic slang, are actually descendants of Yemeni Jews who immigrated to Israel decades ago. Today, they live in Tel Aviv. While siblings singing sweet harmonies together might not be big news, these Jewish sisters — who mix near extinct Yemenite poetry with fast-paced hip-hop and electronic beats — just might be.

Posted by Jonathan Levin on December 30, 2015 2 Comments
A recent article from Adrienne Yaron has an important kernel of truth surrounded by a myriad of analytical errors and false conclusions.  The central point that BDS is a cover for defamation of Israel and development of a critical mass of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred on false pretenses is sound.  The suggestions that BDS is incapable of having an economic impact and that BDS should therefore be mocked rather than substantively opposed is not. Yaron's core and accurate observation is that BDS's economic arguments are a vehicle for simple malice:
The real goal and purpose of BDS is to defame Israel, and attempt to discredit it in the eyes of foreign observers, in order to exert political pressure. BDS demonstrations are an opportunity for them to spew antisemitic vitriol and express their vicious hatred of the Jewish state. BDS’ [sic] only real power is in propagating its hateful ideology.
This is absolutely true, with ample evidence from BDS supporters' anti-Jewish and anti-Israel deceptions and violence, and the overlap between BDS and actual or implicit support for terrorism.

Posted by Miriam Elman on December 28, 2015 29 Comments
According to media reports last week (see, for example, here and here) Scott Harrison, a Scottish anti-Israel activist, was sentenced last week to a year in jail. Back on October 25, 2014 he threw acid in the face of an 18-year-old woman manning a stall in Glasgow shopping center. The stall was owned by the Israeli cosmetics company Kedem. The victim, Greek-born Iona Georgianna, said she felt like her face was “melting” during the horrible attack. Luckily, a quick-thinking co-worker had the good sense to throw water on her head, sparing Georgianna from the worst of the acid’s effects. A Scottish court handed down the 12-month sentence for assault to injury. Harrison will be held in custody pending the results of an appeal filed by his lawyers.

Posted by Jonathan Levin on December 28, 2015 1 Comment
Proponents of the Boycott, Divest & Sanction (“BDS”) campaign are faced with growing legislative opposition.  In the US, New York is poised to become the third state to enact binding anti-BDS legislation.  In Britain, new rules will essentially prohibit BDS in local government altogether. Proposed New York Law The New York Senate and General Assembly are considering legislation that would prevent the state from contracting with or investing in companies that boycott Israel.  The stated purpose of Senate Bill S6086 is “To prohibit New York State from contracting with or investing taxpayer money in corporations who have a stated policy of boycotting Israel.”  The Senate’s justification is:
The Boycott, Divest, Sanctions movement (BDS) is a harmful discriminatory policy effectuated by a growing number of companies. The BDS movement is nothing more than thinly veiled anti-semitism. This bill would ensure that New York continues its long history of standing up to discrimination by condemning this movement and not doing business with these companies.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 27, 2015 4 Comments
I was interviewed recently by Legal Insurrection reader Dr. Kenneth Friedman, for the Baltimore Jewish family magazine, Where What When:
The WHERE WHAT WHEN is a monthly family magazine of Jewish information, inspiration, and opinion. Established in 1985, it is Baltimore's liveliest Jewish magazine, approximate readership is 40,000. The Where What When is directed to the wide spectrum of Baltimore's Jewish population and has become a powerful voice in the community.
The topic was the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Here is the full interview, At the Forefront of the Fight against BDS: Eleven Questions for Prof. William A. Jacobson: KF: Talk a little bit about how you got involved as an activist and particularly as it pertains to the fight against BDS.
Accessibility by WAH