Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: BDS

Showing posts with label BDS. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 19, 2023

Open Hillel is dead. Its successor doesn't know why it exists.

Remember Open Hillel?

About ten years ago, a group of students at Harvard became incensed that their Jewish campus Hillel canceled an anti-Israel event when it was revealed that a BDS group was sponsoring it, violating Hillel's guidelines.

Of course they could hold their event anywhere, but they decided to start a movement called Open Hillel to get other Hillels to drop their affiliation with Hillel. Like so many "progressive" organizations past and future, they are more interested in creating a split within the Jewish community than in building their own. Open Hillel had a conference at Harvard in 2014 and based on the media attention, it looked like it could rupture Hillel International.

It failed.

In the end, only four campuses nationwide defected to "Open Hillel" - Guilford College, Swarthmore College, Vassar College, and Wesleyan University.

By 2020, none of them were still associated with Open Hillel - and two of them are now affiliated with Hillel International again.

In short, Open Hillel made a lot of noise but in the end could not attract students who are both interested in Judaism and anti-Zionism. There is a strong negative correlation between the two positions, which pretty much dooms any attempt to fuse them, no matter how many anti-Israel Haggadahs are printed.

So Open Hillel is in a deep coma, and has been for a while, just as the American Council for Judaism - a prominent and equally tiny anti-Zionist group in the 1940s-1960s - also sunk into irrelevance. Both organizations have a couple of people still doing paperwork to maintain their tax exempt status but they have faded away after a lot of publicity early on.

But Open Hillel has one last gambit to stay alive: "Judaism On Our Own Terms," or JOOOT.

They wrote an introductory piece in Mondoweiss on Friday: "Judaism On Our Own Terms is creating a space where young Jews do not have to choose between their Judaism and their sense of justice."

JOOOT is an offshoot, and seemingly successor, of Open Hillel. Since 2020, Open Hillel's Form 990 has included a position for Rakhel Silverman as a "Judaism on our own Terms organizer." getting paid $4600 in 2020 and $2492 in 2021. Silverman describes themself as a "a proud fat trans Disabled Jew."

But JOOOT really doesn't know what to do next. On their website they say they are in the midst of a "restructuring process" where they are asking anyone and everyone to please give them some ideas of what they should be doing. To restructure means they had a structure to begin with, which is not at all clear.

This mirrors the self-destruction of IfNotNow, but at least IfNotNow managed to grab some headlines before its inevitable collapse.

In the end, even children know that "Judaism On Our Own Terms" is an oxymoron. People don't look at religion or community to do whatever they want - they want to be part of a whole where everyone shares basic beliefs and standards. If anyone can do whatever they want and call it Judaism, then Judaism has no meaning. The anti-Zionists only have one belief - hating Israel - and that is not enough to keep a core group of enthusiastic members nor is it enough to attract more.

There will still be plenty of anti-Zionist Jews. But their interest in identifying as Jews is ephemeral. Which is why these groups are all doomed, but also why there will always be new ones who think they came up with the idea.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Real human rights and fake human rights

The Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights just released its report of human rights violations by Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and Gaza in 2022 (it has not yet been released in English.)

Its section on violations against Palestinian human rights activists is summarized:

Concerning human rights defenders, the independent commission said: Human rights defenders are exposed to a number of violations and harassment committed by official bodies or other unofficial parties. It may lead to murder, kidnapping, arrest, torture, threats, harm to the family and defamation. Defenders of women's rights are subjected to various harassments by social movements and religious and political parties, who see their defense of women as a contradiction with religion and in line with the goals of the West and a denial of Arab values, customs and traditions.

Those stories, about real abuse against real human rights activists, is rarely covered by the media - because it doesn't fit the narrative that Israel is the human rights violator of Palestinians and, of course, also one of the biggest human rights abusers in the world. (Apparently Israel is surrounded by an oasis of liberal progressive protectors of humanity.)

So the reality gets buried in reports no one reads while the media exaggerates and fabricates Israeli crimes.

There are real Palestinian human rights defenders - and no one hears about them.

But there are also fake human rights defenders that get lot of coverage. Here's a story that is getting play in Arabic news sites today:

Human rights organizations have called for a boycott of Israeli companies specialized in the field of water and agriculture, prior to their participation in the United Nations Climate Summit (COP 28) scheduled for the end of next November in the UAE.

These companies work to improve their image in front of the world in light of their theft of Palestinian rights to water and the destruction of the Palestinian environment through toxic agricultural pesticides.

