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BDS Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 01, 2015 37 Comments
I have warned you for years about the malicious nature of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. There is nothing funny about these people, even if they sometimes act like clowns. And the worst of the worst, we've also documented, are leftist Jews. Whether it's Jewish Voice for Peace, offshoot groups which make sure to use "Jewish" in their names, the "as a Jew" activists or even our own local Ithaca activists, being anti-Israel has become a religion and an obsession. The academic boycott making its way through some faculty organizations has brought that obsession into the realm of education, unilaterally deciding who gets to learn what, and who gets shut out of the flow of information and exchange of ideas. A case broke overnight which epitomizes the evil of the academic boycott movement as much as any case I've seen. Shachar Rabinovitch is a 13-year old girl in Israel who is a big fan of horses. Here she is riding a horse while on vacation in Cyprus during horse jumps competition for juniors in the farm where she rode for a few years, according to her father:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 29, 2015 4 Comments
On November 13, 2015, the UT-Austin Palestine Solidarity Committee disrupted an Israel Studies Dept. event hosted by Prof. Ami Pedahzur, and featuring a visiting scholar from Stanford University. They refused to either participate or leave, and instead hurled insults and chants of "Long Live the Intifada." The PSC protesters were led by law student Mohammed Nabulsi, former graduate student Patrick Higgins, and sociology graduate student Katie Jensen. Whether they violated the UT-Austin campus code remains to be seen. From this video obtained by Legal Insurrection taken by someone outside the room, you can hear how loud the chants were and how Prof. Pedahzur urged the students to participate, only to be met with more chants.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 25, 2015 3 Comments
The disruption of an event hosted by UT-Austin Israel Studies Professor Ami Pedahzur by anti-Israel students from the UT-Austin Palestine Solidarity Committee continues to reverberate. The disruption was followed up by a slick media campaign targeting Prof. Pedahzur, including a video edited to make the perpetrators (the anti-Israel protesters) look like the victims.  Part of that smear campaign was a "civil rights" complaint filed by the students with the University. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46W4S3lr9HU For those of you new to this story, here are links to our prior posts:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 24, 2015 3 Comments
Mohammed Nabulsi is the UT-Austin law student who led the disruption of an Israel Studies event hosted by Prof. Ami Pedahzur. Both Pedahzur and the invited speaker from Stanford University are Israeli. Nabulsi was part of a group of almost a dozen members of UT-Austin Palestine Solidarity Committee who participated in the disruption. Nabulsi is on video yelling over people, shouting that he has no intention of listening to them and that they have no right to speak as former Israeli soldiers, and demanding the right to perform an "intervention" at the event. Despite repeated requests to leave or to participate, Nabulsi and the others then chanted "Free Free Palestine" and "Long Live the Intifada" to drown out others. The chant for an Intifada, directed at Israelis at a time when the Knife Intifada has claimed dozens of Israeli lives, was particularly troubling. Nabulsi appears to have used the name of a known terrorist ("Georges Abdallah) as an online alias and also has written of the need for the anti-Israel boycott movement to support Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other “resistance” groups. In the following video, taken from down the hallway, you can hear how loud the chanting was in the room where the event was being held. It is loud even from dozens of yards down the hallway.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 23, 2015 5 Comments
On November 13, 2015, the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) at UT-Austin disrupted an event hosted by Israel Studies Professor Ami Pedahzur at which a guest speaker (who also was Israeli) from Stanford University was to lead a discussion. The PSC protesters, led by law student Mohammed Nabulsi and former Middle East Studies grad student Patrick Higgins, refused to leave when asked, shouted arguably threatening demands for an Intifada, and for the destruction of Israel. Prof. Pedahzur's concerns were heightened when he learned, after the disruption, that Nabulsi and Higgins appeared to have had online aliases using the names of known terrorists. Nabulsi has written of the need for the anti-Israel boycott movement to support Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other “resistance” groups.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 22, 2015 8 Comments
Important Update: Artistic freedom showdown as BDS protests Matisyahu appearance in Ithaca, NY ---------------------- Matisyahu, whose real name is Matthew Paul Miller, is the American Jewish reggae musician who rocketed to fame with his combination Hasidic Jewish and Reggae anthems such as One Day, a call for peace: Matisyahu has been targeted by the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. In the summer of 2015 an international firestorm of controversy erupted after BDS succeeded in getting Matisyahu banned at the Spanish Rototom Reggae festival after Matisyahu refused to denounce Israel. That political litmus test was applied to no other musician and to no other nation. The ban was reversed only after an international outcry, including denunciations by the Spanish government and a leading Spanish newspaper that the action amounted to religious discrimination. Matisyahu appeared at the festival where "pro-Palestinian" protesters tried to disrupt his performance. Now Matisyahu is under attack again, this time by an anti-Israel BDS group in Ithaca, NY. The group, calling itself The Ithaca Committee for Justice in Palestine, has a controversial history of inflammatory statements and actions.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 21, 2015 7 Comments
