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BDS Tag

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.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 10, 2015 3 Comments
On November 10, 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed the infamous "Zionism Is Racism" Resolution 3379. The Resolution was revoked in 1991, but the theme remains the same among those who want to destroy Israel. You can attend just about any Boycott Divestment and Sanctions rally, "Jewish Voice for Peace" protest, "Campaign to End the Occupation" conference, and you will here vile rhetoric similar to that of Resolution 3379. You'll also hear it at some faculty associations where BDS resolutions have passed, such as the American Studies Association, and other associations where it is under consideration, such as the American Anthropological Association. "Zionism is Racism" in words or concept is the rallying cry of Students for Justice in Palestine and a host of other anti-Israel campus groups, as well. The oldest hate endures, taking new forms but never changing its tune. So it's worth considering the words of Daniel Patrick Moynihan in opposition to that Resolution, which we covered before in my December 15, 2013 post, American Studies Association about to pass odious equivalent of Zionism is Racism resolution. Here is an excerpt from his speech could just as easily be given today, tomorrow or any other day:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 04, 2015 20 Comments
[Featured Image via Fight Back News] Moshe Halbertal is a law professor at New York University, and Professor of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, Hebrew University in Israel. He lectures widely on the ethics of war, particularly asymetric war of the type Israel faces. Prof. Halbertal was scheduled to deliver a lecture on November 3 at the University of Minnesota Law School, Protecting Civilians: Moral Challenges of Asymmetric Warfare:

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on October 29, 2015 1 Comment
India’s largest corporate house Reliance Industries has announced its plans to make big and long-term investments in Israel. Reliance Industries, a Fortune 500 Company owned by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, is the largest private sector company in India with a market capitalisation of well over $40 billion. Founded in 1966, Reliance Industries made its initial fortune in oil and natural gas sector. Recently, the company has invested billions of dollars in building a telecommunications network across India. The state-of-the-art nationwide cellular network build at the cost of estimated $15 billion opens new possibilities in retail, finance and healthcare. The company is looking for Israeli know-how and talent to fully exploit these possibilities, creating services for 100-200 million potential customers across the Indian sub-continent. Talking to Israeli media, managing partner of the company’s venture capital arm GenNext, Vivek Rai Gupta said that his company was working to build a nationwide customer base and there would be “no limit” on company’s investment in Israel. Israeli financial news website Globes Einglish quoted Gupta saying:
"We want to hook up to the Israeli ecosystem, and to discover more innovative companies that can enhance the value of the cellular network whose deployment we're completing right now," GenNext managing partner Vivek Rai Gupta, currently visiting Israel, said in "Globes" interview. "The network [mobile network reaching 800 cities] we're setting up is only a pipeline, and we're looking for interesting things through which we can provide value for our users in India."
Mobile-based technology carries the promise of improving everyday life for millions of Indians living in rural and remotely accessible regions -- from proving healthcare, vocational education, banking to even coordinating disaster relief.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 28, 2015 5 Comments
Last year we highlighted a debate within the American Anthropological Association as to whether to boycott Israel, and how the anti-Israel activists had stacked the deck, Anti-Israel academic boycotters rig debate at American Anthropological Association. That stacked deck recently resulted in a one-sided report calling for action against Israel, though a full boycott similar to what the American Studies Association adopted was only one of the potential actions discussed. The ideological nature of the boycott push is clear in the Report, in which the authors explicitly applied a "settler colonialism" construct (see Report, starting at page 11), which is the prism through which boycott advocates view Israel itself (not just the "occupation" of the West Bank) as illegitimate:
... We found the “settler colonialism” frame suggested by many of our interlocutors to capture some aspects of the relationship of the Israeli government to Palestinians that concerned us and we present that frame first....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 25, 2015 39 Comments
"As a Jew" is a phrase that starts the conversation for some left-wing Jews when it comes to Israel, and particularly "the occupation." The establishment of Jewish identity at the start serves as the shield for what is to follow: A completely one-sided, factually inaccurate, historically-skewed bashing of Israel. Such an Op-Ed was published in The Washington Post on October 23, 2015, by Professors Steven Levitsky (Harvard) and Glen Weyl (U. Chicago)[note: Weyl just joined Microsoft], We are lifelong Zionists. Here’s why we’ve chosen to boycott Israel. The opening reads as many "as a Jew" openings read: "We are lifelong Zionists. Like other progressive Jews ...." The Op-Ed is a caricature of the self-absorbed, selfish, ahistorical "as a Jew" argument which is at the heart of progressive Jewish opposition to Israel, often expressed through the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. It's mostly, if not all, about making the "as a Jews" feel good about themselves, justifying their own existences by putting the existences of Israelis at risk. I'll go over the Op-Ed later in this post. But first, it's helpful to consider this description of the "as a Jew" phenomenon as it relates to progressive anti-Zionist Jews:

Posted by Michael Harris on October 24, 2015 18 Comments
"It often happens in the middle of an otherwise pleasant day -- you’re shopping, or walking across a college campus, and you encounter THEM. They’re holding signs that claim Israel is an “apartheid state” and charge Israel with committing “genocide” against Palestinians. They’re calling for boycotts against Israeli products, and divestment from companies that do business with Israel. You know supporting Israel is the right thing to do. And you’re not alone. For decades, polls have shown a large plurality, usually a majority, of Americans back Israel. But here’s the problem: you don’t know how to respond – or if you even should – to these Israel haters. This is an all-too-familiar sight, and has become more frequent in the past decade as Israel-bashing extremists have taken their hostility into the public square. Their words don’t represent a simple disagreement with specific actions or policies of the Israeli government. Instead, they’re an open call for the elimination of the one country that shares American values in a region full of despots and anti-American fanatics. Simply put, they’re not just promoting a Palestinian state, they’re demanding that it replace the Jewish one." This is the opening of my new book, "Winning A Debate with an Israel-Hater", published earlier this month by Shorehouse Books.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 22, 2015 5 Comments
A storm of controversy erupted when the Ithaca, NY, chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace brought Palestinian activist Bassem Tamimi to a third grade class. Tamimi is best known for the viral videos and photos he creates by sending children, including his own, to confront Israeli soldiers. Tamimi, who argues that it is the “duty” of children to engage in acts of resistance, was on a now-concluded U.S. national tour co-sponsored by JVP and the Chicago branch of Amnesty International. [caption id="attachment_146972" align="alignnone" width="600"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1qrE-MRBPs [Image capture Ithaca Week video][/caption]The Superintendent of the Ithaca school district, after an investigation, denounced the visit,finding that Tamimi was not invited by the school and the event was “not developmentally appropriate for third graders, nor aligned with the New York State standards. The statements were politically skewed, inflammatory, and not endorsed by the Ithaca City School District.”
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