Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Anti-BDS resolution passes at Western Washington U

I missed this remarkable story from last week. (Yeah, I know, Ian probably caught it because he doesn't miss much, but I have been really busy....)

Associated Students of Western Washington University (ASWWU) became the first North American university student government to pass a proactive resolution against the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

In a 7-0 vote, ASWWU resolved that it would not consider BDS resolutions based on national origin because of the “tensions between students related to foreign conflicts should be managed in a healthy and collaborative manner rather than be exacerbated.”

Additionally, the resolution noted that BDS campaigns could result in students being targeted based on their nationality and lead to “disrespectful bias, hostility, hate, or harassment.”

The initiative to pass the anti-BDS resolution was led by Western Washington University (WWU) student Alysa Kipersztok, who brought the resolution to the student government after hearing about how the boycott issue has sharply divided student bodies at other schools.

“I’ve seen how divisive anti-Israel BDS campaigns have been on campuses across the country. [WWU] is a warm, respectful, inclusive community,” Kipersztok said in a statement.

Here's the resolution:

WHEREAS, universities should foster an environment of peace and promotion of global welfare; and,

WHEREAS, Western Washington University is a liberal arts institution that values holistic and multi-faceted approaches to complex issues; and,

WHEREAS, it is the mission of Western Washington University to “bring together individuals of diverse backgrounds and perspectives in an inclusive, student-centered university”; and,

WHEREAS, inclusion is one of the core values of the Associated Students as expressed in the Strategic Plan; and,

WHEREAS, it is the duty of ASWWU to fairly represent the diverse interests and views of all students at Western Washington University and to foster dialogue, learning, and an inclusive campus environment; and,

WHEREAS, ASWWU has an obligation to focus its attention and resources primarily on addressing issues directly impacting the general welfare of the student body; and,

WHEREAS, to maintain a safe and inclusive campus environment, tensions between students related to foreign conflicts should be managed in a healthy and collaborative manner rather than be exacerbated; and,

WHEREAS, boycott, divestment, and sanction measures rooted in national origin or other identity-based features can cause students to be targeted on the basis of nationality; and,

WHEREAS, isolation of student groups can lead to the perpetration of disrespectful bias, hostility, hate, or harassment, against those groups; therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED, the ASWWU shall not take positions advocating divestment from, boycott of, sanctioning, or ceasing collaboration with companies, products, or organizations due to their nation of origin.

If BDS folks celebrate their victories as well as their defeats, how do they react to the complete crushing of their entire raison d'être?

Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Wiesenthal Center will boycott PCUSA conference, and their "tough love" of Israel

From the Wiesenthal Center website:

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, one of the largest Jewish human rights organizations, is urging the rank and file of the U.S. Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) flocking to Detroit this weekend for the group's national meeting to defeat the leadership's embrace of extreme anti-Israel positions, including a report that called Israel racist and Illegal.

"We are severing all dialogue with PCUSA, because of a pattern of malicious behavior on the part of church administration," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Center, pointing to Zionism Unsettled, a 74-page document released in December and sold on PCUSA's website. "This demonization of an entire nation and its supporters around the world is an outrage that makes further conversation with this church impossible. Zionism Unsettled does not merely attack Israeli policies, but calls the quest for a Jewish State racist and illegal. This invokes memories of the UN's notorious 'Zionism is racism' resolution of 1974—which was repealed in 1991 – but this time PCUSA has substituted theological language to dismiss the Jewish people's 3,500 year presence in and association with the Holy Land," Cooper added. "The long-standing protocols of interfaith dialogue have always demanded that no partner attack the core beliefs of the other. This document, and the cynical response of church leaders to criticism of it from other Presbyterians, is a frontal assault on the central place of the Jewish State in Jewish life and thought," the rabbi said.

From Yitzchak Alderstein and Abraham Cooper in JPost:

We will be sitting it out not because we wouldn’t be welcome. The laity and clergy of this church – whether they’ve agreed or disagreed –always welcomed us as observers, and we’ve been enriched by our dialogue. This Church’s administration has been quite a different story.