I was a guest earlier today on The Craig Silverman Show on 710 KNUS in Denver. For almost 20 minutes we talked about the use or refusal to use the term "radical Islam," Obama's world view and foreign policy, Jesse Watters' visit to Cornell, and the vote at the American Anthropological Association last night to send an anti-Israel academic boycott resolution to a vote by the full membership in the spring. If you didn't hear about the vote, you can read about it at the Times of Israel. I previously wrote about how over the course of several years anti-Israel professors and graduate students put together misleading and dishonest seminars and publications which presented a completely one-sided view of the conflict. That was compounded by a study commissioned by the AAA in which the authors adopted a settler colonial approach to predetermine the outcome of the study by framing it as Israel being illegitimate, then finding facts to support the narrative while ignoring or diminishing contrary facts. This series of maps, displayed outside the voting session purporting to show Palestinian loss of land, reflects the type of propaganda used to pass the boycott on to the membership. It's the false and misleading series of maps that MSNBC apologized for using because it is wrong. Yet it was on full display at AAA.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 20, 2015 3 Comments
The organized smear campaign against UT-Austin Israel Studies professor Ami Pedahzur continues unabated. For those of you who are new to the story, the UT-Austin Palestine Solidarity Committee invaded an Israel Studies event hosted by Prof. Pedahzur (possibly in violation of the campus code), refused either to participate in the event or leave, and instead disrupted the event, ending in shouts of "Free, Free Palestine" and "Long Live the Intifada." The disruption was led by UT-Austin law student Mohammed Nabulsi. According to what he wrote afterwards, when Prof. Pedahzur learned after the event that two of the leaders of the disruption used online aliases of known terrorist names, he became concerned that the aggressive behavior posed a risk of escalation that worried him, particularly in light of the Paris terrorist attacks. Nabulsi has written of the need for the anti-Israel boycott movement to support Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other "resistance" groups.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 19, 2015 7 Comments
The students who disrupted a UT-Austin Israel Studies event hosted by Professor Ami Pedahzur have gone on the offensive, filing a "civil rights" complaint with the University. The disruption was carried out by the UT-Austin Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC), led by law student Mohammed Nabulsi, who also is a leader of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement on campus. Despite my requests both to the University and the students' lawyer Brian McGiverin, I have not received a copy of the complaint. But the nature of the charges has been explained in press statements issued by the students and McGiverin. http://www.twcnews.com/tx/austin/news/2015/11/18/pro-palestine-ut-students-claim-civil-rights-were-violated.html The Austin Chronicle reports:
After the event, Pedahzur released a statement about the incident on an official UT website – that was later removed – and on his website and Facebook page. In it, Pedahzur compared the incident with the latest Paris terrorist attacks, saying, "Less than 48 hours after the horrific attacks in Paris, I feel that it is my responsibility to ask you to join me in an attempt to confront the radicalization process on campuses and to protect students, staff, and faculty members from intimidation and violence."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 18, 2015 14 Comments
The publicity surrounding the disruption of an Israel Studies event at the University of Texas at Austin by the UT-Austin Palestine Solidarity Committee continues to escalate, with local media in Texas taking up the story. For full background, see my prior posts, Anti-Israel students target UT-Austin Israeli Studies prof after disrupting his speech and New Video supports UT-Austin Israeli Studies Prof. after confrontion by protesters. The lead protester, law student Mohammed Nabulsi, led the failed divestment from Israel effort last spring, and is a leader of the anti-Israel campus movement. (More on that in a later post.) Nabulsi also appears to be media-savvy, as he released an edited video purporting to present the protesters as the victims, and now pre-emptively has filed a complaint (along with other student protesters) with the university claiming the protesters' rights were violated. (I requested a copy of the complaint from UT, but have not yet received it.) [caption id="attachment_150234" align="alignnone" width="600"]http://www.twcnews.com/tx/austin/news/2015/11/18/pro-palestine-ut-students-claim-civil-rights-were-violated.html [UT-Austin anti-Israel protesters with Attorney Brian McGiverin][/caption]Seriously, the people who disrupted the event and screamed arguably-threatening chants for an Intifada toward Israelis present in the room now claim their rights were violated. The American-Statesman reports:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 17, 2015 24 Comments
