Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: BDS

Showing posts with label BDS. Show all posts

Monday, May 13, 2013

Nice piece on the truth behind "grassroots" campus BDS campaigns

From Max Samarov at The (LA) Jewish Journal:

Over the last month the UC Santa Barbara student government has been voting on a resolution to divest from companies doing business with Israel. As a UCSB graduate and former student leader, I spoke at two senate hearings and worked with current students to defeat the resolution. It should now be very clear that what we are fighting at UCSB is the local face of an organized, global propaganda campaign against Israel.

Divestment activists at UCSB attempted to portray their campaign as grassroots and local. But evidence to the contrary abounds. Indeed, divestment is part of an increasingly organized and global movement. The language of the resolution introduced atUCSB was strikingly similar to those recently presented at UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and elsewhere. The Facebook pages set up in support of divestment at the different campuses werealso very similar. These campaigns were carefully synchronized. They hit Stanford first, then UC Riverside, then UC San Diego, then UC Santa Barbara, then UC Berkeley, and finally UC Davis. As the drama was ending at one university it would begin anew at the next one down the line.

Divestment did not happen overnight. It is the result of years of work by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and similar campus organizations. Their modus operandi is simple and extremely effective. They get involved in student politics, build relationships with student leaders, hone their talking points, and lobby. At some campuses, like UCSB, this issue has been elevated to the point where some candidates for student government run on a platform of divestment. The anti-Israel movement has evolved, drastically increasing its participation in the democratic process.

It is clear that there is a well-oiled machine organizing and orchestrating this campaign behind the scenes....

BDS portrays itself as a progressive human rights movement, but nothing could be further from the truth. BDS uses anti-Israel propaganda to promote a fundamentally immoral and illiberal political agenda: the elimination of Israel as the democratic state of the Jewish people. Some BDS leaders and organizations hide this or avoid stating it explicitly. But the undeniable reality is that the third core demand of the BDS movement, the return of millions of Palestinian refugees to Israel, is a call to replace the Jewish state with a Palestinian state.

It is a very nice reference piece on the state of the campus BDS movement and their deceptions.

Get your #BDSFail T-shirts and other merchandise!

It's been a while since I added anything to the EoZ Printfection store, but here's the latest section. After all, every major high tech company agrees - Israel is an awesome place to do business!

What are you waiting for? Go shopping and show them off!

Why the French court decision is significant

I mentioned last week that a French appeals court has apparently ruled that Israel's occupation of the territories was not illegal.

The Times of Israel interviewed some legal experts who claimed that there was very little new legal ground broken here:

Legal expert Frances Raday, the president of the Concord Research Center for Integration of International Law in Israel, likewise said the court decision is only marginally significant for a debate about the legality of Israel’s actions in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

“It’s only talking about transport infrastructure,” she said. “I don’t think they actually say anything new, except that an occupying power is not prohibited from putting in place transport infrastructure.”

However, Eugene Kontorovich writes in Opinio Juris:

Crucially, the Court held that only the Government of Israel, and not private parties, can violate the relevant provisions of the Geneva Conventions. The arguments that Israeli communities in the West Bank violate international law start with Art. 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which provides that “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer its civilian population into the territory it occupies.” The provision was also relied on heavily in the lawsuit. The Court ruled that 49(6) only speaks to and applies to action by the Israeli government (“the Occupying power”), and does not regulate Alton’s activities in the occupied territory.

This is an extraordinarily important holding in light of the decades old-debate about the meaning of 49(6) in the context of Israeli civilian migration into the West Bank. It is in direct opposition to the political and international law position on settlements. In the standard narrative, any migration of Israeli Jews past the Green Line, or the expansion of their residences and communities once there, is a war crime. Thus when private citizens decides to buy or build a house across the Green Line, or even expand an existing one, it is a war crime.

Moreover, Israeli citizens who migrate to the West Bank are often said to be guilty of war crimes themselves as aiders-and-abettors. The Versailles decision would seem to reject such a position.

Israel’s critics often claim that “everyone agrees” that international law bans all “settlement activity” as it is broadly called, and that only Israeli apologists could believe the arguments to the contrary. (In the Human Rights Council’s recent report on Israel’s settlements, light rail is itself called a settlement.)

He elaborates in the comments:

[The ruling] does not deal with the liability of the Gov’t – but discussions of settlements usually lay the blame much wider:

1) It clearly says private action is not governed by 49(6).

2) It suggests it is wrong to speak of settlements as “illegal.” Settlements are a mix of private and public action, with the amount of public action most would require being quite thin, and certainly not necessary

3) Compare this the Human Rights Council report, which called all activities whatsoever in the WB “settlements” that are “illegal.” That got report got more play than this decision.

4) Under the Court’s ruling, cases where 1)Israelis buy preexisting Arab houses, usually in Jerusalem or Hebron, and without the government knowing; 2) build additional structures on their houses; 3) are born in WB; 4) make “illegal” settlements, i.e., not recognized by gov’t — would all be clearly legal. There would be nothing to protest about these actions – one could still protest some background government role, if one thinks it is significant enough, but one can’t say these actions themselves are illegal. That itself would be a big change.

5) Yes, much of the issue would still remain – how much state action is required....The reading that 49(6) requires the occupying power to not “enable” people moving to the WB means the provision actually means “shall not deport, and shall prevent individuals from moving,” which is rather different language from that chosen [by Geneva.]