PCUSA was, in 2004, the first mainline church to adopt a resolution calling for divestment from Israel.

Immensely unpopular with the people in the pews, it was undone in 2006, but the minority pledged never to give up the fight. So every two years Jewish organizations squandered months of time, beating back the latest anti-Israel resolutions encouraged by the salaried and agendized “insiders” at corporate headquarters in Louisville. The good ordinary folks of the denomination, whatever their views on Israel/Palestine, were dismayed by the investment of valuable time on resolutions that didn’t bring the Middle East closer to peace, but alienated Jews and Presbyterians from each other.

Other denominations got it, and avoided incendiary moves. PCUSA’s leaders chose not to. After each defeat at a biennial General Assembly, they raised the ante, backing the anti-peace Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that openly seeks the eradication of the Jewish state – even though it flies in the face of the decades-long stated policy of the church. At each GA they pushed for ever more outrageous resolutions, forcing Jewish organizations to debate not Israel’s policies, but her very existence.

Enough! For years before, we tolerated double crosses, broken deals, deception. We watched as church officials had to resign after visiting with terrorist leaders. We participated in midnight meetings that brokered new “understandings” – only to learn weeks later that words were cheap to these church leaders. We saw crucial committees stacked with supposedly neutral but always pro-Palestinian “resource personnel” who were allowed unlimited time to testify (while we had 60 seconds to testify on the most complex conflict on the globe).

We saw real, unadulterated anti-Semitism on the webpages of the Israel-Palestine Mission Network (IPMN) – one of the radical groups behind the incessant anti-Israel resolutions. When we pointed this out, church leadership denied that IPMN spoke for the church – even as it continued to link to them from its own webpages and provided their IRS charitable organization status.

We recently witnessed a chairman of the committee scheduled to debate anti-Israel measures, a person known for his fairness and neutrality, summarily asked to resign because he had visited Israel on a Jewish-sponsored tour. No matter that the church pushes its own, carefully designed pro-Palestinian tours. We watched in disgust as they trotted out “Jewish voices” to allege that Jews themselves were now completely divided about Israel, despite the fact that those spokespeople were as representative of the Jewish community as flatearth advocates are of geographers.

The entire piece is possibly the best, single-article indictment of the PCUSA's actions.

Meanwhile, Israel-haters within and outside the church are pretending that the church leadership's antisemitism and single-minded hate for Zionism is merely "tough love." 

Oh, so this is love?

Larry Grimm, a leading Presbyterian advocate of boycotting Israel, wrote a Facebook message that shows his "tough love" immediately before endorsing that article. He was quoted as saying "Come home to America, Jewish friends." He then followed up by saying "America is the Promised Land. We all know this. Come to the land of opportunity. Quit feeling guilt about what you are doing in Palestine, Jewish friends. Stop it. Come home to America!"

The irony of an American with a name that indicates German ancestry advocating that Jews should abandon their historic homeland and occupy Native American territory is apparently lost on most Presbyterian Church leaders.

Luckily, within the PCUSA there are prominent members who disagree with the direction the church is heading:

AS PASTORS AND LEADERS, we are deeply disturbed by the escalating conflict within the PC(USA) over the Church’s policies toward Israel/Palestine. Conflict over these issues, of course, is nothing new; what is new is the focus and tone of that conflict. For decades, the PC(USA) has argued passionately over how best to express our opposition to the 1967 Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. But through all that time, we have consistently maintained that we oppose the occupation, not Israel.

This has now changed. With the publication of Zionism Unsettled, a “study guide” on Zionism produced by the PC(USA)’s Israel/Palestine Mission Network, and a series of overtures pending before the 2014 General Assembly that reflect its arguments, we are no longer debating how the occupation should end, but whether Israel should exist.Zionism Unsettled announces this shift from its opening section, saying: “put simply, the problem is Zionism.” It makes no distinction between different forms of Zionism, arguing that any form of Zionism is inherently discriminatory. Some forms of Zionism have been violent and exclusionary; the same is true of any form of nationalism (American, British, Chinese, Palestinian, etc.). But to argue that any Jewish desire for any form of statehood within their historic homeland is inherently discriminatory is not only patently false but morally indefensible. And the conclusion is obvious: if Zionism is the problem, then ending Zionism (i.e., Israel) is the solution.