Yesterday morning we posted about an incident at UT-Austin, in which protesters from the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC), led by law student Mohammed Nabulsi, disrupted an event hosted by Professor Ami Pedahzur of UT’s Institute for Israeli Studies.  The invited guest speaker was Dr. Gil-Li Vardi from Stanford University. For full details, see Anti-Israel students target UT-Austin Israeli Studies prof after disrupting his speech. Since then, the dispute has gone national with attempts by PSC and its supporters to get Prof. Pedahzur fired based on an edited video released by PSC. UT-Austin disruption speech Ami Pedhazur 2 The edited video, however, shows the protesters refusing to leave or to participate, and instead shouting down others and chanting "Long Live the Intifada." The Intifadas have been the bloody series of uprisings which included suicide bombings (the Second Intifada which led to construction of the security barrier) and the current Knife Intifada which is ongoing. They also chanted "We want '48, we don't want two states" (a reference to the desire to undo the creation of Israel in 1948). The edited PSC video does not show, contrary to PSC claims, an assault by Prof. Pedahzur; rather, it shows him trying to get the protesters to stop the disruption and to participate in the event. Legal Insurrection has obtained exclusive video of the end of the event from the hallway outside which backs up Prof. Pedahzur's account. The video starts with the chants (shown at the end of PSC's edited video). As the protesters move outside, they scream that pre-Independence Jews cooperated with the Nazis, and then they continue their chants. Prof. Pedahzur exits the room into the hallway and again asks the protesters to participate in the event, but they just scream at him some more.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 17, 2015 2 Comments
I was a guest last night on the Mark Levin Show, the 4th highest rated talk show in the country with over 7 million weekly listeners, regarding our post, ALERT: Faculty Association anti-Israel Boycott season has started. This is the second time I have discussed the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement on Mark's show. This time I discussed not just the problem, but a solution. First, the background:
WAJ: "A combination of left-wing and Islamist-type professors have done at the campus level something which really is unbelievable. They've singled out Israel in their faculty associations, and they are trying, slowly but surely, to get more and more faculty groups to endorse the boycott of Israel, the complete academic boycott of Israel.... This season they're really coming up to a big busy season. The National Women's Studies Association is voting, as we speak, for the next 10 days, the membership is voting on the full boycott of Israel. How insane is that, of all the problems with ISIS attacking in Paris, with all of the problems of women being abused in the Middle East, the Women's Studies Association is singling out Israel....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 16, 2015 18 Comments
UPDATES: --------------------------- The intimidation of Israeli and pro-Israeli speakers on campuses continues unabated. We recently covered the disruption of a speech by an Israeli professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, and of an Israeli diplomat at the University of Windsor. It just happened again at UT-Austin on November 13, 2015, but the video has just been posted. Twelve members of the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) disrupted a public event hosted by Professor Ami Pedahzur of UT's Institute for Israeli Studies titled "The Origin of a Species: The Birth of the Israeli Defense Forces' Military Culture." The invited guest speaker was Dr. Gil-Li Vardi from Stanford University. The protesters and the anti-Israel propaganda machine including the national Students for Justice in Palestine are trying to turn the perpetrators into victims, with a video release being shared on Facebook and YouTube. The students not only disrupted the speech, when Prof. Pedahzur and another person (not clear if a professor or just a member of the audience) tried to get them to stop, they increased the volume of their chants calling for the destruction of Israel and "Long Live the Intifada". This video was prepared by the anti-Israel group to try to present them as the victim. The person grabbing the flag is NOT Prof. Pedahzur: This is beginning to look like the intimidation tactics that were used against Prof. Andrew Pessin at Connecticut College. The UT Palestinian Solidarity Committee is trying to get students to file complaints against Prof. Pedahzur:

Posted by Occam's Razor on November 15, 2015 3 Comments
The academic year in progress features several Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) resolutions to boycott Israeli universities by major academic professional organizations, as well as preparatory boycott activity to lead up to votes in future years. Here is the schedule, in chronological order, based upon what we now know: 1. National Women’s Studies Association (Boycott Resolution Voting Now through Nov. 25) 2. American Anthropological Association (Denver, November 20)(Boycott Resolution Vote) 3. Middle East Studies Association (Denver, November 21-24, 2015)(Boycott Activity) 4. American Historical Association (Atlanta, January 7-10, 2016)(Boycott Resolution Vote) 5. Modern Language Association (Austin, TX, January 7-10, 2016)(Boycott Activity) Each of these boycott resolutions adopts the general PACBI dictated BDS guidelines.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 14, 2015 18 Comments
Of all the attacks in Paris yesterday, the attack on the Bataclan Theater was the most devastating.
