Boycott, Divestment And Sanctions

Prof. Deborah Lipstadt, a world-renowned expert on Holocaust denial research, said today in an interview with Ofer Aderet (Haaretz): BDS is an antisemitic movement "with absolute certainty."

A cross-party alliance in the German parliament on Friday passed a resolution condemning the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign...

Planned government bill aims to prevent boycotts which 'may legitimise and drive antisemitism'.

In a huge blow to the @BDSmovement, Spain's Supreme Court ruled this week that BDS is discriminatory. Also, Spain's parliament is considering legislation that bars antisemitic organizations (based on the IHRA definition) from receiving public funding. #BDSisBS #BDSFail.

[1].

...when the BDS movement was still being organized – the eminent antisemitism expert Robert Wistrich concluded in an article published in fall 2004 that "Anti-Zionism has become the most dangerous and effective form of anti- Semitism in our time, through its systematic delegitimization, defamation, and demonization of Israel."

Earlier in the same year, the "Elec. Intifada had published a programmatic essay by Omar Barghouti, a co-founder of the BDS movement, in which Barghouti denounced the two-state solution as an "immoral" [sic] ploy ...

Gordon was arrested for his illegal interference with IDf anti-terror operations.  Prof. Alan Dershowitz last year described Gordon thus: "It is my opinion that Neve Gordon has gotten into bed with neo-Nazis, Holocaust justice deniers, and anti-Semites. He is a despicable example of a self-hating Jew and a self-hating Israeli."  Officials at Ben Gurion University have long backed Gordon's anti-Israel and Solidarity-with-Terrorists activism

The debates surrounding the wrongful act of a lecturer at Ben-Gurion University are not forgotten. Niv Gordon, a left-wing extremist from the fascist genre, infamous as the human shield of "The Man with the Hair on His Face" Yasser Arafat, in a Muqata in Ramallah during "Operation Defensive Shield", did so again and published an article in the Los Angeles Times calling for a boycott.. This is not about academic freedom, as they call for a boycott of the State of Israel and the academic institutions in it, first and foremost, thus constraining the existence of the Israeli academy and the destruction of the academy and the freedom of speech in it as a result.

This action by Gordon joins the actions of (many) .. to exert dictatorial-fascist pressure on Israel because their arguments no longer stand up to public logic. For the past 20 years, hundreds and thousands of organizations have been working to fund anti-Semitic anti-Israelis overseas in order to bring the State of Israel to its knees and eliminate it as a sovereign, Jewish, independent entity.

Student Complaint about Ben Gurion University’s Neve Gordon.

The lecture began smoothly, with Neve Gordon giving a theoretical explanation of human rights (including the fundamental human right of free speech). It soon, however, turned very political. He presented a slideshow about the "Separation Wall" and the injustices it causes to the Palestinians. He made many mentions of land being “confiscated” by the Israelis and the “humiliation” caused to the Palestinians due to lack of movement throughout the territories. On his PowerPoint presentation, he mentioned that parts of the fence were electrified. However, I then corrected him that they were just electric monitors. He conceded on this point.

My fellow students and I challenged him on his accusations and he became frustrated and lashed back due to the questions. He said he was more Zionist then any of us on the basis that he lives in Israel (although some in the class, including myself, are currently making Aliya). He condescendingly remarked that we were just full of American propaganda. He then requested that we stop asking questions and try to learn something. I made a comment that Israel is in a war and fences and separation are necessary. He then made a comment about how during war millions of Jews were thrown in ovens. I asked him if he was comparing the situation in Israel to Nazi Germany and he did not answer. He then made another comparison of fenced in Palestinians and ghettos in Germany. He also claimed that when Jordan took control of the West Bank it was legal, but when the Israelis won the territory in war, it was illegal. At the end, I was able to approach him. I asked how he could possibly justify standing in solidarity with Arafat after the Passover Seder massacre. He became agitated and admitted that the picture has caused him troubles. I then asked how he could sue another professor (at the University of Haifa – SS) for exercising his right to freedom of speech. He responded that we as Americans don’t understand that in Israel it is acceptable to sue in such a case for libel and that in Israel his case is reasonable...