It is telling that one of the earliest and loudest affirmations of Zionism Unsettled was by David Duke, perhaps the most notorious white supremacist and anti-Semite in the United States today, who said: In a major breakthrough in the worldwide struggle against Zionist extremism, the largest Presbyterian church in the United States, the PC(USA), has issued a formal statement calling Zionism “Jewish Supremacism” — a term first coined and made popular by Dr. David Duke.

The reality that David Duke would endorse a Presbyterian study guide available for purchase on the PC(USA) website is sickening to us, and should give all Presbyterians great pause in considering the arguments and language of this document and Zionism Unsettled’s ideological relationship to the overtures coming before the General Assembly.

Of course, they are being shouted down (and their points completely ignored) by those who pretend to want "peace" but are silent when Jews are attacked.

ALGEMEINER: USA Today Publishes BDS Press Release Almost Word for Word, Accuses Israel of ‘Large-Scale Abuses of Palestinian Rights’

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel found itself a friend in major American newspaper USA Today recently, when a press release about its efforts to have Alicia Keys cancel her upcoming show in Israel appeared almost verbatim in an article on the newspaper’s website.

The American Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg first tweeted about the disturbing similarities Thursday, a day after the article appeared. “@USATODAY ran a BDS press release as a story. Here’s the newspaper pieceHere’s the release” he wrote.

The article accuses Israel of “large-scale abuses of Palestinian rights” and also takes a quote from the press release from Andrew Kadi of the “U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation,” who accuses Israel of denying Palestinians health care and of torturing children.

A paragraph from the USA Today article reads, “The delegation met with staff at the organization, who explained that they were aware of the ongoing efforts to encourage Keys’ cancellation. Delegates passed along materials that included details of the global boycott campaign and reports from rights organizations documenting Israel’s violation of Palestinian children rights, which they confirmed was received by Peter Twyman, executive officer of Keep a Child Alive.”

And an almost identical paragraph from the BDS press release reads, ”The delegation met with staff at the organization, who explained that they were aware of the ongoing efforts to encourage Keys’ cancellation. Delegates passed along materials that included details of the global boycott campaign and reports from rights organizations documenting Israel’s violation of Palestinian children rights, which they confirmed Keep a Child Alive’s Chief Executive Officer, Peter Twyman, received.”

Another paragraph from USA Today: “In response to Israel’s large-scale abuses of Palestinian rights, Palestinian Civil Society launched a call for a global campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel in 2005, modeled on the call by black South Africans for a boycott of apartheid South Africa that helped bring an end to the racist system. In response, numerous musicians, including Elvis Costello, Santana, The Pixies and others have canceled concerts or refrained from playing in Israel. In May, physicist Stephen Hawking canceled his planned participation in a conference in Israel, responding to Palestinian requests.”

And here is the same paragraph from the BDS press release almost verbatim: “In response to Israel’s large-scale abuses of Palestinian rights, Palestinian civil society launched a call for a global campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel in 2005, modeled on the call by black South Africans for a boycott of apartheid South Africa that helped bring an end to the racist system. In response, numerous musicians, including Elvis Costello, Santana, The Pixies, and others have cancelled concerts or refrained from playing in Israel. In May, physicist Stephen Hawking cancelled his planned participation in a conference in Israel, responding to Palestinian requests.”

The Algemeiner could not immediately reach the editor of the article for comment.

The BDS press release published as a news report by USA Today. Photo: Screenshot.

Professor: Our Boycott and Sanctions Campaign is Growing Arutz Sheva speaks to one of the U.S. professors seeking to boycott Israel, and asks why.

