Mafalda en Absurdistan

2025/02/17 Leave a comment

Another example of incoherent positions:

…L’AGEM [l’Association générale des étudiantes et étudiants de Montmorency (AGEM)] adhère à la campagne BDS, un mouvement qui prône le boycottage, le désinvestissement et les sanctions envers l’État d’Israël comme moyens de pression pour le forcer à mettre fin à l’occupation des territoires palestiniens.

Qu’on soit pour ou contre cette campagne, ça se discute — et ce n’est pas l’objet de cette chronique. L’absurdité, dans cette histoire, c’est le refus de l’AGEM de financer un voyage d’élèves québécois aux Nations unies, sous prétexte que ce voyage contrevient à une campagne de boycottage visant l’État hébreu.

Comme on dit : c’est quoi, le rapport ?

Le rapport, tordu, c’est que le comité exécutif de l’AGEM « considère que le Conseil de sécurité est l’organe le plus puissant de l’ONU et que son inaction dans le génocide palestinien est condamnable », lit-on dans un courriel envoyé aux élèves, le 18 décembre.

Autrement dit, le comité exécutif de l’AGEM en veut à l’ONU, cette vile organisation qui supplie le monde d’en faire plus pour les Palestiniens, qui fournit de l’aide vitale aux Gazaouis par l’entremise de l’UNRWA et dont le secrétaire général, António Guterres, est persona non grata en Israël. Comprenne qui pourra….

Source: Mafalda en Absurdistan

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Balancing Game: Hillel’s Standards of Partnership & BDS

2021/09/29 Leave a comment

Interesting study of mandates and dialogue:

In 2015, Caroline Dorn resigned in protest from her role as student president of Muhlenberg Hillel, the Jewish organization at Muhlenberg College. After her Hillel’s rabbi prevented the Muhlenberg Hillel from hosting civil rights activists who support the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement against Israel, Dorn explained her resignation in an op-ed for the college’s newspaper: “I can’t be a representative of Hillel International, an organization that I feel is limiting free speech on our campus and prohibiting academic integrity.”

These past few months have seen an increase in conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, sparked by the threat of evictions in Sheikh Jarrah, and with the increased conflict comes increased international attention. As students and experts alike rush to share infographics and articles expressing countless viewpoints, the question of dialogue versus ostracism is more important than ever.

History of Hillel and BDS

One arena ripe with conflicting viewpoints is the Hillel community, the international organization for Jews on campus. Hillel International was founded in 1923 to, in the broadest terms, oversee, support, and coordinate communities for Jewish students on university campuses called “Hillels” (as an example, you may have heard of Harvard Hillel, which fits under the umbrella of Hillel International). While Hillel was not founded as a political organization — indeed, at the time of its founding, the State of Israel did not even exist — it has become increasingly right-wing regarding Israel in the past 30 years, especially following the Second Intifada from 2000 to 2005.

At the end of the Second Intifada, the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Movement was founded as Palestinian civil society organizations called for boycotts as a form of nonviolent resistance against what they saw as Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. The movement quickly spread across American and international university campuses, but not without controversy.

The BDS movement claims its actions are necessary since “Israel maintains its system of settler colonialism, apartheid and occupation over the Palestinian people because of the support that it receives from world governments and corporations.” They encourage international pressure against Israel in order to end Israeli occupation, recognize Palestinian rights to full equality, and grant Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes.

Those opposed to BDS claim that it is founded in anti-Semitism, as it both singles out Israel among a host of countries committing human rights violations and is rooted in the anti-Semitic belief that Jews do not have a right to self-determination. As Rabbi Jonah Steinberg, Executive Director of Harvard Hillel, puts it, “BDS is about singular alienation and ostracism of Israel among all countries in the global family of nations, and it is about severing all connections with Israel, not just financial relationships, but scholarly and academic interactions, all cultural intercourse, and really all possibility of getting to know Israel at all.”

When BDS and Hillel Clash

There are an increasing number of Jewish people in support of the BDS movement, especially college students, which makes the intersection of Hillel and BDS extremely contentious. Such was the context of Caroline Dorn’s resignation, who, in her op-ed, references a policy called the “Standards of Partnership,” implemented by Hillel International in 2010, which marked a shift in their Israel mission: from encouraging “Israel engagement and education” to “Israel engagement, education, and advocacy” (emphasis added).

