T. Belman. The BDS movement worries me, not so much because of the economic damage it does Israel, which at this time is minuscule, but because of the lies they tell the world about Israel and her policies. More and more people around the world believe these lies. These lies are delivered with passion, intimidation, certitude, bullying, screaming and dramatics. These tactics should not be present in the market place of ideas, as Dershowitz refers to it. No room is left for rational debate. Most pro-Israel voices are intimidated into silence. Many people are won over to their hate filled narrative because it is easier to believe it than to fight it. These tactics have been proven to be very successful for any movement wanting change. Look at the brownshirts in the thirties in Germany or the blackshirts in the thirties in Italy.
The West does not know how to deal with these tactics or are too intimidated to try. But try they must. If it needs new laws, pass them, If it needs determined enforcement of the law, increase the police force. If it needs greater penalties, pass them.
by Noah Beck, Special to IPT News
Anti-Semitic incidents seem to spring up each week on college campuses throughout the United States. According to a study, “The strongest predictor of anti-Jewish hostility on campus” is the presence of a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.
The greater the BDS activity, especially involving faculty members, the more likely anti-Semitic episodes become, said the study issued last month by the AMCHA Initiative, a non-profit organization dedicated to investigating, documenting, and combating anti-Semitism on U.S. campuses.
One recent example occurred on April 15, when the City University of New York Doctoral Students’ Council passed a resolution calling for an academic boycott of Israel, 42-19. Weeks earlier, a CUNY professor and BDS advocate claimed that the killing of Palestinians in Gaza “reflects Jewish values.” On CUNY campuses, the New York Observer reports, Jewish students were harassed, with “Jews out of CUNY” uttered in at least one instance, and a professor who wears a yarmulke was called a “Zionist pig.”
On April 21, two-thirds of a union representing about 2,000 graduate students at New York University voted to approve a motion to support a BDS resolution against Israel. The motion also urges the union and its affiliate, the United Auto Workers, to divest from Israeli companies. The resolution asks NYU to close its program at Tel Aviv University, claiming the program violates NYU’s non-discrimination policy.
About a month earlier, NYU’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), one of the main organizing forces behind the nationwide BDS campaign, hosted Israeli academic Ilan Pappé, described by Benny Morris as “one of the world’s sloppiest historians.”
As reported by AMCHA:
“Pappé blamed Jews, perceived historically as evil, for antisemitism stating, ‘The [Jewish] Israelis…are responsible for bringing antisemitism back.’ He denied Jews self-determination and demonized Israel stating, ‘evil Zionism will come to an end – all immoral regimes do’ as well as suggested rich Jews should leave Israel as a process of ‘decolonization.’ He further demonized Israel throughout accusing Israel of carrying out ‘ethnic cleansing’ multiple times. Pappé delegitimized Israel consistently referring to Israel as a ‘settler colonialist project,’ …[and] promoted BDS.”
The Jewish Law Students Association at Harvard University and Harvard Hillel co-sponsored an event April 14 on “The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict & the U.S.” During the question and answer session, Husam el-Qoulaq, an HLS student and head of SJP at the school, insulted Israeli Knesset Member Tzipi Livni by asking, “How is it that you are so smelly?… A question about the odor of Ms. Tzipi Livni, she’s very smelly, and I was just wondering.” The student’s question resurrected the anti-Semitic stereotype of a “smelly/dirty Jew.” Incredibly, some “progressive” HLS Jewish students later defended el-Qoulaq.
As BDS campaigns spread on campuses, anti-Semitic expression increasingly follows – from swastika-filled vandalism at UC Davis and Purdue University to student “debates” at Stanford University that implicitly dignify classical anti-Semitic tropes about Jews controlling the media and economy. Among other recent incidents:
April 20: At Michigan’s Grand Valley State University, there have been six anti-Semitic incidents reported on campus since last December. These involved swastikas on walls or doors of residence halls, messages including “I am a Nazi” and “Hitler did nothing wrong,” a faculty member making anti-Semitic gestures in a classroom, and a Star of David with an “X” scratched into it on the window of a bus.