Did you catch the irony? Outposts considered illegal by the Israeli government would not be illegal under Geneva 49(6) - by virtue of Israel's opposition to them!

Another important point: the ruling makes clear that businesses operating east of the Green Line are not violating international law, and all the BDS proponents are lying when they say otherwise.

The UN has been calling Israeli presence in the territories "illegal occupation" for over a decade, and the UNHRC recently reiterated that settlements are "illegal" as well, based on their reading of Geneva 49(6). They are essentially making up international law as they go along. This French ruling is one of the very few actual court cases that addresses these issues that "everyone knows" - and their reasoning is at odds with what the UN and anti-Israel groups have been claiming for years.

(The UNHRC statement that Israel must dismantle the Jewish communities across the Green Line is a huge legal leap beyond anything Geneva states, and in fact I would argue that it would be considered ethnic cleansing and tantamount to a war crime itself.)

By the way, national court decisions are at least as important for their legal arguments as any international court, even for international law issues.

BDS Condolence Cards

A few months ago, I created a series of "condolence cards" for BDS advocates for the many times Israel shows how utterly ineffective they are. They have been popular on Twitter.

I can't believe I never posted them here before....

UPDATE: It seems I did post the first two in context of different stories.

This is what happens when you approach being 2,000 years old.

In order to make up for it, here is a new one I just created:

Did an American academic group vote to boycott Israel? (updated)

From Inside Higher Ed:

The general membership of the Association for Asian American Studies has unanimously approved a resolution endorsing the boycott of Israeli universities, making it the first scholarly organization in the U.S. to do so, according to the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

About 10 percent of the association’s membership was present for last week’s secret ballot vote, which was open to all members and took place on the final day of the AAAS annual conference in Seattle. The resolution raises a number of concerns about the impact of Israeli policies on Palestinian students and scholars – including restrictions on travel and the forced closure or destruction of schools as a result of Israeli military actions – and describes Israeli academic institutions as “deeply complicit in Israel's violations of international law and human rights and in its denial of the right to education and academic freedom to Palestinians, in addition to their basic rights as guaranteed by international law."

“Be it resolved that the Association for Asian American Studies endorses and will honor the call of Palestinian civil society for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions,” the resolution reads in part. “Be it also resolved that the Association for Asian American Studies supports the protected rights of students and scholars everywhere to engage in research and public speaking about Israel-Palestine and in support of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.”

The AAAS president, Mary Yu Danico, confirmed the resolution was approved and directed questions to the association’s past president, Rajini Srikanth, a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Srikanth likened the academic boycott to that which was levied against South African universities to protest apartheid, and emphasized that the boycott is of institutions, not individual academics.

Something here does not smell right.

First of all, there is nothing about this resolution on the Association for Asian American Studies website. The only place this vote has been publicized are on rabid anti-Israel sites like the "U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel."

The Word document that shows the full resolution was written by David Lloyd, a USC professor who is one of the founders of the USCABI and a profound hater of Israel.

The past president of the AAAS quoted here, Rajini Srikanth, is also an academic anti-Israel ideologue.

But even with such members in the organization, is it plausible that a vote like this would be unanimous? Not a single academic standing up against the boycotting of other academics?

This seems even more unlikely when you look at the full schedule of the AAAS conference. Not a word is said about Palestine or Israel. In fact, not a word is stated about any resolutions or voting whatsoever, on any day of the conference, let alone the Saturday that this was supposed to have occurred. Saturday was a full conference day, with some 52 sessions throughout the day non-stop from 8:15 Am to 4:15 PM. There was literally no time for all the members to get together to debate or discuss any topic, let alone one as controversial as this, unless it was done Saturday evening - when most attendees would be itching to go home.

I don't have absolute proof that this appears to be a manufactured victory for BDS, but at best this appears to be a secret resolution rammed through using irregular procedures using hand-picked members only to "vote." At worst, this is a fiction being created by a small anti-Israel contingent of a relatively obscure academic association, purely to generate the impression of a wave of anti-Israel sentiment in Amerian academia.

Either way, this needs to be investigated. The integrity of the organization is at stake. If they really followed procedures correctly, the idea that an American academic group is filled with people who support boycotting Israeli universities without a single dissent is amazing. If, as I suspect, this was done under the table, then this needs to be exposed and the people behind it shamed - and probably expelled.

Was the membership at large of the Association for Asian American Studies aware of this resolution, and was each member given an advanced copy of the resolution in order to vote? This appears unlikely, but if anyone knows any member of this organization, feel free to ask them - or have them contact me.

UPDATE: In a private communication, Scott Jaschik, editor of Inside Higher Ed, confirmed that "The association itself confirmed the facts of the story - that the AAAS did this".

What we still don't know is how this was done and whether the AAAS members at large were made aware of the vote.

One member who was at the conference did write to me saying that "I did not attend the membership meeting and would not have voted for this, if it is true." So the question remains - how do the actual members of AAAS feel about this, as opposed to the few who seem to have attended this meeting?

I did confirm that in general, the AAAS general membership meetings do occur on the Saturdays of their annual conference.