French authorities said more than 80 people died in the club where California-based band Eagles of Death Metal had been playing for about an hour. When the shooting started after four gunmen entered the front of the 1,500-seat theater, dozens struggled to flee out the back alleyway as shots were being fired. Gunmen who had entered, dressed all in black and armed with AK-47 rifles, calmly opened fire randomly at patrons who dived for cover on the floor, according to radio reporter Julien Pearce, who was near the stage when the shooting started. "The terrorists were very calm, very determined, and they reloaded three or four times," Pearce said. "I saw 20 to 25 bodies lying on the floor."
But why the Bataclan, of all the theaters and gathering places in Paris? The answer may lie in the fact that it is Jewish-owned, and has been a target for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions BDS movement and terrorist threats for years. This history was first publicized yesterday by the French Le Point magazine (via Google Translate):

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 13, 2015 10 Comments
Students for Justice in Palestine is a national organization with dozens of campus chapters, and growing. SJP has been the subject of numerous posts here because of its highly aggressive, sometimes blatantly anti-Semitic, antics, such as when Vassar SJP spread a Nazi cartoon and UC-Davis SJP taunted Jewish students with chants of "Allahu Akbar." We also have noted how SJP groups are at the forefront of attempting to hijack Black Lives Matter groups and to inject anti-Zionism into the Black Lives Matters movement by co-opting protests, such as in Ferguson, Baltimore, and New York City. Those two elements -- hijacking protest movements and trying to redirect them against Israel -- came together this week when a coalition of New York City area SJP groups taunted the administration of the City University of New York with claims that tuition increases were tied to the "Zionist administration" of CUNY and investment in Israel. The Tower and Tablet Magazine have extensive reports. The call was issued on a Facebook page for the anti-Zionist protest in the name of and endorsed by: NYC Students for Justice in Palestine Students for Justice in Palestine at Hunter College Students for Justice in Palestine at Brooklyn College Students for Justice in Palestine- St. Joseph's College Students for Justice in Palestine at College of Staten Island Students for Justice in Palestine at John Jay College CUNY School of Law Students for Justice in Palestine Students for Justice in Palestine at Pace University - Pleasantville NYU Students for Justice in Palestine Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine Here is the page:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 11, 2015 6 Comments
Ishmael Khaldi is an Israeli diplomat, currently assigned to the Israeli Embassy in London, and formerly at the Consulate in San Francisco. Khaldi is the first Israeli diplomat who is Bedouin.  I have never met Khaldi, but I visited his home village of Khawaled in northern Israel last May, Khawaled Village – Bedouin Pride in Israel. Khaldi was was kind enough to retweet my post: https://twitter.com/JoyKeller1/status/603988929591779329 So when I saw a report that Khaldi's appearance as the University of Windsor in Canada was disrupted by anti-Israel protesters, I took note not just because of our tenuous connection, but also because it was reported around the time that Protesters shouted down an Israeli Professor at U. Minnesota law school. Shout-downs and disruptions of Israeli and pro-Israeli speakers are commonplace on campuses.
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