April 19: At the University of Maryland, about two dozen protesters arrived at a Hillel and Jewish Student Union event called, “Israel Fest” and, for about an hour, chanted, “Fight the power; turn the tide; end Israeli apartheid” and held signs saying “Zionism kills.”
April 15: At the University of Notre Dame, a letter published by three students in the school newspaper accused Israel of apartheid and directed readers to the Anti-Semitic site “IfAmericansKnew” and the site for a major BDS group, Jewish Voice for Peace.
April 10: At Atlanta’s historically black Morehouse College, participants at the U.S. Universities Debating Championship (USUDC) were forced to justify the motion, “This House Believes That Violence By Palestinians Against Israeli Civilian Targets Is Justified.”
According to AMCHA, 2016 already has seen 171 anti-Semitic/BDS incidents as of April 21. At this rate, 2016 will see a 36 percent increase in incidents over last year.
Faculty members have become increasingly active in BDS efforts and smears. During a talk at Vassar College in February, Rutgers professor Jasbir Puar accused Israel of harvesting Palestinian organs and conducting scientific experiments in “stunting” the growth of Palestinian bodies. Last month, 40 Columbia University professors signed a BDS petition. More recently, one pro-BDS professor even tried to link campus rape to Israel. As Rochester Institute of Technology lecturer A.J. Caschetta notes, “at a time when much of academe is jumping on the BDS bandwagon, there is little risk to academics who join the movement, whereas opposition to majority leftist positions often leads to a perilous path.”
Indeed, academics who buck this trend may be endangering their careers. At Connecticut College, one of the few professors who defended Andrew Pessin, who hasn’t been in his classroom for the past year after a hate-filled campaign miscast his comments about Hamas as a smear on all Palestinians, says his stance cost him a promotion. Manuel Lizarralde, associate professor in Ethnobotany, wrote in a faculty-wide email Jan. 26 that the college “acted like vigilantes and found the perfect scapegoat,” in Pessin.
Within days, Lizarralde said, he was called in by the administration for a scolding. Noting that he was recently denied promotion, Lizarralde suggested in a recent email that this was payback for his support of Pessin. Connecticut College has “a sense of racism since we are Latinos, Jews and advocate for social injustice…[and we] are being punished [for such activism].”
Responding to the negative media coverage generated by the Pessin case, Connecticut College President Katherine Bergeron published an email to the faculty March 28, in which she championed “the right of all its members to express their views freely and openly.” She failed to explain how that principle applied to Pessin, who was hounded off campus for expressing his views, only to see them twisted and turned against him. She said that the school should promote “reasoned and informed debate about the most complex issues of our time,” but Pessin’s absence leaves the school with no pro-Israel voice. When asked about the contradictions between her email and the Pessin affair, she declined to comment.
Meanwhile, outrage against Connecticut College continues to build, with a petition to investigate the Pessin affair and revoke the school’s accreditation now exceeding 1,500 signatures.
Just as the character assassination targeting the only pro-Israel voice at Connecticut College appeared as a total surprise, BDS campaigns to influence student government votes across the country pop up with minimal notice, just weeks before the vote, giving the opposition little time to organize. That strategy helped secure SJP a BDS victory at the University of Chicago undergraduate student government in March.
It failed to persuade the university’s administration, though.
Who is funding BDS? Analyst Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies recently told members of Congress that former employees of Hamas-linked charities now work for the Illinois-based organization American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), which is “arguably the leading BDS organization in the US, a key sponsor of the anti-Israel campus network known as Students for Justice in Palestine.” Schanzer noted that AMP provides money, speakers, training and even “apartheid walls” to SJP campus activists. More surprising, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund has given anti-Israel BDS organizations hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to the Shurat Hadin Israel Law Center.
On campus after campus, the BDS movement has proven itself to be well organized and determined to poison the minds of impressionable students against Israel. It will take an equally concerted and sustained effort to oppose BDS in academia.
Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East.
The IPT accepts no funding from outside the United States, or from any governmental agency or political or religious institutions. Your support of The Investigative Project on Terrorism is critical in winning a battle we cannot afford to lose. All donations are tax-deductible. Click here to donate online. The Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation is a recognized 501(c)3 organization.
CuriousAmerican Said:
Islam learned Jew hatred from the christians
Pero Yamit es sarnoso.
Usted puede hacer mucho mejor.
La prednisona nubla su pensamiento.
Usted necessita una latino desde el sur de Tejas.
@ CuriousAmerican:
Me lo duda! Me gusta lobos
Just his twin. Yamit was evil enough.
Usted puede hacer mejor. Mucho mejor.
CuriousAmerican Said:
Yamit82 is Keli-A’s evil twin.
CuriousAmerican Said:
Soy me propio Capitan.
You said that. I did not. Do not put words in my mouth. Let Yamit do that.
BTW: Why is he now, Kelli-A?
Usted puede hacer mejor. Mucho mejor. Usted necessita un intellectual, no un lobo ladrido.
Usted necessita un capitan, no un marinero. Yamit es un portero.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLAWPrCUQQ0
CuriousAmerican Said:
We egged him on.
I do not hold Judaism responsible for the savage brutality,psychopathology of Islam. Mohammed was a uniquely evil man, and that cannot be blamed on the Jews. In fact, he persecuted and massacred Jews at Khaybar and in Medina.
CuriousAmerican Said:
Ah si, uno grandote macho.
Tú, dulcita. Con tú, la gente judio actuaron magnificamente.
No, Yamit does.
No, I don’t. You project like Yamit.
My kind?! Wow! You and Yamit utter the ethnic slurs and then call others bigots? More projection.
I do not hate Israel. I have NOT asked you to leave J&S. I just noted some issues.
Would like to visit there some day.
If you did, you would not be having issues in J&S.
@ CuriousAmerican:
Is the anything, anything at all that you don’t blame on Israel and the Jewish People.
Nonsense! Shows how little you know. Coke tried to get a license in 1949. Israel, with its protectionism at that time, would not issue them a license. Then in 1966, Israel complained when it had no Coke, and threathed to have Jewish businesses boycott Coke. Nathans Hot Dogs for example.
But the problem was originally Israel’s doing. Ben Gurion denied Israel a license.
My understanding is that there was some gray finagling in whoever got the Israeli license.
Israel created the problem, and then blamed Coke.
@ honeybee:
I do not remember the formula but, an old lady told me to use aloe. Fresh aloe mixed with..? and I heard the same thing from someone else. A little different but it seems the base is aloe. You should have plenty of it in the desert.
I will ask somebody I know and let you know. Take good care. Good honeybees with witty sarcasm are scarce. Very scarce.
Keli-A Said:
how about one delicate, frail bee stuff full of steroids.
mar55 Said:
Ah yes they recommend that take a coconut, drill a hole in it, stuff it with raw sugar and reclose the hole. Allow the coconut to sit in the sun for a week and open the hole and drink the milk. I may not cure yo, but I guarantee you will feel better fast !!!!!!
CuriousAmerican Said:
Most of the attacks were against the British who were occupiers of our land and no one contests that not even the British. Most of attacks against the police and the military and their installations but I do concede collateral damage and civilians both British Jewish and Arbs did die in some attacks but they were not the objective as opposed to Arab Terror who do not target much our military but concentrate primarily on civilians that puts them in a special kind to group meaning we can kill them with no limitations or pangs of moral conscience … WAR IS HELL!!
@ Keli-A:
Wasn’t the theater serving free Pepsis???
CuriousAmerican Said:
You mean armed British soldiers and their Arab lap dogs.
