Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: “Majoring in Anti-Semitism at Vassar”
Wild charges against Israel have often been aired on U.S. campuses over the past several years, and their moral perversity pointed out. But Ms. Puar’s calumnies reached a new low. She spoke of Jews deliberately starving Palestinians, “stunting” and “maiming” a population. The false accusation that a people, some of whose members were experimented on at Auschwitz, are today experimenting on others is a disgrace.Jews know that a boycott is just the beginning
Yet characterizing Israel and Zionism in ways that anti-Semites formerly characterized Jews has become a stock in trade among anti-Israeli activists on college campuses. And it exposes the real motivation of those who profess to criticize only the Israeli government’s policies with regard to the West Bank, not Jews themselves.
Now there is a resolution before the Vassar student union, in part seeking a boycott of Ben & Jerry’s, on the grounds that the company—founded by two Jews—sells ice-cream “transported on Jewish-only roads to be sold in Jewish-only settlements.” This is part of a broader divest-from-Israel resolution to be voted on this spring, which also includes other U.S. companies.
These events are transforming a prestigious institution into a parody ripe for ridicule—a place embarrassing to prominent alumni and worrisome for prospective Jewish students.
BDS claims it protests against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, and models itself on the anti-apartheid boycott of South Africa.PMW: Fatah draws map of "Palestine" with blood of terrorist
But polls show that the Jewish community believes it to constitute anti-Semitism. Why?
First, BDS aims to eradicate Israel completely – its founder, Omar Barghouti, openly declared that “we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine”.
Second, the boycotters target the Jewish state alone. BDS does not go after any other liberal democracy or British ally, let alone any dictatorship; only Israel, the Jew among nations.
Third, wherever BDS surfaces, it is accompanied by harassment of Jews – whether it’s Jewish students who retreat from campus life for fear of intimidation, or kosher food being forcibly removed from supermarket shelves, or Jewish trade union members who see their unions become vehicles for anti-Jewish hate, or a Jewish-American reggae performer being booted from a music festival.
Fourth, anyone remotely sensitive to Jewish history will know that boycotts have been the instrument of Jewish persecution for a millennium. The last century taught the Jews full well that what begins with a boycott by a few thugs or unknown academics does not end there. If “never again” is to mean anything, it is that BDS cannot be tolerated in a decent and civilised society.
Abbas' Fatah and the Palestinian Authority never miss an opportunity to demonstrate to their people that their vision of "the State of Palestine" encompasses all of Israel, leaving little meaning to Abbas' claim that he accepts the two-state solution, which he repeats when addressing international forums.
Illustrating "Palestine's" borders, Fatah's official Facebook page sported the macabre photo above, of a dying terrorist and her trickling blood, with the text:
"This is the blood that drew the borders of the State of Palestine" [Official Fatah Facebook page, Feb. 14, 2016]
The photo-shopped image shows the shape of the map of "Palestine" including the PA areas as well as all of Israel, formed by the blood of terrorist Yasmin Al-Zaru Tamimi, a 20-year-old female terrorist, who was shot when she tried to stab an Israeli soldier near the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron on Feb. 14, 2016. Part of the map is her actual blood, while some was added to the photo. Tamimi later died of her wounds in an Israeli hospital.