Australian pro-BDS group may be ousted from Jewish umbrella group

From Australian Jewish News:

THE Australian Jewish Democratic Society (AJDS) could be ousted from the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) after its Pesach campaign to encourage boycotts against Israeli settlements.

JCCV president Nina Bassat said AJDS’s affiliation would be reviewed. “While the JCCV recognises that its affiliates have the right to formulate their own policies, this campaign is repugnant to the longstanding policies of the JCCV and indeed to the views of the majority of our community. The philosophical differences between the JCCV and the AJDS are such that I propose to bring for discussion at our next meeting the future of the AJDS as a JCCV affiliate.”

Jewish organisations condemned a renewed call by the AJDS for boycotts of products made in Israeli settlements and on the Golan Heights, after the group initially called for partial boycotts two years ago.

Comparing Palestinian workers to “the slaves of biblical Egypt”, AJDS launched an online campaign, “Don’t Buy From the Settlements”, urging Jews “to avoid buying products made in settlements located in the Occupied Territories”.

Timed to hit Jews as they sat down to seders, non-Jewish Australians were also in the campaign’s crosshairs, its media release describing “the Jewish festival of Passover, which is commonly known as a festival of freedom”.

“On Passover we remember that Jews were once slaves in biblical Egypt. This year the AJDS is putting a call out to the Jewish community asking them to join a long history of people who have fought for freedom, for both Jews and for non-Jews,” the statement said.

The campaign’s website, which features a detailed list of companies to boycott, faulted settlements as “the main obstacle to peace”.

AJDS executive member Dr Jordy Silverstein told The AJN her organisation was “very disappointed” at talk of disaffiliation. “It seems a real shame that the JCCV has decided that it’s not acceptable to just have a conversation.”

"Just have a conversation"?

The AJDS created an entire website named "Don't Buy Settlement Products" that is essentially a copy of every BDS site out there.

Of course, their list of products is a very good one to use if you want to support Israel. The page is so attractive, it could be a shopping cart page!

(h/t BH)

The hypocrisy of "gay rights advocate" Sarah Schulman

I have written about Sarah Schulman before when she wrote a truly hateful NYT op-ed and elsewhere.

An article in Tablet by Sohrab Ahmari exposes her sheer hypocrisy:

I couldn’t help but raise my hand. “So is Hamas part of the ‘they?’” I asked.

Schulman answered: “Hamas—you know, every time I give one of these talks one guy asks about Hamas.” Then a flurry of protests: “I have never supported any political party! I don’t even support the Democratic Party!”

But of course I didn’t ask Schulman if she supports Hamas. “What I meant is: Is Hamas engaged in ‘systems of supremacy?’ Does Hamas fit into your definition of ‘they,’ of people who are implicated in ‘systems of supremacy?’ ”

“It depends?” Schulman responded, her tone seesawing between the declarative and interrogative modes. “You know, sometimes—I don’t know enough about Hamas to give you a complete, intelligent analysis of Hamas. But there are people who get into all kinds of movements because they have particular needs. And I don’t—let me say it this way: All over the world there is conflict between religion and politics. In the United States we are unable to separate religion and politics, and that’s true in Israel, it’s true in the Arab world, it’s true all over the world. Do I think that there should be religious governments? No, because I’m not in favor of that. I’m not a religious person, and I see it as a negative force in the world. But if people elect, democratically elect a religious government, that’s their government. That would be my answer.”

Here was the BDS movement in a nutshell. In a room filled with progressive activists, an American academic with unimpeachable progressive credentials claimed she didn’t know enough about Hamas to criticize its views on matters of gender and sexual orientation. She had heard somewhere that Hamas was “democratically elected”—apparently Schulman had missed the news about how, the last time Hamas seized power in Gaza, it was via defenestration—and that sufficed to render the group above judgment. Acknowledging the obvious about Hamas would have demoralized the BDS faithful gathered at the LGBT Center that night, and what sort of religious movement would want to do that?

Schulman, a supposed gay-rights activist, is actually claiming that anti-gay policies are beyond criticism when legislated by an elected government!

But in her mind the elected government of Israel, which protects gay rights, has no legitimacy.

How can any self-respecting gay-rights activist hold such absurdly illogical opinions?

Simple. Sarah Schulman is not a gay-right activist. She is a hater of Israel, and she tries to shoe-horn her hatred of the Jewish state in to a gay-rights agenda. The fact that her positions are thoroughly inconsistent with any sane gay-rights agenda doesn't matter since, to haters like Schulman, consistency and gay rights are far less important than destroying the state that provides safe refuge to the people of her ancestral religion.

The poster I made of Schulman has never been more appropriate.

Two-year old Israeli technology sold for $37 million

From Times of Israel:

An Israeli start-up that provides technology for the development of browser extensions has been sold for $37 million. Israel’s Crossrider has been bought by e-commerce company Market.com, which will continue to operate the developer as before, the company’s CEO told reporters.

Crossrider’s is an exceptional success story. It’s less than two years old, and already has over 200 million users developing extensions for browsers. With the “browser wars” heating up to full steam, Crossfire’s easy-to-use platform that allows users to develop cross-browser extensions has made the company a sort of “kingmaker.”

Here is a sympathy card you can send your anti-Israel friends.

(h/t Adam L. for text. Previous BDS sympathy card here.)