CuriousAmerican Said:
No not there but here:
Your implication is clear but not precise we can’t know in advance anyone’s reaction, yet you claim to not only know but imply results inimical to Israel and the Jews as a fait accompli
@ CuriousAmerican:
Wow they murdered some seats in the theater and the film was shown next day so damage must have been minor… Is that what you are comparing your stinking pets to: murder of Jews to murder of a few theater seats? You are a pathetic POS!!!
CuriousAmerican Said:
Haaa of course you ARE saying it Conrad but I’m not calling you a dirty Jew hating SOB but let’s be honest with each other. I don’t care if you hate Jews only take issue with your incessant denials.
For better or worse, that is where we are today, and I completely support that position.
williambilek Said:
50 big tough guys with baseball bats and chains at evey campus event in support of Jews would go far in damping down those who would beseige and terrorize Jewish students. Best the students do it themselves but they are sniveling wusses, so outside help must be employed and it was in the past with success….
@ CuriousAmerican:
When it comes to arrogance you hold First Price.
The problem is you want Israel humiliated but, as Keli-A told you. Israel has well educated and imaginative people. We know how to create an antidote for the ideas of people like you.
Your kind would love to see her fail but, the failure is on the people who are obsessed like you in seeing Israel as dependent upon the Western Countries.
Every block they put in front of us is a reason to defeat the
haters like you. You claim not to hate us but your comments and opinions tell us different.
Go to help the people of Venezuela who need thinkers like you.
Your perception of political situations will help them beat the people governing Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia and, did you say Uruguay?
Live Israel and the Jews alone. We know how to manage our affairs.
Ted, please delete this comment. It is a duplicate.@ mar55:
@ honeybee:
With the weather changes bronchitis is going around. It starts with allergies and before you know it you feel it in your chest.
I’m sure the Mexicans have good home remedies for the asthma.
If you can get the phlegm loose you will not need antibiotics or steroids.
Hope you feel better soon. Take care honeybee. @ CuriousAmerican:
@ honeybee:
With the weather changes bronchitis is going around. It starts with allergies and before you know it you feel it in your chest.
I’m sure the Mexicans have good home remedies for the asthma.
If you can get the phlegm loose you will not need antibiotics or steroids.
Hope you feel better soon. Take care honeybee.
Curious American:
Why do you persist in putting your nose where it does not belong?
Go to South America where they need you more than we do.
It is a crime what is happening in many of these countries.
Venezuela?
http://www.theamericasreport.com/2016/05/09/end-venezuelas-agony-of-chaos-and-collapse/
They will welcome your ideas and after all is where you belong.
“Israel still acts outside the rules.”
The minister’s comments, and their meaning are questionable. And even if he DID suggest that course, it has yet to be ACTED on (unfortunately, as far as I am concerned.)
Not only Israel, but our beleaguered students on campus, here in America, must be empowered, and must empower themselves, to respond to verbal and physical assaults in kind.
Don’t play innocent! Israel still acts outside the rules.
I am not even saying Israel is wrong. I am saying: Don’t play the innocent.
@ CuriousAmerican:
All the way back to one incident in 1978!! Come on now. Is that tyhe best you can do??
No! We need the JDL NOW!! And students empowered by facts, knowledge, and the united community behind them to battle the lies, and the violence.
Awful! Disgusting!
But, technically, the Irgun and Lehi killed civilians also.
I am NOT against Israel; but both sides have skeletons in the closet.
CuriousAmerican Said:
And the pals blow up school busses full of children for merely being Jewish.
Are you being Correctol !!!!!!!!!!!!
You do use the same tactics.
In June 1978, the JDL bombed the Doheny theater in Los Angeles for merely showing the documentary THE PALESTINIAN.
Both sides are capable of fighting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Palestinian
@ williambilek:
True dat.
“These lies are delivered with passion, intimidation, certitude, bullying, screaming and dramatics. These tactics should not be present in the market place of ideas, as Dershowitz refers to it. No room is left for rational debate. Most pro-Israel voices are intimidated into silence.”
Why??
Why can’t we, don’t we, use the same tactics to fight back? “Stooping to their level”, verbally and even physically, if necessary, is what is required now, not the niceties of “the market place of ideas”.