The companies (Mekorot, Netafim, Haifa Chemicals, and Adama) seek to present themselves during the summit with their ability to achieve sustainable solutions regarding the environment around the world, at a time when these companies steal Palestinian resources and direct them towards illegal Israeli settlements according to international law.

Human rights organizations are working to reveal the true face of these Israeli companies, and to defend Palestinian rights against climate colonialism.

Notice anything strange?

The stories do not mention a single "human rights" organization that is calling for this boycott.

The only group I can find talking about this is, of course, BDS. They probably pretend to be a human rights organization. Yet it would not be a surprise if HRW or Amnesty indeed does call for a boycott of Israeli companies at COP28. Because "human rights" is now nothing more than a slogan, with no relationship with real human rights.

And the real contributions that Israeli technology make to help the world conserve water are considered not as important as the political boycott of any Jewish-owned company in the Middle East.

And real humans will be deprived of water in the name of "human rights."

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Google launches program to actually help Palestinians more than all the NGOs combined

What does it mean to be "pro-Palestinian?"

To most people who define themselves that way, it means to be anti-Israel.

Even though NGOs spend tens of millions of dollars in their anti-Israel efforts, writing yet another report finding yet another way Israel is supposedly the worst abuser in the world doesn't help Palestinians one bit.

Google just announced an initiative that will help more Palestinians improve their lives than anything Human Rights Watch, Amnesty, B'Tselem, the UN and the EU does - combined.

Apply to Palestine Launchpad with Google
Future-proof your skills for the digital economy

In our dynamic world, time and technology are vital. The digital and gig economies transcend borders, leveling opportunities for talent and ideas. The Palestine Launchpad with Google equips you with the skills, knowledge, and network to enter the global tech talent pool and become a top earner.

• Fully funded scholarship for a Nanodegree Programme
• Line-by-line code review with personalised project feedback
• Flexible self-paced learning schedule
• Live virtual sessions with top-tier mentors
• Career workshops (resume building, interview preparations, etc.)
• Exposure to freelancing and career growth opportunities
• Networking with local and international employers

💻 Become a Web Developer
🤖 Become an AI Engineer
📊 Become a Data Analyst

You are eligible for this programme if you are

• Currently residing in Palestine
• Looking to be part of tomorrow’s tech-powered economy
• Recently graduated from a computer science related field (or are in your final years of study)
• Want to upskill, reskill, or specialise in the various fields shaping this economy, this programme is your springboard.

They are offering free scholarships for 6,000 Palestinians to learn cutting edge skills where they can make money working for companies worldwide without leaving home.

I have been mystified that the EU and USAID have not prioritized this sort of training - training that would actually help Palestinians more than their other initiatives. The average Palestinian salary is now about $20,000 a year - imagine the impact from thousands making Western high tech salaries quintuple that.

The supreme irony is that while Google is doing more to help Palestinians than any other organization in the world, it is being targeted by BDS because it also does work with Israel.

We've shown that BDS actually opposed Cisco doing a similar program to promote high tech jobs among Palestinians.

Israel doesn't mind Palestinians getting high paid tech jobs. But "pro-Palestinian activists" do!

Which again goes to prove that the anti-Israel crowd really doesn't give a damn about helping Palestinians.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

BDSers are proud of using violence to stifle free speech

From JTA last week:

Pro-Palestinian protesters injured a university employee while demonstrating against a lecture speaker who heads the Brazilian chapter of a pro-Israel advocacy group.

Andre Lajst, the director of StandWithUs Brazil, was speaking about ways that Israeli technologies could help develop the Amazon region at the Federal University of Amazonas in Manaus on Thursday when protesters clashed with security and other university employees outside the lecture auditorium.

According to news reports, the advisor to the university’s rector left the scene with a broken nose after attempting to safeguard her daughter. Several students entering the lecture were also harassed, and police officers escorted Lajst into and out of the venue. One protester was reportedly arrested for pushing a police officer but later released.

Here's video at the scene:

Andre Lajst completed his lecture and had to be escorted out by police for his safety from the violent mob.

But BDS-aligned media are bragging (and lying) that they managed to shut down his speech with their thuggish mob!

Pro-Palestine Brazilians demonstrated at a university in the Brazilian city of Manaus against the organization of a pro-Israeli-occupation event on campus.
Despite the high-security measures against them, the protesters managed to stop the meeting in support of the Israeli occupation, which is entitled “Cooperation with Israel”.
André Lajst, director of the Brazilian branch of StandWithUs, a pro-Israeli-occupation group in Brazil, spoke at the event about supporting the occupation and normalization with it.
Video clips showed the large number of anti-Israel-occupation demonstrators, known as BDS Mob, who confronted the Brazilian police and attempted to shut down the event by force, forcing Lajst and his companions to leave the place quickly.
These protests are a part of the international BDS activities against all forms of normalization with the Israeli occupation, especially educational normalization.