He left in a huff, seeming very frustrated, annoyed, and agitated.

Ilan Pappe links in one breath the Holocaust denial with what he calls the "Nakba [sic] denial" (interview with Yedioth Ahronoth, August 27, 1993). He goes so far as to claim that the Palestinians, like the Jews, are victims of the H... in Europe. His supposedly egalitarian attitude demeans the Holocaust by comparing it to a handful of atrocities committed by both sides during and after the mutual fighting in Palestine in 1948, and thus is very close to Holocaust denial ...

The suffering of an individual is suffering in any situation and in any place, but it has no resemblance to the Holocaust or a contribution to its understanding. The Holocaust was not only the suffering of individuals (others also suffered and suffer in wars and persecutions) but mainly the destruction of culture and an attempt to completely destroy a people after being denounced and taken out of the human race - and there is no parallel and precedent.

The goal of Dr. Ilan Pappe's work is to turn Israel into a "leper state", that is, a country to which the wider world will impose an economic, cultural, and perhaps even political-security boycott, similar to what was done to South Africa in the "apartheid" era. As such, he has publicly stated, Israel will not be able to withstand Arab terrorism when its hands are tied due to the international boycott and the threat of sanctions by the Security Committee, so Israel will have to succumb to Arab demands and agree to the 1948 refugee return to Israel.

Dr. Pappe is well aware that achieving this goal will lead to the destruction of all the life systems of the State of Israel, the evacuation of millions of Israelis from their homes, the expropriation of property on a huge scale and the creation of a new political regime, based on an Arab majority The State of Israel as the pinnacle of the resurrection enterprise of the Jewish people will be eliminated and with it an end will finally be put in place! And if anyone thinks for a moment that these were hollow statements, the thinker will remember that the Palestinian Arabs were headed by a Nazi leader, al-Haj Amin al-Husseini, who came as early as 1933, immediately after the appointment of Adolf Hitler as German Chancellor. To the German Consul in Jerusalem, Wolf, congratulated him on this appointment and expressed his hope that the Nazi regime would spread throughout the world ...

The Israelis should be interested in another group. The one that aroused and provoked the boycott from the Israeli academy and managed to create the impression that it was a clear ideological boycott and a pure struggle against the occupation. A study of what Pappe himself says (Haaretz, 27.4) reinforces the fear that behind the group's ideological motives, or at least of those who lead it proudly, hides a tone of extortion towards academia. "The union's decision can be easily reversed," Pepe said, "to give Teddy Katz back the title that was illegally stolen from him, and everything will be forgotten."... One can also guess that the ideology of socio-cultural privatization, which dismantled Israeli society, and even more so the left, from the exclusive ethos, made them superfluous. Some understood the change. Others got stuck.

The Stuck tried to force the academy and the left to accept their one-valued version. Since they failed to do so, and even the whitest pigeons did not respond, they turned to the old Jewish system: calling the Gentiles. And why now? Because any chance of ending the conflict is bad news for them. If the occupation ends, what will be their excuse then?

I. At best, Ilan Pappe must be one of the world’s sloppiest historians; at worst, one of the most dishonest. In truth, he probably merits a place somewhere between the two.

Here is a clear and typical example—in detail, which is where the devil resides—of Pappe’s handiwork. I take this example from The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. On February 2, 1948, a young Jewish scientist named Aharon...

