BTW, Remember the Arab boycott of Israel? It is still the official policy of the Arab League - by Elder of Ziyon

The Arab League is a living example of the Arab honor/shame mentality. It cannot officially accept that the world has changed since the days of the Arab oil embargo. Dismantling the Boycott Office would be an admission of “defeat.” And no one wants to show any cracks in Arab unity which would undermine the entire purpose of the Arab League. Since Syria prioritizes the BDS agenda, and no one opposes a paper committee that does nothing in reality, they continue to meet, twice a year, unwilling to say out loud that they are wasting their time.

Elder of Ziyon..
14 August '20..

This week was the 94th conference for the liaison officers of the regional offices of the Arab boycott of Israel that started before Israel was reborn.

The Arab League boycott of Israel has been in place since 1945, when the brand new organization said, “Products of Palestinian Jews are to be considered undesirable in Arab countries. They should be prohibited and refused as long as their production in Palestine might lead to the realization of Zionist political aims.”

Even though most Arab countries have stopped enforcing the boycott – the only exceptions now being Syria and Lebanon – the Central Boycott Office remains.

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The UN Human Rights Council vs. the Palestinian People - by Dr. Edy Cohen

By targeting Israeli companies that employ mostly Palestinians, the UN Human Rights Council only helps to keep the latter in poverty—an end that serves the interests of the corrupt Palestinian Authority, which the UN automatically supports.

Dr. Edy Cohen..
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,462..
28 February '20..
Link: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/united-nations-palestinian-people/..

In a blatant capitulation to the BDS movement, The UN Human Rights Council has published a list of 112 Israeli businesses linked to Jewish West Bank neighborhoods in an effort to stigmatize those businesses and encourage their boycott. This highly politicized decision will not hurt Israel, as it was intended to do, but will instead undermine the livelihood of the many Palestinians who—due to the lack of sufficient employment opportunities in Palestinian-governed areas—earn their living by working for those very Israeli businesses.

The UN has thus inflicted yet another economic blow in a series of such blows suffered by the Palestinian people. The Palestinian Authority (PA) declined an invitation to participate in the US-led economic conference in Bahrain in June 2019 and rejected the economic incentives offered in President Trump’s “Deal of a Century” without even hearing them. Trump’s proposal, dismissed by the PA out of hand, included, among many other benefits, plans to naturalize Palestinian refugees currently living in subsistence conditions in surrounding Arab states. The UN only adds to the Palestinians’ suffering by causing harm to one of their sources of income.

The PA’s wholesale violation of the Oslo Accords of the 1990s only worsened the economic position of the Palestinians living in today’s areas A and B. Many of them still reminisce about the more prosperous days when Israelis would come to their villages as well to Gaza to buy Palestinian products. All that changed with the stroke of a pen when the Accords birthed the PA and granted it authority over economic and social policy in areas A and B.

The establishment of Palestinian economic autonomy was intended to improve the prospects for prosperity and significantly improve the Palestinians’ quality of life. Despite good intentions, exactly the opposite came to pass. The PA’s incompetent and corrupt governance led to the deterioration of Palestinian quality of life and increased poverty while allowing cronies to steal public resources and exchange political favors for personal benefit. It’s no wonder that many Palestinians long for the days before Oslo.

The Israeli economy is the driving force behind Palestinian economic growth. The average salary of Palestinians working in Israel is several times the wage of Palestinians working in areas controlled by the PA, and the industrial area in the West Bank serves as a source of income for thousands of Palestinians. Palestinians work side by side with Israelis in Mishor Adumim, Shahak, Hinanit, Shaked, Ariel, Kiryat Arba, and elsewhere. Regrettably, all of this is likely to change if the UN decision has its intended impact on the Israeli companies being boycotted.

About 200,000 Palestinians earned their living last year by working in Israel and Israeli companies in the West Bank. Most are employed by the companies the UN seeks to boycott. These Palestinians look beyond ideology: they simply want to earn a decent living to support their families. Moreover, they strengthen and contribute much to Israel’s economy.

The U.N.’s lofty crusade against supermarkets and gas stations - by Evelyn Gordon

...the real danger comes from the way this blacklist cheapens the very idea of human rights. According to the U.N. Human Rights Council, there is effectively no difference between mass murder and selling groceries; both raise “particular human rights concerns.” That’s a standard that no minimally moral human being could take seriously. It turns “human rights concerns” into a laughingstock, and thereby undermines respect for all human rights, even the genuine ones.

Evelyn Gordon..
JNS.org..
19 February '20..