Israeli company markets Gaza produce to Europe; BDS hypocrites want to boycott them

From FreshPlaza:

Arava, a prominent export company from Israel, has recently declared the commencement of the strawberry season in the Gaza Strip. This unique cooperation between Arava Export Growers Ltd. and the Growers' Societies in the Gaza Strip promote commerce and shared interests. "It goes without saying that we are all committed equally to see this venture through and bring prosperous financial success to both sides as well as strengthen relationships between Israel and the Gaza Strip" claimed Arava.

The season itself it expected to last till mid-February with cumulative amounts of approximately 400 tons of fruit. The variety chosen this year is Tamar, a very well known specimen of strawberry which is best characterized by its sweet flavor, tenderness and, extended shelf life. To add some spice and differentiation, Arava Export Growers Ltd. had taken upon itself the task of branding this year's yield by perfecting the sorting process for better consistency and quality. In addition to that, Arava is introducing a new line of packaging that includes black boxes, designed punnets and attractive stickers. "This action is for the benefit of ensuring superior quality, consistency and, distinctiveness. We want to make sure that European markets will be well aware of the Gaza Strawberries and, consciously, place them on a higher rank than the competition".

In recent months steps had been made by Palestinian Crops to certify all growers with a Global Gap certificate and, at the same time, implement a strict protocol for MRL residue levels.

Omer Kamp, of Arava, said "It is with great pride that we can proclaim to have tested the fields with ZERO tolerance and yet, achieve full success. All growers are now certified and, with no exception, MRL tests came out clean.

"It is essential to point out that many efforts were given for this season to succeed. Aside from the technical issues, the growers and Arava are fully committed to show the benefits of mutual cooperation and how it could make a difference in perceptions."

Fruit is now available in packaging of 10x250 and is available from:

Fruit World NL.
Total Produce Ireland.
Pacific Produce UK.
Garden Frutta Italy.

We have seen that the Israel boycotters have also boycotted exporters of produce from Palestinian Arab farmers - because to these hypocrites, it is more important to hurt Israeli companies than it is to help Palestinian Arabs!

From this article you can see that Arava adds value to the products, and is actively marketing them to European wholesalers. It is a true partnership between Israelis and Gazans, Arava isn't marketing the strawberries as Israeli, but is attempting to help brand Gaza as a source for high-quality produce! Arava's actions today can help Gazans for decades. It is exactly what people who espouse peace say they want to see.

But Arava is also on the boycotters' lists.

Here we have a list of EU wholesalers that sell Gaza produce, which are marked "Produce of Palestine" and labeled Palestine Crops.

The boycott crowd, that pretends to be pro-Palestinian, wants you to avoid buying anything that says "Produce of Palestine."

Orwell himself couldn't have made this up.

Sorry, BDSers. No more grocery shopping for you.

From Times of Israel:

The past week has seen one of this year’s biggest buyouts of an Israeli company by a large multinational: NCR, which makes checkout systems for retail, automated teller machines, and cash dispensers and the like, bought Israel-based Retalix, a provider of retail software and services, in a deal valued at about $650 million.

Starting slowly in Israel, where its retail point-of-sale (POS) software manages cash registers in nearly every Israeli supermarket and fast-food outlet, Retalix has slowly expanded and exported its offerings. In 2011, Retalix was ranked among the top four software vendors for grocery retailers and among the top 10 large software vendors to retailers by retail industry publications.

When stores used regular cash registers, they were able to tally totals, make change, and keep track of the income and expenses. The revolution led by Retalix, more than any other company, enables retailers to use the information that comes out of a POS system in so many different ways. For example, retailers can use the information gathered at the POS with a wide range of business intelligence tools — which products are hot, who’s buying what at which times of day, what promotions are having the biggest sales effect.

By linking sales data to a credit or loyalty card, retailers can implement programs that reward shoppers for buying and keep them coming back. And the POS information on what products were sold makes it easier for retailers to keep track of inventory, payments, and expenses. And all of the data is stored securely in the cloud, enabling administrators or management at other outlets of the chain to easily access it for their needs. According to industry analysts, Retalix is a world leader in deploying these software solutions. And NCR, primarily a hardware company, will now be able to offer some of the most advanced POS systems in the world.

(h/t Ishai)

Microsoft signs tech agreement with Israel, BDSers silent

From Times of Israel:

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, visiting Israel on Monday, met with Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz in Jerusalem to discuss expanded cooperation between the Israeli government and the global high-tech giant.

The two men agreed on a memorandum of understanding on information and communications technology, to be signed within a few days by government Chief Information Officer Carmela Avner and Microsoft Israel CEO Danny Yamin.

The agreement sets the stage for Microsoft’s involvement in various IT aspects of government operations, including technological development and innovation, open government promotion, database management, data protection and privacy issues, information sharing and e-government services.

The agreement is intended to develop “shared infrastructure investment” in national information technology projects, and encourage interdependent Israeli technology companies and start-ups.

“Technological innovation and incubation are the driving force behind Israel’s dynamic economy,” Ballmer said. “Microsoft is proud to work in an environment that nurtures innovation and has created such a large number of successful technology companies.”

This was Ballmer's fourth visit to Israel, and he also met with Bibi.

During the visit, Microsoft kicked off its international campaign for promoting Windows 8, introducing models of smartphones running that operating system.