The Standards of Partnership prohibit any Hillel from partnering with, housing, or hosting organizations, groups, or speakers that deny Israel’s right to exist, delegitimize or apply a double standard to Israel, support BDS, or disrupt campus events with an “attitude of incivility.”

While Hillel’s are encouraged to “review these standards and create their own Israel guidelines that are consistent with this document and reflect the local environment,” this policy has created a substantial divide in the American Jewish campus community as students and Hillel professionals alike grapple with how to engage with Israel in productive ways while abiding by Hillel International’s mission.

Different universities have taken different approaches to this challenge. Swarthmore Kehilah, formerly known as Swarthmore Hillel, chose to break with Hillel International over the Standards of Partnership. After attempting to host a panel discussion of civil rights activists about the connections between civil rights work in the 1960s American South and the Israel-Palestine conflict, Hillel International sent them a letter threatening legal action if they held the event.

Swarthmore Hillel thus declared itself an “Open Hillel,” writing in an op-ed, “All are welcome to walk through our doors and speak with our name and under our roof, be they Zionist, anti-Zionist, post-Zionist, or non-Zionist.” Hillel International, bound by the Standards of Partnership, refused to allow this, and the year-long controversy ended with Swarthmore Hillel disaffiliating with Hillel International, changing their name, and changing their mission, which now includes no reference to Israel.

Harvard Hillel has taken a different approach. “Harvard Hillel, as an institution, is committed to the deepest and most circumspect possible exploration of Israel,” says Rabbi Steinberg. “But, our role is vigorously to provide alternatives to the BDS-aim of simplistically demonizing, ostracizing, and alienating Israel.”

Bound by the Standards of Partnership but invested in productive dialogue, Harvard Hillel has sought to find creative ways to strike this balance. In 2014, former Israeli Speaker of the Knesset Avraham Burg was invited to Harvard by the university’s Palestine Solidarity Committee, which in turn asked to host the event at Harvard Hillel. Harvard Hillel had to refuse but hosted Burg for dinner that night, and PSC members attended as “individuals” (Burg strongly denounced BDS as “a tool of violence” at that dinner). Then, the PSC hosted Burg in Quincy House, and Harvard Hillel students attended, again as “individuals.” This compromise allowed interested students from a diversity of backgrounds to attend the event without complicating Harvard Hillel’s commitment to the Standards of Partnership.

Open Hillel, Open Community — A Move Away from the Standards of Partnership

A year before the invitation of Avraham Burg, a similar controversy surrounding the Standards of Partnership led to the founding of the Open Hillel movement, now called Judaism on Our Own Terms. In 2013, the Progressive Jewish Alliance, an independent Harvard student group affiliated with Harvard Hillel, met with Rabbi Jonah to discuss hosting an event similar to Swarthmore’s with pro-BDS activists, but found they could not host it at Hillel due to the Standards of Partnership.

“I’d been heavily involved with Harvard Hillel for 4 years and didn’t know the Standards of Partnership existed until we walked straight into it,” said Emily Unger ’13, the former president of the PJA and co-founder of Open Hillel. “I and other PJA members were horrified that this actually meant that Hillel couldn’t cosponsor event with essentially any Palestinian organization on any campus.”

Unger and her peers realized their horror was not unique — Jewish students across the country were grappling with how to handle increasing Jewish support for BDS, and what that meant for their Hillel communities. They decided to launch a petition calling on Hillel International to end the Standards of Partnership, which was signed by over 900 students. When Hillel International did not give in, Unger and friends began networking with Hillel’s across the county, helping them to disaffiliate with Hillel International in protest. Soon, they discovered a demographic in need of a community.

“As a queer, Jewish person, the Palestinian experience of oppression and dispossession of land  resonates with me,” Unger said. “We found that the Standards of Partnership disproportionally affects queer Jews and Jews of color with ties to organizations that see BDS as a core issue.” Wanting to create a Jewish space where students do not need to “check a part of their identity at the door,” Unger and others morphed Open Hillel into Judaism on Our Own Terms, an open Jewish community organization engaged in collaboration across oppressed groups. As independent organizations with branches across the country, JOOOT affiliates can create whatever community best fits their needs, collaborating — unbeholden to donors or international policies — in whatever way they see fit.