If you want to understand just how outrageous the U.N. blacklist of businesses operating in Israeli “settlements” really is, forget for a moment about its anti-Israel bias and its warping of international law, important though these issues are. Instead, simply evaluate it on its own terms, as a compilation of companies engaged in “activities that raised particular human rights concerns.”

So what horrendous activities do these 112 companies engage in? Well, there are several supermarket chains, which sell groceries to both Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank, Golan Heights and eastern Jerusalem. There are several fuel companies, which operate gas stations where both Israelis and Palestinians fill up their cars.

There are several bus and rail companies, which provide public transportation used by Israelis and Palestinians alike. There are phone companies (cell and landline) that provide general communications services. There are banks, which provide basic banking services. There’s a water company, which provides potable drinking water and sewage solutions.

There are also several food and clothing manufacturers, like General Mills, Angel Bakeries and Delta Galil, whose crime seems to consist of nothing but the fact that their cereals, bread and underwear can be found on supermarket shelves in the West Bank, Golan Heights and eastern Jerusalem.

In short, almost all the companies on the blacklist simply provide the most fundamental human necessities—food, water, transportation, communication. Some of these are defined by the United Nations itself as inalienable rights: Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “everyone” has a right to “food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services”; there’s no asterisk saying “except for settlers.” Others, like transportation and communication, aren’t considered rights, but they are considered positive goods in any other context.

In contrast, the United Nations...

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Evelyn Gordon is a journalist and commentator living in Israel.

Remembering the Failure of the Arab League Blacklist - by Mitchell Bard

Today, most people are unaware that the Arab boycott still exists, though few Arab countries enforce it and several Gulf states now have discrete economic relations with Israel. The lesson is that Israel has grown and thrived for almost 62 years despite a boycott which, at one time, was applied to thousands of companies around the world; it is not going to be destroyed by the BDS movement, even with the support of the UN and the blacklisting of a relative handful of companies.

Mitchell Bard..
Algemeiner..
19 February '20..

The UN Human Rights Council (HRC) has just published a database of companies operating in Judea, Samaria, and eastern Jerusalem. The intention is to create a blacklist of companies that can be targeted for boycotting.

The HRC’s action is outrageous and deserves condemnation, but hysteria is unwarranted. The BDS movement’s campaign to destroy Israel will fail. To understand why, let’s recall the history of the Arab League boycott.

Like the BDS movement, the Arab League boycott was fundamentally antisemitic. We know this because it was instituted in 1945 before the establishment of Israel, and because it explicitly said that “Jewish products and manufactured goods shall be considered undesirable to the Arab countries.” All Arab “institutions, organizations, merchants, commission agents, and individuals” were called upon “to refuse to deal in, distribute, or consume Zionist products or manufactured goods.” As in the case of BDS, the terms “Jewish” and “Zionist” were used synonymously.

Today, some members of Congress are resisting legislation targeting the BDS movement, but as far back as 1959, the Senate adopted an amendment opposing foreign aid to countries that discriminate against Americans on the grounds of religion. The primary motivation for this and other early legislative efforts was the Arabs’ policy of refusing visas to American Jews and, more specifically, the Saudis’ refusal to permit Jews to be stationed at the United States’ base at Dhahran.

In 1960, Congress adopted the Douglas-Keating “Freedom of the Seas” amendment, which said “the peace of the world is endangered” when nations receiving US aid “wage economic warfare against other nations assisted under the Act; including such procedures as boycotts, blockades, and the restriction of the use of international waterways.” Five years later, Congress adopted a broader regulation that held that US policy opposed “restrictive trade practices or boycotts fostered or imposed by countries against other countries friendly to the United States.”

Israel and its allies are justifiably upset that the HRC released a blacklist of 112 companies. This is trivial, however, compared to the scale of the Arab League blacklist.

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Mitchell Bard is Executive Director of AICE and Jewish Virtual Library.

A New One for the Books: The 'Crime' of Arabs Singing to Arabs in Israel - by Khaled Abu Toameh

The controversy surrounding the performance of the Jordanian singer in an Arab town in Israel showcases how bizarre anti-Israel activists around the world have become. As always, Israel's enemies are ready to hurt Arabs in order to advance their anti-Israel agenda. When an Arab visiting an Arab has become an act of "treason" that "serves the interests of the Zionist enemy," we know that we are in for a big performance.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
21 January '20..

Here is a new one for the books: An Arab singer stands up to perform in front of an Arab audience, and the anti-Israel brigade goes berserk.

What has so inflamed the Israel haters this time?

The singer is Aziz Maraka, a Jordanian composer, performer, recording artist, and producer. The audience are Arab citizens of Israel from the town of Kafr Yasif in the Northern District of Israel.