Ilan Pappe has made several inflammatory comments, claiming accusations of antisemitism have been used “to stifle debate on Palestine” and to “depose” politicians supportive of Palestine as well as ridiculing concerns that the Labour Party has a problem with institutional antisemitism. He has also said that Jeremy Corbyn should not “be afraid” after laying a wreath at the grave of the Black September terrorists who tortured and murdered Israeli Olympians, saying: “as an Israeli Jew I was there [at the same graveyard]…and I paid respect for the freedom fighters of Palestine.” He also defended Chris Williamson’s claim that the Labour Party is “too apologetic” about antisemitism, arguing that “you can’t satisfy these beasts.” Mr Pappe has also defended Jeremy Corbyn’s connection to Holocaust denier Paul Eisen and other antisemites as well as his links to terror groups. Many of these comments have come while delivering speeches of the same title at previous events, making it likely that they could be repeated this weekend. To add insult to injury, the event attempting to whitewash antisemitism is set to take place on a Saturday, the Jewish sabbath. This severely limits the Jewish community’s ability to participate in an event designed to define their own oppression. The SWP has form on this front, having previously been involved in an event featuring the antisemitism-denial group and sham Jewish representative organisation, Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL), hosted by their front organisation Stand Up to Racism on the holiest night of the Jewish calendar, Kol Nidrei, the night of Yom Kippur. Birkbeck has previously come under scrutiny over an antisemitic demonstrator at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, who was filmed claiming that the Holocaust happened because Jews are “cowards”. He was later reportedly sighted being escorted off campus by security staff at Birkbeck, University of London. The man had been filmed by students and a member of Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Demonstration and Event Monitoring Unit at a demonstration at SOAS.

Campaign Against Antisemitism will be approaching Birkbeck to urge the university to reconsider this event and its overtly inflammatory speaker.

A Labour councillor suspended from the party over anti-Semitic comments on her Twitter account has resigned. Luton councillor Aysegul Gurbuz... Another tweet suggested Iran could develop a nuclear weapon to "wipe Israel off the map".

Aysegul Gurbuz resigns as Labour Party councilor following revelations about anti-Semitic tweets, after being suspended.

Meanwhile, more information continues to surface about Gurbuz, a final-year student at Warwick University who served for a year as head of the university's Friends of Palestine Society.

While I’m disgusted by the praise for Hitler by Wits SRC President Mcebo Dlamini, one should not be surprised, because the Palestinian relationship with the Nazis goes back a long way.

A set of particularly bloody pogroms spread across “Palestine” from 1936 to 1939, known as the Arab Revolt in which hundreds of Jews were murdered and the Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin also liquidated many of his Arab political opponents. Haj Amin was aided at this time by fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

In exile in Lebanon, Haj Amin deepened his association with Germany and Italy, receiving large amounts of money and arms from them.

The French news weekly, Marianne, quoted several examples of Nazi ideological influence among the Palestinian Arabs: “At Nablus, the Arab population recently received the British troops with shouts of ‘Heil Hitler!’”

A certain German garage in Jerusalem employed only Arab Nazis, who were made to wear the swastika over their buttonholes. The Arab journals Falastin and Al Difa’a published every week articles with a racial tendency and frequently reproduced large portraits of various leaders of the Third Reich. They did not even try to conceal the fact that they had become pupils of the ministry of propaganda in Berlin, according to Marianne.

Hitler invited Arabs to Germany as honoured guests and in the 1938 Nuremberg address he spoke about “the defenceless Arabs in Palestine, left in the lurch”.

An Arab spokesman in Jerusalem reacted promptly by declaring: “Now we are not without friends in Europe; our ultimate success as a nation lies in the hands of Hitler and Mussolini.”

Hitler was regarded by many Arabs across the Middle East as a popular hero and Arab movements based on Nazism were founded in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Hitler went to Rome, where he received an assurance from Count Ciano, promising to abolish the Jewish national home in “Palestine”.

From there Hitler was set up as an honoured guest in Berlin, where he was installed as “Grossmufti” or “Grand Mufti”. Haj Amin set up an Arab Legion, to fight as part of the Nazi war effort and organised Muslim Wehrmacht units and a Muslim SS unit in Yugoslavia that was responsible for the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies, and also Nazi Muslim units, alongside German forces in the Soviet Union.