Several dozen professors and lecturers at Columbia University in New York are calling to divest their pension funds from companies that do business with Israelis in Judea and Samaria (Shomron).

Arutz Sheva’s Yoni Kempinski spoke to one of them and asked why.

Professor of Anthropology Brinkley Messick explained what he sees as a “very limited, very targeted moral campaign” to divest from a group of five companies.

When asked about the scope of the campaign of “boycott, divestment and sanctions” from Israel, he said, “The campaign is definitely growing. It’s growing very very strongly…. This is something that’s at many American colleges and universities, both the faculty and the students.”
Messick noted a similar campaign on University of California system campuses.
When asked why there do not appear to be similar campaigns against countries that violate human rights to the point of massive murder of civilians, such as Syria and North Korea, Messick said, “People oppose all sorts of oppressive regimes, in all sorts of contemporary colonial circumstances. This is one that has world implications.”
Arutz Sheva also asked what the boycotters’ problem with Israel is, why they do not see Israel’s court system as the place to seek redress for alleged land theft, as Arabs do, and whether they hope to see boycotted companies collapse – a result that would impact the Palestinian Authority and the many Arabs who are employed by them, as well as Israel, if not more so.

Thousands murdered in Syria, so UCI targets Jews building homes

The "Associated Students of UCI" (University of California-Irvine) met last night and voted, 16-0, to divest from various companies that do business in Israel.

The targeted companies include Caterpillar (of course,) Cement Roadstones Holding, Cemex, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, Raytheon, Sodastream and L-3 Communications.

The reasons given are the usual mix of flat-out lies and absurd exaggerations. The resolution says that Israel practices "apartheid", that it levels entire neighborhoods in refugee camps (I have yet to hear UNRWA mention that one,) and that it " ruthlessly level[ed] civilian dense regions" during Cast Lead.

Of course, ASUCI has nothing to say about the hundred of people likely to be murdered in Syria today, or about institutionalized discrimination against Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon to the extent that they cannot build houses or hold many jobs, or against Hamas celebrating the firing of deadly rockets at Israeli schoolchildren this week, or of the daily incitement in official Palestinian Arab media to destroy Israel completely. 

No, they are far more concerned over Israel building a wall to stop suicide bombers.

Years of anti-Israel and anti-semitic [in the case of Sodastream] indoctrination pays off. UCI's professors and administration must be so proud.


The executive board of the student government has yet to approve this absurd measure that targets the right of self-determination of Jews. We'll see if they have any more sense or if they also get swept up in the pogrom-like mentality of viciously attacking anything to do with Israel.

(h/t Jennifer)

UPDATE: A little searching shows that UCI uses HP printers, multi-function copiers, desktop computers - and servers.

Have fun convincing the data centers to replace all their equipment, guys!

BDSers now targeting Jewish-owned toy store

From The Star (South Africa):

Members of the Stop the JNF (Jewish National Fund) campaign gathered outside Reggies toy stores at the weekend in protest at the toy chain’s financial support of the JNF.

In a statement sent out by Cosatu on behalf of the Stop the JNF, the campaign’s members said: “We feel that it is unconscionable that while hundreds of Palestinian children are held in Israeli prisons, a toy shop that purportedly celebrates children is knowingly supporting an Israeli parastatal complicit in gross human rights violations.”

The Stop the JNF campaign members staged protests at three Reggies stores, in Joburg, Durban and Cape Town, yesterday.

The campaign’s national spokesman, Alan Horwitz, said 60 protesters showed up in Joburg, 100 people protested in Durban and 30 in Cape Town. No one was at the stores to accept the protesters’ memorandums.

The South African media helpfully publicized the protests ahead of time on behalf of "Stop the JNF." I have never seen a newspaper give publicity to protests of under a hundred people beforehand.
Apparently, the owner of the store supports the Jewish National Fund, which must be an awful crime that merits the closure of his store and the dozens of employees losing jobs.