Maraka, who was invited last month to entertain Arab citizens of Israel during the annual Christmas Market festival in Kafr Yasif, has been facing widespread criticism and a shaming campaign on social media for agreeing to perform in Israel.

Never mind that Maraka, an Arab, was invited by Arabs to a Christmas event in an Arab town. Never mind that Maraka was not invited by any Israeli private or public institution. Never mind that Maraka did not perform before a Jewish audience.

None of that matters to the anti-Israel groups and individuals who are slandering the Jordanian singer and accusing him of "treason" and "promoting normalization" with Israel. The campaign of hate against Maraka shows that those who are calling for boycotting Israel care nothing about the well-being or interests of Arabs, including the two million Arab citizens of Israel.

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Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem, is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at Gatestone Institute.

The very ugly truth about BDS and campus anti-Semitism - by Jonathan S. Tobin

“The New Anti-Semites” should make for sobering reading for Jews and other Americans who may dislike Trump, yet still want to support the fight against anti-Semitism. There is no way to defend or rationalize the BDS movement without being compromised by its anti-Semitic purpose, discourse and conduct. Those who oppose Trump’s order may claim they are defending the moral high ground and free speech, but they are actually rolling in the mud with the worst sort of anti-Semites and supporters of terrorism.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
17 December '19..

In the week since President Donald Trump’s signing of an executive order about enforcing Title VI protections of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to Jewish students subjected to anti-Semitism on college campuses, efforts to discredit the move have continued to be heard. Both left-wing groups and their cheerleaders in the mainstream media, like The New York Times, are working to create the impression that the government’s determination to protect students against hate from the BDS movement is a controversial scheme that will repress free speech and hurt Jewish students more than it will help them.

The order was opposed by openly anti-Zionist groups such as IfNotNow and Jewish Voices for Peace, as well as J Street, which still claims to be pro-Israel but whose links to the anti-Trump resistance obligate it to oppose just about anything the president does. The two separate features published by the Times in the past few days on the topic show just how determined some in the media are to portray support for BDS on college campuses as idealistic activism endangered by a repressive administration. BDS backers were portrayed sympathetically, and the articles quoted more Jewish opponents of Trump’s decision than supporters.

As far as Trump’s critics are concerned, the talk of campus anti-Semitism from both the government and mainstream Jewish groups that support the order, including some that are deeply critical of Trump, like the Anti-Defamation League, is a subterfuge whose true aim is to suppress voices of dissent on Israel. But a new report titled “The New Anti-Semites,” authored by Marc Greendorfer of the Zachor Legal Institute and published by StopAntisemitism.org, is a powerful antidote to the disinformation about BDS being spread by those who wish to undermine efforts by the U.S. Department of Education to enforce the law and protect Jewish students.

The report is required reading for all those whose view of the issue is distorted by their distaste for Trump. It examines in excruciating detail the numerous incidents of anti-Semitic incitement related to the BDS movement around the world and in the United States, including those involving Students for Justice in Palestine, the group that the Times attempts to whitewash.

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Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS—Jewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter at @jonathans_tobin.

Pick the Prefix: Racist, Sexist, Homophobic, Reactionary, Totalitarian Palestine - by Divest This

Perhaps it is our general wussiness that keeps us on the course of dialog, discussion, argument, persuasion and compromise, rather than jumping into the sewer with those who have made it their life’s work to see the world’s one Jewish state dismantled. Although given the state of Israel and the Jewish world – vulnerable though it might be – versus the hell on earth Israel’s enemies have constructed for themselves, perhaps hanging on to our humanity is a wise strategic, as well as a moral choice.

Divest This..
12 December '19..

It dawned on me that all of Israel’s friends and defenders have been wasting our time over the last several decades.

Instead of writing thoughtful essays that provide facts and perspectives while making the case for the Jewish state, or organizing talks, educational programs or other campaigns that present arguments in favor of our cause or against our foes, we could all have spent that time doing something much simpler, so simple that it requires almost no thought.

So what could we have been doing, rather than bombarding the world with longwinded explanations based on facts and logic?

The answer is simplicity itself, and so easy to implement. For all it would involve would be to never use the term Palestine or Palestinian without first prefixing it with the string of pejoratives titling this piece.

We would not have to be mindless robots uttering the same phrase over and over again. Certainly whenever we find ourselves in debate, we would make sure the words “racist, sexist, homophobic, reactionary, totalitarian” precede the use of any reference to Palestine, Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas (and maybe their friends and allies throughout the Middle East). But we could get creative with the ways we slip those words into the discussion over and over and over again. For instance:

Comparative: Yes, there is a difference between the racist, sexist, homophobic, reactionary, totalitarian, corrupt Palestinian authority and the racist, sexist, homophobic, reactionary, totalitarian, religious fanatics in Hamas. But the two have important things in common: they’re both racist, sexist, homophobic, reactionary totalitarians.