When asked if she saw any advantages to the Standards of Partnership, Unger came up empty, saying that there is “nothing to be gained by making those conversations [between Hillel and pro-BDS organizations] impossible.” She sees the policy as “created from a place of fear and a desire to maintain power,” power of both long-term donors, who are typically more conservative, and the power of Israel over Palestinians. “BDS is a non-violent form of protest that is mainstream in Palestinian organizations,” Unger continued. “By banning partnering with pro-BDS organizations, it makes it impossible to have any communication of any kind with Palestinian organizations. And, cosponsoring events is the bread and butter of campus collaboration — it’s how organizations build relationships — so it is quite striking to have a ban on co-sponsorship.”

There may well be places of agreement between Hillel and the PSC — for example, they likely see eye to eye that humanitarian aid is needed in Gaza — but the Standards of Partnership would prevent Hillel from co-hosting an event with the PSC around those shared interests due to the PSC’s support of BDS.

In addition, the Standards of Partnership has the potential to taint Hillel’s name, as campus groups in support of BDS may legitimately say that they wanted to host an event about a progressive cause, but “Hillel refused to partner with us because we stand for human rights!” That is, Hillel would decline to partner not out of a lack of empathy for human rights — Hillel is of course in favor of those — but due to the organization’s support for BDS. This nuance can be easily lost, especially in today’s political environment.

Unclear Territories — The Nuance Behind the Issue

The relationship between Rebecca Araten, past president of the Harvard Hillel Steering Committee, and the Standards of Partnership, is a bit more complex. “I understand Hillel not wanting to sponsor an event under their name that will be a pro-BDS event — that is a message they wouldn’t want to endorse,” she said. “But, there is a difference between active encouragement and conversation.” She added that it is important that collaborations between Hillel and pro-Palestinian organizations happen, “because this is how peace works.”

Araten acknowledges that there is “strength” in having connections with Hillel International, both in terms of organizational networking and financial support. However, she urged students “not to get bogged down” in institutional bureaucracy and “interact on a human level instead.” As an example, Araten suggested that Hillel-affiliated students bothered by the Standards of Partnership make individual efforts to connect with pro-BDS organizations or individuals.

Araten also points to the diversity of viewpoints found among Hillel students, and emphasizes that Hillel programming tries to incorporate many views on the topic of Israel. “It seems like a natural extension to engage with views that are more critical [of Israel] with the aim to come to more understanding and collaboration on shared ideals,” she said.

However, both Araten and Unger agree that crossing the line from legitimate criticism of Israel into anti-Semitism cannot be tolerated. “Being able to criticize the state of Israel and its actions is important, but sometimes that criticism leads to demonization, like singling out Israel for things not unique to Israel. To me, that echoes historic anti-Semitic tropes of Jews being world’s biggest issue,” said Araten. Unger concurred, pointing out that “PSC views the conflation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism to be an inappropriate and counter-productive framing of the situation.” Unger also noted that BDS is not inherently anti-Semitic, but admitted that it can be a “fodder” for anti-Semitism. However, she sees the increased dialogue as the solution to this conflation, not distance.

Still, the Standards of Partnership does encourage Hillel’s to create their own guidelines around Israel engagement, and in attempting to promote dialogue, Rabbi Steinberg tries to thread the needle between the Standards of Partnership and dialogue as much as possible. “The truth is that Harvard Hillel has never much invoked the Hillel International Standards of Partnership, not because we take issue with them but because we have long since arrived at our own articulation and approach, with the same outcome in practice where BDS is concerned,” he notes.

But he remains in favor of the Standards of Partnership because of what BDS is to him: “BDS is about singular alienation and ostracism of Israel among all countries in the global family of nations, and it is about severing all connections with Israel, not just financial relationships, but scholarly and academic interactions, all cultural intercourse, and really all possibility of getting to know Israel at all,” he says. Rabbi Steinberg also emphasizes “the ‘horrible anti-Semitism’ decried by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights as having been manifest at the 2001 UN Conference Against Racism where the BDS movement took shape.” For these reasons, Rabbi Steinberg sees the benefit of the Standards of Partnership, while also committing himself to fostering dialogue about Israel within Hillel.

Rabbi Steinberg sees another benefit to the Standards of Partnership: the facilitation of students’ exploration of their relationship to Israel, whether positive or negative. He explains that Hillel’s commitment to Israel “is far past being political,” explaining that “Israel is a hugely generative crucible of Jewish thought and culture, home to nearly seven million Jews — almost half of all Jewish people alive in the world today — so connection with Israel is a fact of kinship and of global Jewish community.” He therefore emphasizes that “to come of age Jewishly without acknowledging and exploring the phenomenon of Israel as having something to do with one’s own self is, forgive me, not mature.”

BDS as a Mainstream Progressive Issue

It is the case that Hillel does not represent the subsection of the Jewish population that supports BDS, and therefore can be an alienating place, especially for progressive activist Jews. With the Standards of Partnership forbidding events as seemingly innocuous as a joint Hillel-PSC event to raise money for humanitarian aid in Gaza, there is concern about the potential for collateral damage from the Standards of Partnership as BDS becomes more mainstream.

“There is a clear trend globally, domestically, and especially on college campuses calling for the recognition of Palestinian rights and liberties as the situation continues to devolve into apartheid,” said the Harvard PSC Board in an anonymously written statement to the Harvard Political Review. “Hillel’s decision to disengage from any group who supports divestment as a way forward prevents the college community from engaging in an honest and open conversation about the human rights violations occurring [in Israel/Palestine],” they added.

Not only does the Standards of Partnership prevent Hillel from formally engaging with the PSC, it may prevent Hillel from co-hosting events with other progressive groups on campus. “Palestine is a rising issue on the American progressive agenda as evidenced by growing support from individuals like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and many more,” said the PSC Board. There is a growing concern among progressive Jews that the Standards of Partnership will eventually isolate Hillel from most, if not all, progressive groups on campus, if they adopt BDS as one of their missions.

Expressing her concern about Hillel’s ability to be inclusive and hold the Standards of Partnership, Unger said, “Being queer is such a defamiliarizing experience that it makes it easier to see through norms in organizations.” “The Standards of Partnership don’t only harm communication between Jewish and Palestinian groups, but also between Hillel and other organizations surrounding any oppressed identity,” she added.

However, to the point that the Standards of Partnership inhibit productive speech on campus, Rabbi Steinberg disagrees, pointing to the importance of a plethora of diverse, mission-driven organizations: “A robust environment of ideas is populated not just by individuals but also by associations and institutions committed to various missions and visions. The fact that there is a Harvard Hillel committed by mission, as a part of a global Jewish community, to an active relationship with Israel and with our kin there is at least as valid as there being a Palestinian advocacy group at Harvard,” he says.

Beyond the question of validity, without missions, no one would have anything to stand behind, and campus dialogue would arguably grind to a halt. What fuels robust discussion is disagreement, and Rabbi Jonah argues that, if all organizations dropped their missions in favor of complete openness, that would lead to a rapid decrease in dialogue. Araten agrees with the importance of missions and of dialogue, saying “Hillel should strive to get as close to the line [drawn by the Standards of Partnership] as possible in terms of conversations with people who support BDS, but the challenge is not knowing when partnership will veer in a direction that is antithetical to Hillel’s mission.”

The point about missions and speech on campus brings into focus a broader question of mission-oriented clubs on campus. On the one hand, it stands to reason that clubs should be permitted to have and stand by specific missions, even at the exclusion of others. On the other hand, one can imagine a world in which the missions of each club are so exclusive that there leaves no room for collaboration or even communication. A third possibility is that clubs are so inclusive that they no longer stand for anything, or cannot allocate any resources for fear of going against a facet of the club.

To be honest, I am not sure what the solution is here. As a Jewish student, while I understand the perspective around missions given by Rabbi Jonah, and by extension, Hillel International, I feel uncomfortable about the Standards of Partnership. I would prefer Hillel to be open to hosting events with anyone in the name of mutual understanding, even if Hillel vehemently disagrees with the other organization’s position.

However, I do believe that every organization is entitled to a mission and to stand by it. Perhaps the answer is that missions should not prevent official dialogue —or that engagement policies can forbid monetary support but must not interfere with conversations —but I am wary of the idea of regulating which missions are acceptable and which are not. That solution feels like a slippery slope.

The bottom line is that missions should not get in the way of dialogue between people. Perhaps that dialogue is not endorsed by a club, but that should not stop us from seeking out opportunities as individuals to truly understand others, even if they hold perspectives antithetical to ours. If there are clubs whose missions we disagree with, we should be inspired to speak up, or start our own organizations. At the end of the day, the decision behind who gets to talk and how is just one big balancing game — and the scale should never fully tip to one side.

Source: Balancing Game: Hillel’s Standards of Partnership & BDS

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

Outrage as Peter Schäfer, Director of Berlin’s Jewish Museum, Accused of BDS Sympathies

2019/06/26 Leave a comment

Of note:

Peter Schäfer, the director of Berlin’s Jewish Museum, resigned last Friday, a year before he was due to retire, forced out after the backlash over a tweet from the museum’s official account that linked to a pro-Israel-boycott story. But since the controversy erupted, hundreds of scholars of Judaic Studies from around the world have been signing letters in his defense.

The often bitter debate centers on perceived support for the “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions” (BDS) movement meant to pressure Israel in its dealings with Palestinians. The museum’s tweet shared an article that had appeared in the German newspaper Die Tageszeitung (TAZ) that discussed a June 3 letter signed by 240 Jewish and Israeli scholars delivered to the German government.

The scholars’ letter condemned a parliamentary proposition that had passed on May 17 that linked the BDS movement with anti-Semitism. The scholars argued that linking BDS to anti-Semitism was counterproductive, writing that doing so “does not assist” but rather “undermines” the fight against anti-Semitism.

A later tweet from the museum clarified that its aim was to share the arguments raised by these scholars about the problems with linking BDS to anti-Semitism, not to support the BDS movement itself.

But there was a storm of denunciations, many of them on social media, beginning with one that claimed, “The Jewish Museum in Berlin obviously sees as its task to take a stand against Jewish life in our country and especially against Israel.”

In his resignation letter Schäfer, who will be 76 this month, said that his decision to resign was “to prevent further damage to the museum.”

Following Schäfer’s resignation, Schäfer’s supporters in the realm of Judaic Studies began to mobilize.

“We are united in our profound admiration for Prof. Schäfer as a scholar, academic leader, and public intellectual.”
— 50 Talmud scholars in an open letter

Two petitions were quickly organized. The first, signed by 50 Talmud scholars, including Ishay Rosen-Zvi (Tel Aviv University) and Moulie Vidas (Princeton University), read, “We are scholars of the Talmud and Ancient Judaism who hold diverse and even opposing opinions regarding the BDS movement. But we are united in our profound admiration for Prof. Schäfer as a scholar, academic leader, and public intellectual.”

Source: Outrage as Peter Schäfer, Director of Berlin’s Jewish Museum, Accused of BDS Sympathies

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Anti-BDS laws are more than words. They are a legal attempt to punish a passive act: Neil Macdonald

2019/03/11 Leave a comment

I would distinguish between boycotting products and services from the occupied territories (legitimate) from Israel proper:

Back in January, the publisher of a tiny newspaper in Arkansas, standing on journalistic principle, defied the dead hand of government, the way a publisher is supposed to. Publisher Alan Leveritt’s scorching article, posted on the website of the American Civil Liberties Association, gladdened the journalistic heart.

Or at least it should have. But we don’t know whether it did; the institutions of American journalism, impoverished and increasingly frightened of their own audiences, are mostly maintaining a courageous silence. You’d think they’d be concerned.

Dozens of relatively recent state laws now require anyone who does business with government, including media organizations, to effectively make a pro-Israel pledge, and in some cases, sign one.

The signatory must promise not to in any way limit business activities with Israel or its settlements in the occupied territories, which even the United States considers illegal under international law.

Risking ad revenue

Last year, Leveritt was told to sign the pledge or lose badly needed ad revenue from the Arkansas university system. He told the state of Arkansas to go jump in a lake.

“We really needed the business,” Leveritt wrote, but at what price?

“Since when do American citizens have to pledge to act in the interest of a foreign power in order to do business with their own government?”

“As an American, I say it is none of their damn business what political beliefs we hold. We’ll see them in court.”

On the phone this week, Leveritt said his newspaper is actually unconcerned with Israel and its occupation, and has taken no editorial view on it: “We are concerned about the 20,000 people in this state who have been kicked off Medicaid. We focus on local issues.”

He in fact regards the demand to sign the pledge as the state forcing his paper to take an editorial position against its will.

“I wouldn’t sign a pro-Palestine pledge, either.”

Other newspapers across the country must have been asked to sign similar pledges, he notes (“If they have signed, they should be ashamed of themselves”), but there has been precious little support of the Arkansas Times.

“I have not received a single call. Nothing.”

Leveritt’s only ally seems to be the American Civil Liberties Association, which regards the right to boycott as a “McCarthy-era loyalty oath,” and is helping him sue. The writers’ organization PEN has expressed support, too.

But that sort of free-speecher view is not widely shared in America, at least where the boycott involves Israel.

Since 2015, 26 other states have passed laws similar to the one in Arkansas. The United States Senate just passed a federal version. Basically, these laws are an attempt to punish entities or individual Americans who choose not to do something – in this case, choosing not to invest with, buy from or otherwise economically support Israel.

It’s all an attempt to combat a strategy chosen by Palestinian leaders and their supporters roughly 13 years ago. After decades of being told by Israel and the West to abandon armed struggle and choose a non-violent path to oppose Israel’s occupation and settlements, the Palestinians and their allies decided to do just that: they founded the so-called BDS movement, standing for boycott, divest and sanction, using economic levers to pressure Israel.

BDS counterattack

At first, Israel brushed off BDS as trivial, but as the movement began to gain traction worldwide (BDS is supported in whole or in part, by, among others, the United Church of Canada and the Quakers, and the corporate world has taken notice), the Israeli government and its supporters organized an aggressive counterattack, using everything from lawsuits and public shaming of individual BDS supporters to lobbying efforts aimed at persuading other countries to outlaw boycotts. BDS, they proclaimed, is not just anti-Semitic, it’s “economic terrorism.”

Nowhere has Israel found greater support than in the United States, which is unsurprising. America has the largest population of evangelical Christians in the world. Their support for Israel is as absolute as their opposition to abortion, and they understand how to exercise political power. The anti-boycott laws generally pass with healthy bipartisan support.

“Anti-Israel policies are anti-Texas policies,” declared Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, signing his state’s anti-BDS law.

Elsewhere, nations are choosing sides, many of them coming down on Israel’s. Governments in France, Germany and the UK have all denounced BDS. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has effectively called the movement anti-Semitic, accusing it of singling out and delegitimizing Israel.

Ultimately, though, denunciations by politicians or governments or political parties are just words – a declaration of a political position to voters. BDS supporters in Canada probably couldn’t care less what Trudeau thinks of them, and in any case, politicians are hardly consistent on such matters. Politicians are constantly singling out, delegitimizing and sanctioning other nations for bad behaviour.

Washington, for example, was furious when Venezuelan troops blocked foreign food shipments and shot protesters, but regards Israel’s blockade of foreign food aid to Gaza and its troops shooting Gazan protesters — which Israel defends on security grounds — as completely justified.

The anti-BDS laws in the United States, though, are more than words. They are a legal attempt to punish a passive act, which is a form of speech. There are powerful politicians who would actually criminalize BDS.

Leveritt, the Arkansas Times publisher, puts it this way:  “As an American citizen, I say I can not buy whatever I don’t want to buy and it’s none of the state’s damn business.”

So, ultimately, it will be the courts in America, and perhaps elsewhere, to decide how far this can all go.

Already, federal courts in Kansas and Arizona have blocked anti-BDS laws in those states as illegal suppression of speech. A speech pathologist fired from a university in Texas for refusing to sign the pledge is also suing. In Britain, the country’s high court dismissed charges of discrimination levied against local councils that supported the boycott. A high court justice, compared BDS to boycotts of South Africa’s apartheid regime, ruling: “There is legitimate scope for criticism of Israel without that implying anti-Semitic attitudes” (precisely the opposite of what Israel and its supporters argue).

Other British judges have sided with pro-Israel groups. And in the U.S., comparisons have been drawn to the boycotts of discriminatory white-owned businesses during the civil rights era. The Arkansas Times made precisely that argument.

But when Alan Leveritt got his day in court, he lost.

Arkansas Federal Judge Brian Miller, in late January, ruled that a boycott is not protected speech, and that the state has the right to force businesses to sign the pledge.

Leveritt has filed an appeal: “I’m not signing anything.”

Well, good for Alan Leveritt. He has guts. But the Arkansas Times was just forced to go from weekly to monthly publication, and principles can be expensive.

Source: Anti-BDS laws are more than words. They are a legal attempt to punish a passive act: Neil Macdonald

Filed under Antisemitism Tagged with ,

Has the activist left decided #antisemitism doesn’t exist?: Neil Macdonald

2016/06/15 Leave a comment

Another good piece by Neil Macdonald:

The conflation of all supporters of BDS with Jew-hating is as scattershot and sweeping as the conflation of all Jews with Israel.