CuriousAmerican Said:
Who me ???
CuriousAmerican Said:
Your that OLD !!!!!!!!!!
Steroids are nasty! They can affect one’s personality. Make one very ornery-er
Jews absolutely did boycott Pepsi. I remember it, clearly.
As for the Coke in Latin restaurants, I also remember my South American friends having a distinct preference for Coke.
@ mar55:
I am taking steroids for an acute asthma attack. Being a picarone is therapy.
Frighten?! (above)
Yamit (above) What part of my comment (below and in link) did you fail to read:
Do you see any frightening comments there?
I have learned to expect arrogrance from you, even twisting, but this is a new low: Yamit.
The fact is: I told you what the world expects. I did not make anything frightening. What you want is a cheerleading team.
I see the boycott getting worse, but since Israel is well-placed in necessary high-tech areas, I do not see it being effective. People will boycott oranges not heart medications.
@ Keli-A:
@ honeybee:
Are you still wasting your time answering this obtuse SA?
He should be gargling with Listerine or better yet. Taking a
laxative to empty his brain.
It will save him money in the amount of toilet paper he uses to wipe his mouth off.
CuriousAmerican Said:
The Jews didn’t boycott Pepsi, Jews have taste they prefer Coke for ascetic concerns. When my favorite Mexican restaurant switched from Coke to Pepsi I quite them. Can you imagine Mexican food with out Coke ??????
CuriousAmerican Said:
You are constantly trying to frighten us with predictions of what the world will think , say and do if we don’t capitulate to their not so solidarity view points re: Israel…. I agree some of our leaders and businessmen are scared and or use the same dire threats to convince the public that we have no choice or limited options but they are either criminals or traitors weak scum who should be put in shackles and locked up for long periods due to what they have done to us but that’s off topic…. Not afraid of anything today we are strong and can absorb and survive some economic shocks….. I love to see you squirm each time your predictions of doom never materialize to us and even the converse we thrive even beyond our own expectations….. I don’t think or recall that you have ever called one correctly re: your predictions of doom and gloom for us.
@ CuriousAmerican:
The best thing that ever happened to Israel have been boycotts.
Israel thrives and is at it’s best in adversity….. All of our most productive industrial base is due to boycotts. Israel Aircraft developed due to boycotts especially by Reagan that Jew hating SOB. we make better and cheaper AWACS because of American refusal to sell them to us. We have developed also better and cheaper avionics and weapons systems because of American and European boycotts now Israel is I think the third or 4th major weapons exporter in the world providing thousands of highly technical and good paying jobs here…. The list of benefits to us are too numerous to list but we broke all by ourselves the effectiveness of the Arab boycott and there is virtually nothing we cannot produce ourselves if need be Nothing it’s only today a matter of cost not knowhow.
We have had Pepsi here in Israel since 1967 when we captured Pepsi bottling company in Gaza… Coke broke their boycott policy against us in the early 70’s…… Before that time we produced our own brands and nobody complained….. In order to compete against boycott exports from Israel we had to upgrade product quality and marketing and also finding markets willing to do business with us whether it was South Africa or Romania we found our niches and exploited the myriad of cracks. Boycotts never worked in the past and they won’t today in our global market….. Fuck BDS it can only be a benefit mid to long term.
I DO NOT SUPPORT BDS!
I understand why BDS is anathema to Israel.
A) Israel is in a good place by supplying high tech products other people need, giving Israel an edge. There are alternative sources for oranges; but certain electronic chips and live-saving medicines are uniquely Israeli in patent; and cannot be boycotted.
But boycotts have been used by Jews in the past … for example:
JEWISH BOYCOTT AGAINST PEPSI
JTA Boycott Pepsi
That boycott is now almost forgotten, but I remember in the 1970s when Jews would not drink Pepsi.
Like it or not, large sections of the planet will insist that Israel comes to some arrangement with the Palestinians. Israel is in a strong position, but this will not go away anytime soon.