Interestingly, although one can find Facebook groups for pretty much anything, I have failed to find a single group that pushes for boycotting Microsoft products because of their cooperation with Israel. Nothing about boycotting Microsoft on the major BDS webpages either.

I guess their idea of morality is to only go after toy stores and chocolate shops.

BDSers now targeting Jewish-owned toy store

From The Star (South Africa):

Members of the Stop the JNF (Jewish National Fund) campaign gathered outside Reggies toy stores at the weekend in protest at the toy chain’s financial support of the JNF.

In a statement sent out by Cosatu on behalf of the Stop the JNF, the campaign’s members said: “We feel that it is unconscionable that while hundreds of Palestinian children are held in Israeli prisons, a toy shop that purportedly celebrates children is knowingly supporting an Israeli parastatal complicit in gross human rights violations.”

The Stop the JNF campaign members staged protests at three Reggies stores, in Joburg, Durban and Cape Town, yesterday.

The campaign’s national spokesman, Alan Horwitz, said 60 protesters showed up in Joburg, 100 people protested in Durban and 30 in Cape Town. No one was at the stores to accept the protesters’ memorandums.

The South African media helpfully publicized the protests ahead of time on behalf of "Stop the JNF." I have never seen a newspaper give publicity to protests of under a hundred people beforehand.

Apparently, the owner of the store supports the Jewish National Fund, which must be an awful crime that merits the closure of his store and the dozens of employees losing jobs.

Note that the organizers of this self-hate festival are Jewish. In fact, one of them was wearing a yarmulke, to establish his Jew bona-fides.

The protests were on Shabbat, which means it is highly unlikely that this gentleman wears a kipah anytime except when he is protesting proud Jews. [Correction: The newspaper date said Saturday, but the protest was on Sunday. I am willing to bet that he doesn't wear a kipah for every day shopping or work, though.]

Here's another protester:

Nothing says "human rights" like a Che Guevara T-shirt!

The anti-Israel drones are clearly not interested in a few facts I threw their way on their Facebook page that throws cold water on their insistence that JNF is racist:

The leading Palestinian Arab environmentalist works closely with the JNF on a number of initiatives.
The JNF has given land to help Arab towns grow.
The JNF donated 3000 trees to Arab town of Rawabi on the West Bank - but the Arabs uprooted them all!

They are mindless, anti-Israel bigots, and no amount of kipot will detract from that. If it wasn't the JNF they would be protesting something else.

If you are so inclined, you might want to order something from Reggie's.

(h/t Israel Muse)

#BDSFail: Batsheva dancers ignore interruptions and get rave reviews

From Scotsman.com:

“Ignore”. That was the first word spoken during a voiceover in the opening moments of Deca Dance. It wasn’t something special, added in for the occasion – it’s always there – but tonight it had a special resonance.

Back in August, when the main Batsheva company played Edinburgh, the dancers paused each time a futile interruption from anti-Israeli protestors came their way. But not this time. Instead, during the eight shout-outs the ensemble (Batsheva’s youth wing) kept right on going.

Created over a period of 20 years by Batsheva’s artistic director, Ohad Naharin, Deca Dance changes almost on a monthly basis. Featuring slow, thought-provoking ensemble pieces, high energy routines, a sensual duet, and quite possibly the most joyous bit of audience interaction you’ll ever see, it’s a work that bears a few repeat viewings.

Aged just 18-23, the ensemble’s dancers are still learning their craft, but they’re already technically strong, sharply synchronised and more than capable of injecting a vast well of emotion into their performance.

What grabs you most about Batsheva, however (both the main company and its funky little ensemble sister), is the way these dancers move. Naharin has devised an entirely unique dance style called Gaga, and it is this that marks his companies out as different. Fluid, dynamic, expansive yet delicate, animalistic yet profoundly human, Gaga gives his dancers a whole other vocabulary with which to speak to us. And, despite the vain attempts to block it, their voices came through loud and clear.

Batsheva Ensemble, Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Star rating: * * * *

Another reviewer, Thom Dibdin, called it "a stunning performance of a thoroughly entertaining piece of dance."

I'm glad that the dancers kept on going. Ignoring the idiots who came to disrupt the performance is the smartest way to ensure that the protesters are the ones who are marginalized.

I'm sure it isn't easy to ignore them, but who said representing Israel is easy?

(h/t CiFWatch tweet)

The Rami Levy BDS protest proves BDS failure

Today there was a violent protest outside the Rami Levy supermarket in Sha'ar Binyamin. Ma'an reports:

Around 150 protestors demonstrated on Wednesday in front of an Israeli chain store east of Ramallah, the Popular Struggle Committee said.

Four activists were detained and several injured as Israeli police and soldiers broke up the demonstration, a statement said.

Palestinian, international and Israeli protesters gathered outside of a branch of the Rami Levi store, chanting slogans and carrying banners calling for a boycott of Israeli products.

Actually, they broke into the store.

But what Ma'an doesn't report is the real reason for the protest. YNet adds:

[Activist Abir Kopty said] "This time we chose the Rami Levy store because we want to send a message to boycott the occupation and its products. As long as the Palestinians get no justice, settlers and Israelis will not lead normal lives."

She added that the protest was also meant to send a message to the Palestinian people not to shop in Rami Levy. It should be noted that the retail chain has two branches in the West Bank that also serve Palestinians.