His major role was to intercede with Axis governments to prevent the evacuation of thousands of Jewish children to “Palestine”, and redirect them instead to the death camps.

Dieter Wisliceny ... I heard him say that accompanied by Eichmann, he had visited incognito the gas chambers of Auschwitz.”

In a 1974 conversation between Syrian President Hafez Assad and Druze politician Walid Jumblatt, Assad stated that the Arabs “remembered Hitler in a positive way” after which Jumblatt agreed: “At least he saved us from the Zionists… National Socialism should be revered a bit.”

The University of Cape Town (UCT) is currently investigating a BDS activist who "defended Adolf Hitler" while lecturing students, the Algemeiner reported. “Hitler committed no crime," UCT lecturer Lwazi Lushaba told freshman political science students during his lecture, according to the report.

"All Hitler did was to do to white people what white people had normally reserved for black people.”

UCT said that the matter was of "grave concern" and that they will be investigating the incident.“We are verifying all the facts,” a UCT spokesperson said, according to the Algemeiner.

“In the meantime, the university is clear that all brutalities of genocide constitute both formal crimes against humanity and ongoing sources of pain. We distance ourselves very strongly from any other view.”

The comments were brought to light on Holocaust Remembrance Day. One student, who's grandfather perished in the Holocaust, described the events as a bit much to handle. “Hitler didn’t just persecute Jews," the anonymous student said. "He also persecuted black people, [Roma] and disabled people." "Six million people died in the Holocaust and the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day has been a part of my life,” he added. “To think that the comment that Hitler committed no crime would ever fly and not become an issue is insane.”

Other students noted that Lushaba has been known for hate speech "since he got his doctorate." He is also known to be a loose cannon, with violent public outbursts following the election of the UCT Dean of Humanities.

Sarah Wilkinson is a Holocaust denier and rabid antisemitic conspiracy theorist. She is also a star of UK anti-Israel activism. Sarah Wilkinson was one of the three people recently charged over an attack on an Elbit factory, and has appeared in ‘Palestine Action‘ videos boasting about the feat.

Yesterday she posted an absurd statement of denial about her antisemitism. Why is the Sarah Wilkinson case important? Because it highlights why those on our side that expect goodwill from more ‘moderate’ voices are badly mistaken...

A video obtained by The Mississauga News appears to shows Firas Al Najim, an organizer with Canadians Defenders for Human Rights, who was holding the sign in the photo, standing next to Khalid and Crombie with the banner open for around 20 seconds.

In an interview with The Mississauga News, Al Najim says he didn’t sneak up on the two politicians and stands by the use of the word "Holocaust"...

Advocacy, Press Releases

B’nai Brith Canada TORONTO – B’nai Brith Canada has filed a complaint with Toronto Police after a man was filmed harassing a member of the Jewish community in a North York park on Sunday. In the uploaded confrontation at G. Ross Lord Park, Firas al-Najim berates a man in an electronic wheelchair for supporting Israel...

Firas Al Najim, a co-manager of the pro-Palestinian Canadian Defenders For Human Rights (CD4HR), accuses Jewish politicians of being serving the interests of Israel...

... A video of the event revealed that protesters shouted in Arabic, "Palestine is our country, and the Jews are our dogs." They also pledged to "sacrifice our soul and blood for Palestine" and urged "martyrs by the millions" to "march to Jerusalem." Mississauga has seen such incidents before. In 2017, demonstrators there chanted, “Remember Khaybar, oh you Jews, the Army of Muhammad will return.” The chant refers to a 7th-century massacre of Jews in the Hijaz by Muslims.

Michael Mostyn — chief executive officer of B’nai Brith Canada — said in a statement, "The display of antisemitism in Canada’s public squares is totally unacceptable. Opposition to Israeli policy can never be used as an excuse to demean Jews as 'dogs' or to threaten violence against them."