Among themselves, BDSers don't even pretend to be "non-violent." They are happy and proud to threaten and attack people.

And then they claim in mainstream media articles that they are doing it in the name of "academic freedom."

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

The first paragraph of the American Anthropological Association's BDS resolution refers to a fictional Palestinian organization (update)

This week, the American Anthropological Association voted to boycott all Israeli academic institutions.

The resolution that they approved is antisemitic. It says that Israel's very existence is "apartheid", not "settlements" or "occupation", saying that "from the onset of the Nakba, the catastrophic events of 1948 that led to the mass expulsion and displacement of Palestinians from their homes, Palestinians—including activists, artists, intellectuals, human rights organizations, and others—have documented and circulated knowledge of the Israeli state’s apartheid system and ethnic cleansing."

The first paragraph of the resolution is all the proof you need that there was no research or academic rigor that went into this decision.

Whereas, in 2005, 175 Palestinian civil society organizations, including the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE), issued a call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against the Israeli state, in support of the Palestinian struggle for human and political rights, including the basic right of freedom;

The very first paragraph invokes the antisemitic BDS movement as justification for the boycott, blindly accepting whatever accusations it makes against Israel. The following paragraphs are all essentially cut and pasted from BDS materials. No one at AAA did any fact checks on the assertions in the rest of the resolution.

But what about the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees? Their support for a boycott is considered the linchpin from which the entire resolution gets is legitimacy. Who are they?

The PFUUPE does not exist in any real sense.

It has no webpage. It has no Facebook account. It has no Twitter account.

It does have a phone number, which is also the main phone number of Palestine Polytechnic University and the office number of that university's president, Dr. Amjad Barham

He is the president of the PFUUPE according to his CV.

Is it not strange that the president of a federation of unions is also the president of a university that those unions would naturally make demands of for better benefits and working conditions? There appears to be a conflict of interest there.

But not if the PFUUPE is fictional.

There is no evidence that the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees has a single member outside Dr. Barham. It apparently does not have bylaws, or membership fees, or benefits, or recruitment materials, or a board, or committees, or elections, or a vice president.

It is one person named Amjad, a man who lists being able to use a PC and the Internet on his resume, and who issues regular press releases in the name of all Palestinian academics. Nearly all of those are about boycotting Israel. He even managed to parlay his one man organization into a Guardian op-ed - again, advocating boycotting Israel, which appears to be the only purpose of this purported federation.

Many other of the "175 Palestinian civil society organizations" that signed the BDS "call" for boycotts appear to be equally fictional, tiny one-person operations created just for the purpose of appearing to be part of a greater whole. Many of them are not even based in the borders of British Mandate Palestine - these "Palestinian civil society" organizations are in Syria and Lebanon and Canada - but they are presented as "Palestinian" to promote the myth that the BDS movement was initiated by Palestinians.

The American Anthropological Association didn't check out whether the PFUUPE that they refer to in their very first paragraph is a real organization. They have no intellectual honesty at all. And any academic who remains a member of an organization that cannot be trusted to check the facts in its own resolutions is not interested in truth either.

UPDATE: GnasherJew did find a Facebook page for this union.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

So @AmnestyUK loves boycotts. But only boycotts of Jews.

Amnesty UK tweeted:

The [UK Anti-Boycott] bill gives special status to Israel, making it the only country in the world which cannot be excluded from its provisions, and treats Israel and territories it occupies in the same way, contrary to the UK’s long-established policy and international law.

The bill is intended to stifle principled opposition to Israel’s illegal settlements and the Israeli authorities' racist system of apartheid against Palestinians.

Boycotts, divestment & sanctions are forms of peaceful protest that have been used to press for human rights change.

Think:
✊The Anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa
🚌The Montgomery Bus Boycott
🛢️The BP oil spill

In the 1890s, merchants in Butte, Montana boycotted Chinese and other Asian businesses, tried to stop customers from entering them, and threatened anyone who hired Chinese people.

No doubt they felt that they were upholding human rights - of non-Asian people. Even this flyer talks about "morals."

What, exactly, is the difference?

More the to point, Jews have been boycotted many, many times in our history. I once gave a brief list of Arab boycotts:

1891: Arabs request the Ottoman Empire not sell land to Jews.