Note that the organizers of this self-hate festival are Jewish. In fact, one of them was wearing a yarmulke, to establish his Jew bona-fides.

The protests were on Shabbat, which means it is highly unlikely that this gentleman wears a kipah anytime except when he is protesting proud Jews.

Here's another protester:

Nothing says "human rights" like a Che Guevara T-shirt!

The anti-Israel drones are clearly not interested in a few facts I threw their way on their Facebook page that throws cold water on their insistence that JNF is racist:

• The leading Palestinian Arab environmentalist works closely with the JNF on a number of initiatives.
• The JNF has given land to help Arab towns grow.
• The JNF donated 3000 trees to Arab town of Rawabi on the West Bank - but the Arabs uprooted them all!

They are mindless, anti-Israel bigots, and no amount of kipot will detract from that. If it wasn't the JNF they would be protesting something else.

If you are so inclined, you might want to order something from Reggie's. 

BDS = BULLY, DISRUPT, SHOVE? BDS Attacks JNF Concert Goers in Berlin (Video)

Ten members of BDS interrupted a JNF fundraiser in Berlin. The protesters helped up signs, yelled “Free Palestine”, shoved old women, and knocked people down.

Note to Boycotters: Israel is Not a Thief By David Suissa

There is an obvious way to respond to author Alice Walker's refusal to allow her novel "The Color Purple" to be translated into Hebrew. In case you missed it, Walker accused Israel of being "guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people, both inside Israel and also in the Occupied Territories."

The obvious response is to refute her charges, as many writers have done.

As Daniel Gordis wrote in JPost: "Walker writes as though the Palestinians are identical to the blacks of South Africa; they suffer only because of the color of their skin (or their ethnicity, in this case), not because of anything they have done. She writes as though Israel is the only obstacle to their 'freedom,' as though Israel is, as a matter of policy, committed to perpetuating their second-class status without end. But no reasonable reading of the Middle East justifies any such claim."

Gordis adds: "[Walker] even makes a point of saying that Israel is guilty of apartheid inside the Green Line as well. But name a single country in which some minorities do not get the short end of the stick. Is every country on the planet therefore guilty of apartheid? And if so, why boycott only Israel? It can't be because of Israel's social policies, which are far better than those of many other countries that Walker is not boycotting."

I agree with everything Gordis said, but I also think he didn't go far enough.

Here's my theory: As long as the world believes that Israel is an "illegal occupier," nothing we do or say will make much difference. The haters and boycotters of Israel will keep exploiting that perception. The stench of the illegal occupation will continue to undermine the good that Israel does, inside or outside Israel.

In other words, the strongest case Israel can make against boycotters is to show, once and for all, that it is not a thief.

Israel's historic mistake has been to unwittingly reinforce, in its search for peace, the dubious and dangerous narrative that it is returning stolen land.

When Israel made its peace offers, it never said: "We believe that, according to international law, Israel has a legitimate claim to Judea and Samaria. But for the sake of peace, we're willing to give up most of that land."

By focusing on security and failing to make this legal claim, Israel allowed the illegal narrative to take hold - and the haters and boycotters went on to have a field day.

As if that weren't bad enough, Israel's land concessions were perceived as worthless. Since the Palestinians believed that all the land already belonged to them, and no one ever disabused them of that notion, what was there to negotiate?

The sad part is that Israel could have made a strong case that the territories are not, in fact, stolen land. At the very least, they had enough evidence to argue that the land is "disputed" rather than "occupied." For example:

Jeffrey S. Helmreich, author and writer for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs: "The settlements are not located in 'occupied territory.' The last binding international legal instrument which divided the territory in the region of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza was the League of Nations Mandate, which explicitly recognized the right of Jewish settlement in all territory allocated to the Jewish national home in the context of the British Mandate. These rights under the British mandate were preserved by the successor organization to the League of Nations, the United Nations, under Article 80 of the U.N. Charter."