 3 members of the Peel Regional Police are seen posing with CD4HR manager Firas Al Najim during the "Day of Rage" protest... ("Palestine is our country and the Jews are our dogs." July 4, 2020 [7]).

Firas al-Najim, was caught on film in Arabic praising the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah, and chanting "Death to America."

Happening now: Protesters screaming free Palestine, yelling anti-Semitic slurs and intimidating Jews in #Thornhill outside a plaza of mainly kosher establishments. This is NOT anti Zionism —it’s a blatant act of #antisemitic hate which must be condemned by everyone. #cdnpoli. [8].

You don't come to a Jewish neighborhood and yell anti-Semitic tropes if it isn’t about hating Jews. I hope @YRP and police forces across the country start treating these events for the hate crimes they are — so open Jew hatred in our streets ends, today. #cdnpoli.

(Jul 1, 2022).

...Canadian Holocaust survivor was harassed with queries about her support of Israel by a leader of an anti-Israel organization who had dressed as an orthodox Jew, at a United Jewish Appeal (UJA) Federation of Greater Toronto event on Monday that featured guest speakers former US president George Bush and former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper. ... Canadian Defenders for "Human Rights" (CD4HR) leader Firas al Najim demanded of the elderly woman in videos he published on his social media... Najim has been involved in similar altercations with the Toronto Jewish community. In July, he was part of a group that had gone to protest at a shopping plaza with Kosher businesses after finding that no one had come to demonstrate against the 2022 Muslim Association of Canada Convention...

Protestors waved Palestinian flags and yelled "free Palestine" and in one instance "Shabbat shalom b*****s" at Jewish shoppers.

A former Crimson president wanted to blast the paper's decision to endorse BDS. Crimson president Raquel Coronell Uribe won't publish his letter.

The Harvard Crimson on Friday broke with the paper's longstanding editorial position to endorse—in a lengthy but borderline illiterate editorial—the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement that aims to economically isolate the Jewish state of Israel. The endorsement came at the tail end of an "Israeli Apartheid Week" hosted by the Ivy League school's Palestinian Solidarity Committee, replete with an art show that equated Zionism with "racism" and "white supremacy." (The Crimson editorial characterized this as "a colorful, multi-panel ‘Wall of Resistance' in favor of Palestinian freedom and sovereignty.")

The former Crimson president, author, and columnist Ira Stoll wrote a letter to the paper's editor blasting the decision. Crimson president Raquel Coronell Uribe is declining to publish that letter, which the Washington Free Beacon is publishing below, edited lightly for clarity.

Dear Raquel:

For sure I made my share of mistakes as president of the Crimson. The content of the paper should be up to the undergraduates, not the alumni.

Even so, I wanted to write to express my fury, dismay, and disgust with the staff editorial today backing the effort to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel. It makes me embarrassed to be associated with the Crimson.

The editorial says you "unambiguously oppose and condemn antisemitism in every and all forms." Actually, it is an example of antisemitism to single out Israel for boycott, divestment, and sanction while giving a free pass to the many countries with far worse human rights records, countries like Communist China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. A boycott of Israel would mean Harvard scholars could not collaborate with Israeli academics in advancing life-saving technologies, and that no Israeli students—no matter their background or political views—could study at Harvard.