February 1909: "In Hebron, where out of a total population of 18,000 about 2000 are Jews, the Arabs decide to boycott Jewish merchants."

January 1915: The American Jewish Yearbook reports "At Hebron, Jewish storekeepers are boycotted

by Mohammedan women."

April 2, 1920, AJC: "Rosh Pinah: Thirty Arabs attack Arab workmen in fields belonging to Jewish inhabitants in endeavor to bring about boycott by Arabs against Jews."

June 4, 1921: "Haifa: Arabs issue proclamation urging the populace to boycott the Jews and drive them out of their villages."

1922: Arab Congress calls on Arabs to boycott Jewish businesses in Palestine.

1924: MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION voted to authorize the Executive Committee to promulgate an economic boycott against the Jews. The economic boycott, however, was later abandoned.

1929: Arab Congress vows to compel Arabs to boycott Jewish merchandise. Syria prohibits import of merchandise produced by Jewish businesses in Palestine.

1931: World Islamic Congress passes resolution requesting Muslim countries to boycott trade with Jewish businesses in Palestine. Arab Labor Federation pickets Jewish businesses in Palestine.

1945: Arab League Council adopts Resolution 70, recommending that all Arab states establish national boycott offices.

There was also a major boycott in Poland of Jewish businesses (accompanied by pogroms) in the 1910s.

And of course the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses (accompanied by pogroms) in the 1930s.

But the boycotts of Jews didn't end there. In the 1950s, Saudi Arabia refused to do business with any company owned by Jews or with Jews in important positions. In 1960, it weas revealed that tourist companies would not allow Jews to visit Gulf countries because they adhered to the Arab boycott, and Aramco refused to hire Jews in its New York office. In 1975, the Arab world still refused to work with Jewish bankers.

This was all at the time of the "Zionism is Racism" UN resolution, proving that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are the same thing.

The BDS boycott is a direct continuation of the Arab League boycotts of Jews. Don't take my word for it: this document on the BDS Movement website gives a history of BDS, and it prominently features the Arab boycott of Jews (pretending that they were only boycotting "Zionists:") It praises the explicitly antisemitic Arab League boycott successes and mourns when it weakened in the 1980s and 90s. It even looks at the Arab League boycott of Jewish businesses to learn lessons for BDS today. The document, written in 2007, is saddened that at that point in time, only Syria and Lebanon were still adhering to the Arab League boycott - you know, those two human rights powerhouses.

There is another reason that BDS is provably antisemitic. They do not boycott Israeli Arab businesses - only the businesses owned by Israeli Jews.

This antisemitism is what Amnesty-UK is supporting. And it has exactly as much to do with "human rights" as the Arab League boycott - or the Butte boycott of Chinese people - did.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Some good editorial cartoons (for once)

I was looking through a collection of editorial cartoons, and many of them dealing with Israel are horrific - antisemitic, ignorant or both.

But there were a few good ones that hold up..

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Imagine if Israel boycotted Palestinian products

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics announced that in March 2023, the Palestinians exported goods worth nearly $150 million.

87% of those goods went to Israel.

In contrast, "only" 54% of Palestinian imports come from Israel; that used to be much higher.

Now, let's imagine if Israel did what the BDS movement wants to see - and shut off all imports and exports to the territories.

The impact on Israelis would be minimal, since Palestinian trade accounts for less than 1% of all Israeli imports and exports.

The impact on the Palestinians would be immediate and drastic.

Which proves yet again that the BDSers don't care about Palestinian welfare. They are willing to fight Israel down to the last Palestinian, and that includes forcing them into poverty - while they themselves use Israeli products and technologies every hour of every day.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Denmark buys Israeli artillery systems, backfilling weapons sent to Ukraine - and upsetting BDSers

ATMOS truck-mounted howitzer

Defense News reported in March:

Israeli defense company Elbit Systems said it won several deals in Europe this month, including a $119 million sale of ATMOS truck-mounted howitzers and a $133 million contract for PULS artillery rocket systems.

The deals, which Elbit said are with a European NATO member country, come as several governments on the continent continue their shopping sprees to resupply their troops, having sent munitions from their own stocks to Ukraine, which is under invasion by Russia.

“We are witnessing a trajectory of an increased demand for advanced artillery solutions from militaries around the world, including European countries and NATO members, as part of their efforts to increase the effectiveness of their armed forces. Our operationally proven systems provide an advanced, cost-effective solution to meet that demand,” said Bezhalel Machlis, the CEO of Elbit.