Stephen M. Schwebel, professor of International Law at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (Washington), and President of the International Court of Justice from 1997 to 2000: "Where the prior holder of territory [Jordan] had seized that territory unlawfully, the state which subsequently takes that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense [Israel] has, against that prior holder, better title."

Eugene W. Rostow, former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and Distinguished Fellow at the U.S. Institute for Peace: "The Jewish right of settlement in the West Bank is conferred by the same provisions of the Mandate under which Jews settled in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem before the state of Israel was created. ... The Jewish right of settlement in Palestine west of the Jordan River, that is, in Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, was made unassailable. That right has never been terminated. ..."

There are plenty of books and essays that elaborate on the above. But the point here is not to defend the wisdom of the occupation; you can believe that the occupation is the dumbest move Israel ever made and still believe there is value in making a legal claim to the land. In fact, maybe the occupation will end only after Israel regains its moral standing by showing it is not occupying stolen land.

A thief is never credible. Israel needs to face the monster head-on and begin an all-out campaign defending its legitimate claims to Judea and Samaria. It's the most powerful way to counter the boycotters.

There will always be haters of Israel, but we don't have to make it easier for them. Before Israel can make peace, it needs to reclaim a piece of the truth.

United Church pastor breaks ranks on Israel, denounces ‘radical agenda’

A United Church of Canada minister has started a campaign to get rank-and-file members to reject a proposal from the church’s hierarchy to launch an economic boycott against Israel.

“I really want to believe this is the workings of a very active minority in the church,” said Andrew Love, a pastor at a parish in the town of Arnprior, 55 kilometres west of Ottawa.

“The vast majority of people in the pews are not ready to embrace this kind of extremist and radical agenda from a small minority. There is a real disconnect between the leadership and its people.”

He said the proposal contains “elements of anti-Semitism” by minimizing the importance of the Holocaust.

Last week, a working group of the United Church released a paper that called for a selective boycott of goods coming out of what the authors call illegal Israeli settlements, including East Jerusalem. The authors said that legitimate criticism of Israel is far different than anti-Semitism and that the United Church condemns anything that smacks of anti-Jewish bigotry. The report, two years in the making, will be voted on at the church’s general council in August.

This is the fourth proposal concerning sanctions against Israel in the past six years but none was ever voted on by the general council. However, this is the first proposal requested by the church leadership. Other proposals came from grassroots initiatives.

Rev. Love said he will launch a website in the next few days that will ask for support from co-religionists who are also concerned about calls for a boycott and anti-Israel sentiment in the church.

“This report is biased and one-sided and will erode a commitment we made as a church in a [2003 report] to strengthen ties with the Jewish community,” he said.

In 2009, Rev. Love said he travelled to Israel and spent time on the West Bank speaking to families who were having a tough time under Israeli rule. He said at one point he was pelted by stones by Israeli settlers because he was speaking with Palestinians.

“So it’s not that I’m blinded to the plight of Palestinians,” Rev. Love said. “But where is the sense of balance in this report? Once again we are isolating Israel for all our moral condemnation. Shouldn’t we hold to the same fashion other countries in the Middle East? It’s absurd that Israel is singled out because it’s a democracy.”

‘The report is almost completely silent on Israel’s very legitimate concerns to protect itself from terrorism’

He added: “The report is almost completely silent on Israel’s very legitimate concerns to protect itself from terrorism as well as the ever present threat from Iran and the proxy forces that work for Iran in the region.”

He said the authors of the report also did not go far enough to denounce the use of the term “apartheid” when it comes to discussing the situation in Israel today.

Bruce Gregersen, a church minister who assisted those who wrote the report, said the document clearly states that it is not helpful to use the term apartheid now — but given the fluidity of the situation the term could be applicable one day.

“At the current time we did not see the conditions of apartheid applying, but if the settlements are annexed into Israel, which has been threatened, then the term apartheid would apply.”

Church officials acknowledged last week that Israel is the focus for action because there is more chance of reasoning with a democracy than one of the neighbouring authoritarian regimes.