She repeated that on Twitter.

And from the signs they carries, one could see that the intended audience for the boycott call is Arabs, obviously not the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria!

Here is what is really going on:

Rami Levy markets are islands of of co-existence in the territories. Arabs and Jews shop there peacefully together. Arabs and Jews work side by side as employees. I once made a poster based on a photo taken inside a Rami Levy market:

Arab bigots cannot stand the success of Rami Levy.

A couple of years ago, the PA mounted a concerted campaign to get Arabs to boycott Rami Levy. They intimidated Arabs by saying that they were keeping track of license plates on cars at the markets. They told their people that the supermarket's entire purpose was to humiliate Arabs. They even claimed that the meat being sold there was poisoned - although how it only poisoned Arab and not Jewish customers remains a mystery. They prohibited Palestinian Arabs from working at the supermarket.

Even with all of that, Palestinian Arabs continued to shop and work there. The boycott calls were a complete failure.

Since trying to convince Palestinian Arabs to avoid Jewish stores failed so badly, the BDSers are trying to physically intimidate the Arab customers. They are hoping to create a gauntlet at the store that makes Arabs decide not to bother shopping there, even though they want to.

Get it? They want to force Palestinian Arabs to act in the ways they deem acceptable - in the name of freedom!

Rami Levy symbolizes everything they hate - Jews and Arabs actually living, working and shopping together. They want to create an apartheid state where only Arabs live and where Jewish products are banned. And they are willing to use force to create this situation!

Doesn't sound very liberal, does it?

The "Popular Struggle Committee" is dedicated to pushing boycott of Israeli products and stores worldwide. But they cannot even get Arabs who live in the territories to boycott a Jewish-owned store!

Rami Levy, by continuing to attract ordinary Arabs, symbolizes the failure of BDS more effectively than anything else.

BDSers celebrate being dicks

Sorry, but I don't know how else to headline this story from TheJC:

A performance by an Israeli dance group in Brighton next month has been cancelled amid security concerns, in a decision that anti-Israel campaigners are hailing as a victory.

The Batsheva Ensemble, the youth company of the internationally acclaimed Batsheva Dance Company, has been invited to perform Deca Dance in Bradford, Salford, Birmingham, Brighton, Plymouth, Leicester and London in a tour organised by Dance Consortium.

But the tour has been targeted by supporters of a cultural boycott of Israel, who disrupted all three of the Batsheva Dance Company's performances at the Edinburgh International Festival earlier this year.

Although two dates were initially announced for the dancers to perform at the Brighton Dome, they will now only be able to be seen on the Friday night.

A spokesman for the Brighton Dome said the reason for the cancellation was to concentrate all security resources on one evening, in order that at least one show would go ahead smoothly with a "higher level of security". He said that the decision had been made following discussions about security with Sussex Police, and with awareness about the disruptions and protests at the Edinburgh shows.

Andrew Comben, the venue's chief executive, said that freedom of expression was vital and that he supported Batsheva's inclusion on the tour. "We support the right to protest and encourage debate but we welcome artists from all over the world and will continue to do so," he said. "However, we have a duty to ensure that our audiences have a safe and enjoyable experience and are disappointed that their enjoyment of this company's work may be disturbed."

To be clear: The BDSers didn't manage to convince management to cancel the show for moral reasons. They didn't convince anyone that their cause is right. On the contrary, the officials in charge are determined that freedom of Israeli artists to express themselves is preserved.

The only reason one performance is being cancelled is because no one wants to deal with the BDSers acting like pricks.

And the BDSers are happy about it!

The cancellation has been greeted with delight by anti-Israel activists. In an item on the Boycott Israel Network website, activists wrote: "It's hats off to Brighton… we are on the way to winning a breakthrough victory for the BDS movement."

Protesters are still planning strategies for the rest of the tour including buying tickets and shouting "Free Palestine" during the performances. "Following this breakthrough in Brighton – thank you, Brighton activists! – we all need to appeal for a big turnout at each protest and internal protests every five minutes during each performance," they said.

If they would decide to shout "I'm an a**hole" at each performance, the result would be exactly the same.

And it would be much more accurate.

(h/ t MS)

Another fake BDS "victory"

Electronic Intifada is claiming that a website called Creative Time Summit has removed its "Sponsors" page - because one of the sponsors is Israeli and the Summit isbeing boycotted by some anti-Israel groups for doing something so horrible:

Update: Creative Time Summit “partner” page showing Israeli group removed

In light of the boycott actions mentioned above, by Mosireen and Rebel Diaz, it would appear that the Creative Time Summit has attempted to scrub its website of the evidence of its partnership with Israeli government funded Israeli Center for Digital Art.

Luckily, we kept screenshots. You can see the page as it appeared before, whereas now a click on the link brings up “page not found.”

So, the Israel-haters actually think that Creative Time Summit would delete all of their partners just to avoid mentioning Israel?

Now, look at the two screenshots above and the menu under the title. Notice how the first says "Partners" and the second, in the same position, says "Sites."

Clicking on "Sites" shows that website simply renamed "Summit Partnerships" to "Summit Sites", and the page prominently mentioning the Israeli Center for Digital Art is prominently displayed exactly as it was before:

So there is no demotion or boycott of the Israeli sponsor, just a renaming of every sponsor to a featured site.