Although the buyer was not named, it is widely believed to be Denmark, based on an earlier press release that Denmark was negotiating with Elbit for those systems.

I'm surprised that we have not yet seen conspiracy theories that Israel is behind the Russian invasion of Ukraine in order to increase its arms sales to NATO members.

Anyway, the BDSers are livid, because they claimed to have scuttled another contract between Denmark and Elbit in 2015, a claim denied by the Danish authorities. And Mondoweiss blamed the Danish Left for this sale, saying that they were silent during the negotiations, unlike in 2015:

Few voices have raised concerns about the unusual speed this deal has gone through without due process or vigorous political scrutiny from the opposition. Is the Danish left happy to support a deal for weapons tested on the Palestinian civilians in the West Bank? Has the priority of the war in Ukraine meant all debate regarding arms procurement from Israel is frozen? Are Palestinians to remain second-class citizens in the eyes of the international community, only to be exploited for political capital as a means to express one’s ‘humanism’?

Well, you learn something new every day. Israel has been shooting artillery at Palestinian civilians in the West Bank! Somehow the media has missed this entire story, but Mondoweiss figured it out. It is amazing what scoops you can find when you don't know what you are talking about..

This little episode indicates that the 2015 arms sale was not blocked by BDS, and it was just another fake victory they claimed.

And it also shows that while Israel has not been directly supplying weapons to Ukraine, it has been supplying them indirectly, by backfilling weapons being sent from European countries. This way the EU countries get to upgrade their supplies while sending older weapons systems to Ukraine, which needs them badly. Everyone wins.

Except for BDSers and their Russian allies.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

04/27 Links Pt2: Israel Is Antiracist, Anti-Colonialist, Anti-Fascist (and Was from the Start); Why the world has turned against Israel; Caroline Glick: An afternoon among the angels

From Ian:

Jeffrey Herf: Israel Is Antiracist, Anti-Colonialist, Anti-Fascist (and Was from the Start)

Nor did support for Israel come only from the Soviet bloc. Liberals and leftists in London, Paris, New York, and Washington heard Jamal Husseini, the representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations, reject a Jewish state in Palestine, because, he said, it would undermine the “racial homogeneity” of the Arab world. Such remarks resonated in a profoundly negative fashion with Americans who had followed the appalling news out of Germany during and after the war. In the Senate, Robert Wagner, a major author of New Deal legislation, extolled the Jewish contribution to the Allied cause. He had already denounced appeasement of the Arabs during the war. With the Allied victory, continuing to appease Arab rejectionism surely made no sense. In the House, Democratic Congressman Emanuel Celler of Brooklyn led efforts to focus attention on Jamal Husseini’s cousin, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, who had entered into a written understanding with Germany and Italy to “solve the question of the Jewish elements, which exist in Palestine and in the other Arab countries . . . as the Jewish question was solved in Germany and Italy.”

The liberal media also took note. Husseini’s collaboration with the Nazis was thoroughly documented in the New York Post as well as in the left-wing publications PM and The Nation, by I.F. Stone, Freda Kirchwey, and the Pulitzer Prize–winning Edgar Mowrer, who urged Husseini’s indictment at Nuremberg. Nevertheless, despite extensive State Department files on Husseini’s collaboration with the Nazis, the American bureaucracy succeeded in resisting efforts to put him on trial and publish its evidence of his Nazi-era activities.

The brief confluence of Soviet and liberal Western sympathies for the nascent Jewish state was brilliantly exploited by Ben-Gurion. He understood better than anyone that it presented a unique moment to bring Israel into existence, with the assent of the world’s two great powers — and that it was an opportunity that would soon close, as indeed it did. During the “anti-cosmopolitan” purges of the early 1950s, Stalin reversed course, spread the lie that Israel was a product of American imperialism, repressed the memory of Soviet support for the Zionist project, and launched a four-decade campaign of vilification against Zionism and Israel. It was one of the most successful propaganda campaigns of the Cold War.

Stalin succeeded in rewriting American history, too. His insistence that it was the Americans and not the Soviets who had wholeheartedly supported the establishment of the State of Israel carried the day. And yet the records of the Departments of State and Defense and the CIA clearly document their emphatic and consequential opposition to the Zionist project.

The differences between the international political landscape of the late 1940s and the one that emerged first in Soviet and then world politics in the 1950s and 1960s need to be reflected in American-Jewish discussions about the establishment of Israel. Contrary to what we’ve heard at the United Nations for decades, in international BDS efforts, and in academic descriptions of Israel, the Zionist project was never a colonialist one.