“The [authors] believe that Israel can and should be held to a higher standard than surrounding non-democratic countries or authoritarian regimes. It’s precisely because of Israel’s close identification with democratic ideals that it needs to be challenged on its policies,” the report says.

Rev. Gregersen said that the United Church has had support from Jewish leaders who recognize criticism of the state of Israel does not mean negative feelings about Jews. The report also criticized those who would demonize Jews under the guise of criticism of Israel.

However, he said, some have told the church that the language of the report “does appear to minimize the horrors Holocaust,” which might be construed as anti-Semitism.

“That was never our intention to minimize the Holocaust and we are really concerned that it can be seen like that.”

SodaStream Not Green! Flash Mob at El Cerrito BB&B

SodaStream promotes itself as an environmentally friendly and cost-effective alternative to buying soda. But SodaStream is produced in an illegal settlement on stolen Palestinian land with exploited Palestinian labor. Moreover, Israeli settlement industries regularly dump toxic waste into the land and water of nearby villages. Flash mob at El Cerrito, California's Bed Bath & Beyond store says B&B Don't Sell SodaStream

Surprise: Tel Aviv U educated 'Palestinian' darling is a racist; Here's Tel Aviv University educated 'Palestinian' darling Omar Barghouti expressing some racism against whites in support of BDS (boycott-divest-sanction).

RABBI DOV FISCHER: A 3-minute Youtube piece that addresses the incident where an Israeli soldier rapped a Denmark leftist in the mouth; The Tribal Update makes Danish ISMers an offer they can't refuse

A few weeks ago, some leftist Jew-haters from Western Europe flew into Israel to protest against Israeli inhumanity towards the “long-suffering Palestinians” and to promote their calls for an international boycott, divestiture, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.  They flew to Israel, a favorite target for human rights activists, partly because (i) Jew-hatred is endemic in Western Europe, and (ii) it is a lot safer to demonstrate for human rights in Israel than, say, to call for human rights in Arab countries where, G-d forbid, the demonstrators might get seized, imprisoned, sentenced to long years of labor, or even get hanged or shot . . . or get both hanged and shot.

During the recent leftist event in Israel, one Israeli officer at a demonstration lost his cool after one of the demonstrators got into fisticuffs with him and broke two of his fingers.  As a result, the Israeli officer reacted a few minutes later by smacking his rifle into the guy’s face.  It was a mistake, a bad moment in that officer’s very dignified and valorous military career, and he is paying for it, because the moment was caught on a cellphone video, edited so that you see only the soldier’s momentary over-reaction.  The guy who was jabbed in the face, a handsome guy from Denmark, gave interviews for a week, talking about Israeli cruelty.

In this 2-minute, 49-second video from LATMA (the people who produced the “We Are the World” video after the flotilla incident two years ago), a formal apology from Israel.  You do not need to understand Hebrew: there are English titles, and the pictures tell all.  An apology from Israel, a regret that Israel does not treat demonstrators with the same civility and gentility that demonstrators can reliably experience in more civil countries like America, Canada, France, Italy, Australia — and Denmark.

BDS professor at Penn explains how to demonize Israel IN EVERY CLASS

At the PennBDS conference last weekend, there was a breakout session on the "Academic Boycott of Israel."

One of the panelists was Amy Kaplan, professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania.

At the Q&A session, another teacher asked Kaplan how to incorporate the BDS memes of demonizing Israel into college courses, even when the course has nothing to do with "Palestine."

And Professor Kaplan answered him.

Here we have a professor at an Ivy League university explicitly calling on like-minded educators to shoehorn hate of Israel into every one of their classes.

For these academics, college is not about teaching but it is merely a platform for them to spout their political views at their captive audience.

Watch this:

Ignorance is a prerequisite for Israel Apartheid Week

Boycott Divestment Sanction Israel

While pro-Palestinian activists claim that boycotting Israel is merely intended to encourage Israel to work towards peace, listen as they let their guard down.

Read more: http://www.cross-currents.com/#ixzz1EMPRI0N5
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution