Human rights advocates slammed Vienna museum, Volkskundemuseum, for cancelling an event on Palestinian rights where former minister in Nelson Mandela’s government Ronnie Kasrils, a renowned South African anti-apartheid activist of Jewish descent, was scheduled to speak on the March 29 event as part of the annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) and called for the event to be reinstated.European officials have finally woken up to the antisemitism that the "Israel Apartheid Week" activities represent, and the Israel-haters are on the defensive - a position that they are not used to dealing with.
A press statement by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement said the museum caved to pressure from Austria’s Israel lobby. Two other IAW events scheduled in France this week were also canceled.
They absurdly blame that "Israel lobby" - but what kind of Israel lobby does Austria have?
BDS Twitter accounts do not point to any recent victories. Instead. they are filled with useless calls for people to boycott specific things, or for people not to accept Israeli awards (see tweet below), along with tweets about other losses for the movement like the Swarthmore student government voting down a BDS resolution last month. (That vote, organized by Students for Justice in Palestine, was supposed to be secret and the BDSers were upset that somehow the Zionist students found out about it and had time to organize against it.)
50+ Indian academics & cultural figures urge Sanjay Subrahmanyam to reject Israel's Dan David prize.— PACBI (@PACBI) March 21, 2019
"[Y]ou would be lending your name & academic distinction to institutions deeply invested in Israel’s settler-colonial, occupation and apartheid project. https://t.co/61ril4hVwh pic.twitter.com/jZUjX9Pbq8
BDS is finally being recognized for what it is, and as European nations this week have started to realize the bias in the UN Human Rights Council against Israel, the IAW activities are being seen for what it is - nothing to do with solidarity and everything to do about hate.