Just the reverse. The generation that created the state, and its supporters abroad, viewed it as part of the era of liberal and leftist opposition to colonialism, racism, and, of course, antisemitism. The evidence is clear: Whatever faults Israel may have, its origins had nothing to do with American or British imperialism. The argument to the contrary is a conventional unwisdom that has found a home in too much scholarship and journalism of recent decades. Israel’s establishment was not a miracle that eludes historical explanation. It was an episode of enormous moral and military courage for which space was created by canny and hard-headed political leaders in the cause of historical justice — in particular David Ben-Gurion, who seized a fleeting moment, Israel’s moment, to create an enduring achievement.

Daniel Ben-Ami: Why the world has turned against Israel

From Israel's foundation in 1948 through the 1960s, the left generally celebrated Israel as an expression of Jews' right to national self-determination. By the 1990s, however, Western elites started to reject the idea of national self-determination. Yet the denigration of the right to national self-determination undermines the Palestinian cause, too.

Indeed, many of today's anti-Israel activists aren't really interested in Palestinian self-determination. They are mainly concerned with attacking Israel as a symbol of everything they dislike. This leads them to uncritically endorse Hamas, the leading Islamist representative of the Palestinians, and often Islamism more broadly.

Islamism's goal is not national self-determination, for the Palestinians or anyone else. Rather, it wants to create an international Islamic order. The destruction of Israel - and not the creation of a Palestinian state - is seen as central to achieving that objective. Islamists regard Jews as an expression of "cosmic Satanic evil," who should be physically exterminated if Islam is to flourish.

The Palestinian slogan, "from the river to the sea" (meaning from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean), is popular among both Islamists and Western leftists. Islamists often state openly that they want to murder most if not all of the Jews living there. So when they chant "Palestine should be free," they typically mean free of Jews.

Stephen Daisley: Why I love Israel

[T]here are plenty of reasons for Zionists to be gloomy on this, Israel’s 75th birthday, but there is one reason for optimism that outshines them all: Israel is 75. Israel was created; survived an immediate Arab effort to annihilate it; ingathered the survivors of the death camps; settled the land and built kibbutzim; struggled through the lean and lonely years; triumphed in the Six-Day War and reunited Jerusalem; pulled through the Yom Kippur War; endured two intifadas; rescued Beta Israel and welcomed the refuseniks; lost Yamit, lost Rabin, lost Gush Katif; made the desert bloom with fruits and microchips; and made peace with Arab nations. All of that in 75 years and, despite impossible odds, Israel lives yet.

Israel is a hard country and for many a hard country to love. It is flinty but whiny, eager for the world’s love but diplomatically tin-eared, unsentimental but gripped by existential angst. It is a country that adores its army and reveres military discipline but is so hectically informal that you wonder how it made it to 75 days, let alone 75 years. It also boasts the highest density of rude people in the known universe, although I find that strangely endearing. I have never loved Israel more than the time the manager of a Tel Aviv minimart yelled at me for a) not speaking Hebrew, b) being a foreign journalist, and c) coming in to shop when she was trying to watch TV. Only in Israel, the innovation nation, could they invent the inconvenience store.

If Zionism is the theory, Israel is the practice and like all practical translations of idealism it is compromised, haphazard, sometimes unsightly, and occasionally disheartening. But that tension between Zionism and Israel, between ahavat and ha’aretz, is where the great debates take place and where the course of Jewish history can be set or changed. Israeli independence, as it reaches 75 years, is still a miraculous application of a mundane idea: Jewish self-determination.

Israel Independence Day: Celebrating 75 Years with Natan Sharansky

Former Prisoner of Zion Natan Sharansky's personal journey reflects that of the Jewish people, and the centrality of Israel in his life and Jewish identity mirrors the experiences of so many Jews around the world.

Sharansky: "The existence of Israel and, in a way, the existence of the Jewish people is the best demonstration of the importance of these two basic desires of people - to be free and to belong."

"For a thousand years, what were we fighting for? For our right to live freely in accordance with our identity. And then Israel was established. It could not be created as a non-Jewish state and it would never have succeeded in gathering all the Jews if not for its freedom." "There is no other nation or any other state which embodies the strength of this connection. And if you look at history and compare us with Israel 50 years ago, we have much more freedom and much more identity. We have far more of a Jewish and democratic state, so that's the direction we're heading in....Our history and our triumphs are the best proof of how important it is for these two things to go together." "I grew up [in the Soviet Union] having zero connection with anything Jewish except through antisemitism....It was Israel that came in a very powerful way to the center of our life, from the Six-Day War, and it allowed us to discover our identity, that we have a history, we are a people and we have a state. That gave us the strength to fight for our Jewish rights and for a better world."

"When people simply want tikkun olam [repairing the world] without any identity...your life is very shallow. Look at how all these Birthright kids - whose bar mitzvah was the last time they've had a connection to being Jewish - suddenly discover that it's cool and even interesting to live inside history....Suddenly, they have energy, meaning and understanding....In this age, there is no better way to quickly give Jews a brief injection of the importance and meaning of discovering their Jewish identity than coming to Israel."

Remember last September when Israel haters went crazy with the announcement that the upcoming Captain America movie would include an Israeli superhero?

Since then, the Israeli actress Shira Haas who plays the role of Sabra has apparently already done her scenes, so the campaign has now shifted from trying to pressure Marvel not to have the character to saying that the movie will be boycotted.

A bunch of Palestinian cultural and artistic institutions decided to sign a letter calling for the boycott, saying that Marvel was racist for including an Israeli character.

We call for the broadest boycott of the upcoming Marvel movie, “Captain America: New World Order,” which is scheduled to be released in the market during the year 2024, until the company cancels the character “Sabra” or “Ruth” from the movie, as it embodies the Israeli apartheid regime.

The backstory of the aforementioned character includes working for the Israeli government and the Israeli occupation forces. Marvel's revival of this racist character - in any way - means the company's promotion of the brutal Israeli oppression of Palestinians.

We also call for creative and peaceful events and demonstrations to put pressure on Marvel Studios - owned by Disney - to end its complicity in anti-Palestinian racism and Israeli propaganda and the glorification of the settler-colonial regime's violence against the indigenous Palestinian people.

No one knows the character's role, her new backstory, her part of the plot, or really anything. Unlike with Gal Gadot, they aren't calling for a boycott because the actress is Israeli, but because the character is Israeli.

Has there ever in history been such a demand from any studio or other medium that they should be forbidden from even including fictional characters from a specific country?

And the signatories are from Palestinian cultural centers, theater groups, circus groups and others. Normally artists are in the forefront of freedom of expression - but Palestinian artists are the leaders in being against those freedoms.

The crazed reactions, the lies that the character was named after a massacre in Lebanon, the support of censorship and boycotts by groups that would normally oppose such actions - it all adds up, as always, to proving that this opposition isn't political.

It is old fashioned hatred of Jews dressed up to appear more respectable.

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By their own success criteria, BDS has been a massive failure

The website for the BDS Movement has a FAQ section that asks, "What has the BDS movement achieved so far?"

The very top achievement is listed as:

BDS was a major factor behind the 46% drop in foreign direct investment in Israel in 2014, according to a UN report.

How have direct investments in Israel done since then?

If BDS is taking credit for the 46% drop in direct investment in 2014 then the 255% increase since then must be viewed as a huge BDS failure.

Also, the UN report did not say what BDS claims. It quoted a Newsweek article which in turn quoted a YNet article where one of the authors of the report said:

"We believe that what led to the drop in investment in Israel are Operation Protective Edge and the boycotts Israel is facing," Dr. Roni Manos of the College of Management and one of the authors of the report's summary told Ynet. According to her, these are only conjectures that can explain the sharp decline, but there is another reason. "In the past there were large transactions such as Waze and ISCAR Metalworking which boosted investment, but over the past year there were not enough such deals.

So BDS is not only trying to hide the statistics since 2014 that disprove its "victory," it even lied about the reason for the 2014 anomalous decline itself.

The BDS Movement FAQ goes on:

A Rand Corporation study predicts BDS could reduce Israel’s GDP “by 1 to 2 percent” annually over the next 10 years.

That Rand study says, "Historical evidence from other countries suggests that financial and trade sanctions associated with boycott, divestment, and sanctions could reduce GDP by 1 to 2 percent. "

In other words, it was a wild guess for the purposes of making economic forecasts based on various scenarios, not a prediction for Israel.

Rand wrote that in 2015. How has Israel's GDP done since then?

Israel's GDP increased from $314 billion in 2014 to $488 billion in 2021, an increase of 55% and an average increase of nearly 8% a year.

It doesn't appear that BDS has hurt the Israeli economy at all. On the contrary, Israel has thrived and BDS has not affected it in the least.

By the Israel-haters' own standards, on their own FAQ today, BDS has failed.

Now, I have said that economic damage is not really BDS' aim - demonization of Israel is. By that criterion, they have been successful. But part of that success is because they have been lying about Israel to the world and too many people are believing them.