But don't tell the idiots at Electronic Intifada. They seemed so happy.

Documenting the massive Veolia #BDSFail

From a report by Christian Middle East Watch:

★ In 2000 Veolia Transport became a minority shareholder in the consortium contracted to plan, build and operate a light rail transport system (LRT) in Jerusalem, running from the west to the north-east of the city, its route crossing the 1949 armistice line between Israeli and Jordanian forces. The LRT had been conceived following the Oslo Accords of 1993, as a means to bring together the Arab and Jewish populations of the city and to encourage growth and more efficient public transport.

★ Since its participation in the light rail consortium, Veolia has been the target in several countries of groups representing the Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) movement. In Britain, one aspect of this campaigning has been to pressure local councils and joint authorities to refuse to allow Veolia to bid for contracts or to reject bids submitted by Veolia (or even to terminate existing contracts). Councillors and councils are fully aware that, under UK regulations, they must not allow political considerations to affect commercial decisions in the bidding process.

★ In order to evaluate the true results of the BDS Veolia campaign in the face of dramatic claims of success at every turn, we sent freedom of information (FOI) requests to 18 councils that (a) had been the subject of a local BDS anti-Veolia campaign, and/or (b) had recently either accepted or rejected a Veolia bid for a future contract, and/or (c) were due to consider a Veolia bid in the near future, and/or (d) had voted on an anti-Veolia resolution, and/or (e) were the subject of claims of success by the BDS movement. Our FOI requests revealed that every one of these contracts was decided on straight commercial grounds and that political considerations were not applied in rejection of Veolia’s bids.

★ Our research included 17 situations where BDS campaigns had pressured local authorities to break their legal obligations in spending public money by asking them to deny Veolia the opportunity to bid for contracts or even to break existing contractual arrangements. We found that the BDS campaigns had failed in every case to achieve their aims.

★ The BDS campaign against Veolia has clearly failed and the main reason why is not hard to find. Any decision by a local authority to reject a commercial bid by Veolia on political grounds would be illegal; and even though the movement has tried to get round that by alleging “grave misconduct” on Veolia’s part (an exception under EU procurement regulations), council lawyers are highly unlikely to advise that participation in a legitimate light railway project in another country is an act of “grave misconduct”.

★ Furthermore, since Veolia never held more than a 5% stake in the LRT consortium and sold that stake in 2010, there is even less point in continuing to wage an empty and doomed campaign against a company no longer holding even a tiny financial stake in the project. The campaigners clearly sought to exploit Veolia's commercial dependence on UK public sector contracts, but have been defeated by the strict regulations governing the local authority bidding process.

★ In order to cover up its defeat, the BDS extremists have been reduced to constant repetition of the mantra that Veolia is “losing” contracts “following” BDS campaigns: a charade which this paper exposes.

The upshot is - BDSers are lying again, and did not succeed in forcing Veolia to lose a single contract.

Big surprise.

There is something else I just noticed.

You know how the BDSers always say that "Palestinian civil society" calls for their boycotts? I've discussed many times how most of the groups that signed on to the original BDS call were tiny groups (many of whom probably no longer exist) and many are not even from "Palestine."

But if you look at the original 2005 call for BDS, you see something interesting:

We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era. We appeal to you to pressure your respective states to impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel. We also invite conscientious Israelis to support this Call, for the sake of justice and genuine peace.

This appears to be a call for direct boycotts against Israel, not secondary boycotts against those who do business in Israel - like Veolia.

Now, who did support secondary (and tertiary) boycotts against Israel?

The Arab League, continuing their policy of boycotting Jewish businesses since 1922!

The current BDS campaign didn't start in 2005 - it started as a purely anti-semitic initiative before Israel was born, and there is a straight line between the old Arab boycott of Jewish businesses, to the Arab boycott of Israel before "occupation," to the BDS movement today.

BDS: Cultural graffiti

Starting last night, the Batsheva Dance Company is performing in Edinburgh, Scotland. Naturally, the Israel-haters are out in force, both noisily protesting outside and - last night - interrupting the performance three times from inside the theatre.

A number of Israelis refer to the BDS actions against Israeli artists as "cultural terror." I think that is an overstatement, and it also gives them too much credit. In reality, what they do is cultural graffiti.

On the surface, one might think that both graffiti artists and BDSers are motivated to get an important message out to the world. The scrawler on walls is, after all, spending time creating something for people to look at, and the boycotters are noisily chanting for their cause.

But only a little digging finds that both of them are driven not by altruism but by egocentrism. Just as graffiti artists usually emphasize painting their own code names, BDSers are obsessed with their own sense of self-worth. A look at their triumphant tweets shows that they are proud not so much at getting their message out as in bragging about successfully doing something very simple - shouting. Even then, as is often the case, they wildly exaggerate their supposed victories in order to feel important. (They showed great happiness and pride at forcing an Israeli official to use the side door to avoid injury.)

Both the graffiti artists and the BDSers will carefully plan their crimes, coming up with ways to avoid the police and security guards. The fundamental skills needed for both are quite limited - anyone can spray paint and anyone can shout robotic slogans. The fact that some are more talented than others in their space doesn't detract from the basic fact that they are both immensely proud of thinking that they can bypass authority, something that take very little skill.