The editorial goes on about "privilege" and "power imbalance." That struck me as particularly tone-deaf this week. Thursday was Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

My father's family was from the Town of Wlodowa in Poland. The Encyclopedia Judaica entry on Wlodowa reports that "In June 1942 all the children up to the age of ten were taken to Sobibor and murdered. On Oct. 24, 1942 the entire Jewish population was sent to death in the Sobibor gas chambers. During these deportations hundreds of Jews fled to the forests and organized partisan units. … In the late autumn of 1942 the Germans ordered the establishment of a special ghetto in Wlodowa for all Jews who voluntarily left their hiding places in the forests of the northeastern Lublin province. They were promised that no further deportations would take place. Several thousand Jews who had taken refuge in the forests, but who lacked arms and food supplies and could not survive the winter there, trusted the German promise, and settled in the new Wlodowa ghetto. On April 20, 1943 all were deported to Sobibor and murdered." Feel free to publish or share this letter if you wish. Or maybe just think of it the next time an institution you lead wants to lecture the Jews about privilege and a power imbalance. Cordially, Ira Stoll

Former Crimson President

"Palestine Stories" is a track that went up in the international streaming service and contains a significant number of films that present Israel in a negative light. Matan Peleg, CEO of 'ImTirtzu' (If You Will), on 103FM: "We must shout against this."

"Netflix has just launched a roll of 32 films called "Palestine Stories." The producers and directors (of the films) 90 percent of them are BDS supporters who have signed petitions, and Netflix in this regard. It is unprecedented. (Netflix) is raising a roll of films accusing the country of war crimes," The remarks of the association's director general.

"A scene that I thought was crazy," Peleg said, "which shows IDF soldiers practicing shooting at Palestinian women's target targets, and as if one of the targets was resurrected, and the commander shouts at the soldiers who shot her. Delusional things, blood libels of the craziest kind.

Maher responded in an Aug. 21 tweet, “Some people have one move only: boycott. Cancel. Make-go-away. But here’s the thing, the house voted 318 to 17 to condemn the #BDS movement, including 93% of Dems. Does Tlaib want to boycott 93% of her own party?” Maher later followed up: “Hey I got my number of rep.s who voted to condemn BDS wrong – it’s actually even more, not 318, it’s 398.” Maher also said during his Aug. 16 show that BDS supporters routinely criticize Israel but fail to acknowledge "the Intifadas and the suicide bombings and the rockets.” He also pointed out that BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti has openly stated that no "rational Palestinian" would “ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine."

"Somehow this side never gets presented in the media," Maher said.

Anuradha Mittal founded nonprofit that accused Israel of human rights abuses and defended Hezbollah

(Ben and Jerry's board chairwoman Anuradha Mittal / oaklandinstitute.org)

Ben & Jerry's board chairwoman isn't your average corporate suit. A social justice warrior who's now under increased scrutiny in the wake of the company's announcement that it will boycott Israel's West Bank and East Jerusalem, she has a lengthy history of left-wing activism that includes publishing columns defending Hezbollah and supporting U.S. funding to Hamas.

Anuradha Mittal, the leading force behind the ice cream company's decision to stop selling its products in parts of Israel, founded the Oakland Institute, which describes itself as an "independent policy think tank," in 2004 and serves as its executive director. The group has published articles defending Hezbollah and Hamas, terrorist groups that seek the destruction of the Jewish state....

Ben & Jerry's is under increased scrutiny for its decision to join the anti-Israel boycott movement, which follows criticism over the ice cream maker's partnership with anti-Semitic figures during the Women's March in 2018. At the time, the company defended its work with Linda Sarsour, one of the march leaders who was ousted for anti-Semitism...

Ben & Jerry’s co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield are under fire after they failed to come up with a reason why they refuse to sell their ice cream in parts of Israel over political disagreements but do business in areas of the United States where they disagree with laws and policies. 

An agreement signed with Unilever Global stipulates that Ben & Jerry's franchisee in Israel can continue to sell ice cream all over Israel, including in Judea and Samaria - Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Economy Minister Orna Barbibai welcomed the decision: "An important value victory against discrimination and anti-Semitism at the heart of the boycott campaign on Israel" - CEO of Israel Avi Singer:" It was a long and complex struggle, crossing borders and sectors."

Lapid:... The victory today is for all those who know that the fight against BDS is first and foremost for the promotion of partnership and dialogue and an ongoing fight against discrimination and hatred.