Here we see that they lie repeatedly to make themselves look successful, when by any economic criteria they have been an abject failure.

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The haters are now demanding Trader Joe's stop selling matzoh made in Israel

This Mondoweiss article reads like a parody:

Trader Joe’s prides itself on delivering great products at fair prices. And we agree that they deliver on that promise. So, when we saw that our favorite food store is now selling Passover Matzo made in Israel we had to act.

Trader Joe’s also has a reputation for being responsive to customers, so we started this campaign to tell them how disappointed we are in their decision to sell house branded Matzo prominently marked as a “product of Israel” or any other products labeled as “made in Israel.”

In support of the Palestinian Civil Society’s call to boycott all Israeli products, we never purchase Israeli-made products at Trader Joe’s or anywhere else, but that no longer feels like enough. It is important that we tell stores, and the good people who work in them, why we boycott Israel and how badly it reflects on stores when they sell products made in Apartheid Israel.

We hope that many people will join us by printing out this note to Trader Joe’s, signing it, and giving it to a manager in every Trader Joe’s that you shop in:

The funniest part of the Mondoweiss article was a selfie of co-author Seth Morrison smiling in front of the matzoh display with his "Palestine 1948" T-shirt. His smile makes it look like he is promoting the matzoh, not boycotting it!

This is way beyond activism and well into obsession territory. No one on Earth thinks that Palestinians are helped one iota from these ridiculous stunts, and it is obvious to all who care to think about it that this is not animated by concern for Palestinian human rights but visceral hate for the Jewish state.

Trader Joe's sells other Israeli products, including their own branded Bamba snack and "Israeli Feta Cheese." Horrors!

I can't wait for Sukkot when the haters start a campaign to boycott Israeli etrogim.

(h/t Roger K)

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"Jewish Voice for Peace" says to symbolically burn US and Israeli flags on Passover eve

From Jewish Voice for Peace's Facebook page:

Nationalism is chametz, during Passover and always!
Freedom only for some is never enough. This Passover, at a time when violence against Palestinians by the Israeli state, military and settlers continues to escalate, we gather to demand and dream liberation for everyone.
For anti-Zionist Jews, this holiday can be a challenging time. For some, it can feel impossible to separate our holiday traditions from Zionist propaganda advocating ethnic cleansing and land theft. Many of us feel reluctant to even celebrate the holiday as Zionist terror escalates in Palestine. And many of us may be facing yet another holiday where our beliefs and politics are not welcome.
This year, bring your whole anti-Zionist self to our virtual seder! Our beloved community is coming together to set the Pesach table for you. Our seder will feature joy and rage and hope from our Havurah, BIJOCSM and student networks, our campaigns, our rabbis, and from JVP members from near and far—all gathered for collective liberation for us all.

They never seem to have a problem with Palestinian nationalism. I wonder why.

Their latest "Haggadah" is just as twisted in its interpretations of what Passover is about. I looked at a previous version in 2012, which was 28 pages long and included an essay on "pinkwashing."

Apparently that was way too much for the current TikTok generation that JVP wants to attract, so this new one is a mere 14 pages long, deleting nearly all of Maggid, Hallel and Nirtzah. it doesn't even describe the overstuffed seder plate of the previous editions that included an olive (for Palestinians) and an orange (for feminists and LGBTQ+.).

This one still includes the third cup of wine celebrating BDS, though.

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The more they campaign to boycott Israeli dates, the more dates Israel sells!

Anti-Israel organizations have been organizing boycotts of Israeli dates every Ramadan for years.

Here's a campaign from 2008.

This year there are anti-Israel date campaigns from CAIR, American Muslims for Palestine, Inminds and many other Muslim organizations.

Let's see how effective these campaigns have been.

In 2008, when these campaigns began, Israel was the fourth-largest exporter of dates in the world, behind Tunisia, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. It had exports of 19 million kilograms with a value of some $50 million.

By 2021, Israel was the top exporter of dates worldwide, exporting nearly 120 million kilograms with a value of $332 million! It maintained that position in 2022.

While Israel does not export as many dates as some other countries, the dollar value is much higher - because the popular Mejdool dates are more expensive and Israel dominates that market.

Here are some charts of the top date exporters in recent years from another source:

It seems that Israel's date industry - which is now Israel's second biggest export crop after citrus - has thrived under the Muslim boycott of Israeli dates.

This is not just a BDS fail - it is a BDS nakba!

For Israeli date growers, it definitely is a Ramadan Mubarak!

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