Another commonality they have is the misguided notion that what they are doing makes a difference. They think that their illicit activities somehow serve a higher purpose, and they ascribe false morality to immoral activities.They regard themselves as having a more refined notion of what is right and wrong than ordinary people. This is again an offshoot of their fundamental egoism.

Related to that is that both groups are so self-centered that they have an utter indifference to the effects their acts have on others. Their actions cost them little but they cost the public a great deal, in extra security as well as in the psychic costs of living in an environment made deliberately uncomfortable by selfish blowhards.

Finally, in both cases, when they do get caught by authorities, they believe that this gives them more credibility in their own communities.

In the end, the self-righteous BDSers are no more than a bunch of kids with paint cans.

Something else for BDSers to boycott

From Shalom Life:

One in six women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. That's a staggering number, and one of the most common places where women will be victimized is in nightclubs.

Ever since date rape drugs have become easy accessible, women have had to be on high alert whenever drinking in public, otherwise someone could easily slip an odorless and tasteless drug that can render a person unconscious and put them in a position to be taken advantage of.

An israel professor of Tel Aviv University, Fernando Patolsky, and his partner Michael Ioffe, have invented what will hopefully become a common sight in bar and clubs around the world, an Anti-Date Rape Straw.

The straw can currently detect the two most common drugs being used, ketamine and gamma-hydroxybutyric acid, of GHB. Patolsky and Ioffe are working on adding more drug detection abilities, including rohypnol, aka ruffies.

The idea is that women will carry the straw with them when they go out, and they can reuse the straw as many times as they like until the straw encounters the presence of any date rape drugs. If the straw detects any drug in the drink, a chemical reaction will be created and the straw will change colour, depending on the drug.

Patolsky and Ioffe hope to commercialize the product within a year.

What a moral dilemma for Israel-hating women who like to party!

(h/t Max)

BDSers - and the PA - furious over increased Israel/EU ties

On Tuesday, the European Union put out a document detailing ongoing ties between Israel and Europe and an increased set of initiatives. Here are excerpts from the document:

The European Union (EU) warmly welcomes this 11th meeting of the EU-Israel Association Council as a demonstration of the significance the EU attaches to its relations with the State of Israel. The EU reiterates the importance of further developing our broad bilateral partnership and looks forward to a comprehensive dialogue and cooperation with our Israeli counterparts.

The EU takes note of the efforts of both parties to develop bilateral relations in the period since the previous meeting of the EU-Israel Association Council. These efforts were framed by the general EU position, as it was established on the occasion of the June 2009 Association Council, that the 2008 decision to upgrade our relations in the framework of the ENP clearly stemmed from common awareness of the traditional links, the cultural and human values, and the economic and security interests that the EU and Israel share.

On exploring the opportunities of the current Action Plan, the EU recalls the exhaustive discussions on the issue, which resulted in a comprehensive list of up to 60 concrete activities in over 15 specific fields, including cooperation with a number of EU agencies within the current policy framework.... The EU welcomes the approval of these activities by the Association Committee and encourages the two parties to actively and urgently implement them, so as to fully demonstrate the capacity of the current EU-Israel Action Plan to deliver more benefits to the EU-Israel partnership.

Israel continued to benefit from a yearly allocation through the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI) in the form of institutional cooperation (twinning projects). The EU takes note with satisfaction of the successful completion in the past year of twinning projects with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission and the Ministry of Communications.

The EU reiterates its fundamental commitment to Israel’s security, including with regard to vital threats in the region, which is best guaranteed through peace between Israel and its neighbours. The EU is appalled by recurring rocket attacks from Gaza and condemns in the strongest terms violence deliberately targeting civilians. The EU reiterates its call on all partners in the region for the effective prevention of arms smuggling into Gaza.

The EU and Israel signed an agreement on trade in agricultural, processed agricultural, fish and fishery products in November 2009, which entered into force on 1 January 2010. The implementation of this agreement has already led to a visible increase in overall bilateral trade in these sectors.

In the field of environmental protection, the EU finds the intensification of bilateral cooperation of the highest importance.

Predictably, the BDS crowd which has been pretending that they have been making progress into turning Isrsel into a pariah state is incensed:

The Palestinian Council of Human Rights Organizations (PCHRO), a coalition of 11 Palestinian rights groups, Thursday strongly denounced European Union decision to upgrade its cooperation with Israel, accusing the EU of betraying its own principles.

So is the PA, which still subscribes to the zero-sum game mentality that holds that anything that helps Israel hurts Palestinian Arabs (and vice versa):

Palestinian lawmaker Mustafa Bargouthi joined a coalition of rights groups on Thursday expressing outrage at the European Union's expansion of cooperation with Israel.

Bargouthi said the upgrading of bilateral ties was granted in contradiction to the EU's political position criticizing Israel's illegal settlement expansion, occupation and violations of international human rights laws.

Europe's decision will encourage Israel to continue its aggression toward Palestinians and breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Palestinian National Initiative leader said in a statement.

It seems beyond comprehension of the "pro-Palestinian" crowd that Israel's feelings of security, helped by announcements like these, make it more likely to make concessions to Palestinian Arabs, not less.

But then again, if their real objective is not to help build a Palestinian Arab state but to destroy the Palestinian Jewish state, then their statements and actions are perfectly consistent with their goals.