It ignores the inconvenient truth that some pro-Israeli Jews are embarrassed by that country’s current government, as well as the fact that some of the strongest proponents of BDS are Jewish.

But it is all of a piece with the scorched-earth nature of modern political discourse.

There is us, and them, and no-man’s land in between. Detail and nuance and history are just annoyances, to be marched past, or over.

Source: Has the activist left decided anti-Semitism doesn’t exist?: Neil Macdonald – Politics – CBC News

Filed under Antisemitism Tagged with ,

Abe Foxman Looks Back at Changing — and Declining — Face of Anti-Semitism, Emily Hauser on BDS

2014/02/21 Leave a comment

Abe Foxman of the ADL reminds of the commonalities between antisemitism and other forms of prejudice and intolerance:

“There’s a lot of extremism in this country,” Foxman said. “We still have prejudice – against Hispanics, African-Americans, gays and lesbians, Mormons, Asians. The battle for a civil, respectful, tolerant society continues. We haven’t won that battle. We have not found an antidote, a vaccine. Until we find that vaccine, it’s going to be with us.”

Abe Foxman Looks Back at Changing — and Declining — Face of Anti-Semitism – Forward.com.

Emily Hauser notes the ironic synergy between the Israel PM Netanyahu,  some of the leaders of major Jewish organizations and the BDS campaign:

American Jews like Hoenlein and Israeli politicians like Netanyahu want to scare you, me, and the whole world off from even considering the possibility that the Israeli government is as human as any other and thus as worthy of examination as any other, because they want the occupation and settlement project to continue.

They are in fact served by BDS, because not unlike Hoenlein and Netanyahu, et al, the BDS movement blurs the lines between the democratic state of Israel that exists legally and legitimately within its recognized international borders and the military dictatorship that is the occupation; Hoenlein and Netanyahu (et al) are further served by BDS because every single day that we Jews get all wound up about BDS is another day in which the Israeli government can deepen its hold on Palestinian land.

BDS Is Not Anti-Semitism

Filed under Antisemitism Tagged with , , ,

When anti-Israel sentiment shades into anti-Semitism

2014/02/15 Leave a comment

Interesting commentary on the links between anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism from a South African perspective by RW Johnson:

But the unfunny side of all this is when (perfectly acceptable) criticism of Israel is used to encourage entirely unacceptable anti-semitism. If we’re frank about it, this is always likely to happen in South Africa simply because our lines of ethnic and community cleavage have been so envenomed over such a long period. Given the sheer historical fact of anti-black, anti-white or anti-Indian feeling – and the fact that so many still believe that the expression of such feelings is legitimate – it is only a small extra step to get to anti-semitism.

So, whatever the “Boycott Israel” or “Israel Apartheid” lobbies say – and they have a right to exist and to their opinions – if they are honest they must admit that wherever they operate they leave a trail of anti-semitism in their wake. They may say that this is not their intent, but they cannot be unwitting that this is what happens.

This means that an ineluctable burden lies on all our Vice Chancellors and other university administrators. They just have to think about the history of academic institutions and intellectual life generally in this country to know how precious and indispensable the Jewish contribution has been. So that even if the prevention of anti-semitism wasn’t a sacred duty for intellectuals anywhere, we have our own particular South African reasons to say that this simply shall not pass.

Politicsweb – When anti-Israel sentiment shades into anti-Semitism – FEATURES.

Hussein Ibish writes on the BDS campaign, and the need to limit it to the occupied territories, both in fact and in rhetoric. He does not mention the overtones of  antisemitism of BDS when the language includes Israel itself:

There is no question that Palestinians are onto a very good thing here, if they handle it right. And the Israelis clearly have a problem, as acknowledged by all of their sensible leaders. But, ironically, the biggest threat to this sudden and significant piece of leverage is the strident BDS rhetoric that makes pro-peace actions against settlements that are based squarely in international law look like anti-Israel initiatives that don’t square with the goals of either peace or a two-state solution.

If the rhetoric of strident BDS activists can be brought into line with the reality of anti-settlement boycotts, Palestinians could well acquire a significant and desperately needed new tool of leverage with Israel. If not, while demagogues may not be able to stop the growing international anti-settlement sentiment, they can certainly continue to provide apologists for the occupation with vital rhetorical ammunition for counterattack, and space for conflation and confusion, that they would and should otherwise be denied.

Harmful rhetoric can break the momentum of anti-settlement boycott efforts

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,