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HRW's Shakir Is No Human Rights Defender - by Becca Wertman

At best, Shakir has abused his platform to promote discriminatory BDS campaigns aimed at delegitimizing the Jewish State. At worst, Shakir “stands with” an NGO linked to an internationally designated terrorist organization, instead of the innocent children murdered by the terrorists.

Becca Wertman..
TOI Blog..
25 November '19..
Link: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/shakir-is-no-human-rights-defender

On November 5, Israel’s Supreme Court rejected the demand that Israel renew a work visa for Human Right Watch’s (HRW) local representative, ending a nearly two-year long legal ordeal. The decision confirmed that Shakir has been a consistent and active promoter of BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanction) campaigns against Israel for years –grounds for denying entry into the country.

Whether or not you agree with the merits of Israel’s BDS law, ample evidence shows that Shakir overtly promotes boycotts and sanctions against Israel. This includes his efforts to have FIFA sanction the Israel Football Association, supporting US legislation to sanction Israel by restricting military aid, and his involvement with HRW’s ongoing BDS campaign targeting Airbnb and Booking.com.

Without missing a beat, HRW and Shakir’s loyal supporters have cried out in the defense of their beloved “human rights defender” who is being “deported.” However, putting his obsession with Israel aside, Shakir’s human rights priorities appear to be highly questionable, at best.

On August 23, 2019, Israeli 17-year-old Rina Shnerb was brutally murdered when a terrorist hurled an explosive device at her and her family, injuring her father and brother, while they were hiking. A Palestinian by the name of Samer Arbid, who worked in a financial role at the NGO Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) and had previously served in a similar capacity at Addameer, was later arrested for his leading role in making, planting, and setting off the explosive device. It would seem impossible for a true human rights organization or activist to ignore this horrific incident of violence, terror, and the exploitation of human rights organizations. Yet this is exactly what Shakir did.

Despite the fact that Shakir always seems to make time for attacking Israel on his Twitter account, this self-proclaimed human rights defender apparently failed to craft even a few characters to condemn this clear violation of human rights. There were no calls for an investigation into the incident, no condemnation of the overt violation of the rights of the child, and no cries denouncing the abhorrent abuse of the universal human right to life.

However, when it comes to defending the terrorist and affiliates of the terrorist organization he belonged to, Shakir’s words flow.

The ‘Labeling’ of Israel as an unequal player on the world stage - by Melanie Phillips

The European Court of Justice has discriminated against Jews by singling out Israeli businesses from Arab ones. Its ruling is deeply politicized and disreputable, owing everything to boilerplate European prejudice against Israel, and nothing to law and justice.

Melanie Phillips..
JNS.com..
14 November '19..

As Israel came under attack this week with hundreds of rockets raining down from Gaza, and as it steeled itself for even worse, the Israel-bashers were up to their old tricks.

On Tuesday, the European Court of Justice issued its ruling in the Psagot winery case.

It said that the origin of any foodstuffs, such as Psagot wine, made in an Israeli settlement in the “occupied territories” must be described as such. This was to enable consumers to make “ethical considerations and considerations relating to the observance of international law,” which could “influence consumers’ purchasing decisions.”

What’s unethical here is not the behavior of Israel but the ECJ. Singling out Israel like this creates a discriminatory double standard. No other country with a territorial dispute or whose behavior is subject to criticism has its products labeled in this way.

As Eugene Kontorovich, a scholar of international law, tweeted: “Products around the world are made in many situations that raise ‘ethical’ and legal questions, from Chinese prison labor factories to Moroccan drilling Sahrawi oil. Only such concern that requires labeling in E.U. is Jews living in neighborhoods where they are not ‘supposed’ to be.”

Moreover, the court has discriminated against Jews by singling out Israeli businesses from Arab ones. Its ruling is deeply politicized and disreputable, owing everything to boilerplate European prejudice against Israel, and nothing to law and justice.

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Melanie Phillips, a British journalist, broadcaster and author, writes a weekly column for JNS. Currently a columnist for “The Times of London,” her personal and political memoir, “Guardian Angel,” has been published by Bombardier, which also published her first novel, “The Legacy,” in 2018. Her work can be found at: www.melaniephillips.com.

The True Goal of "Anti-Normalization" With Israel - by Bassam Tawil

They are worried that an Arab who greets a Jew may one day make peace with Israel. They are worried that an Arab state that hosts Israeli athletes may one day make peace with Israel. They are worried that Arabs who go to work in Israel may fall in love with Israelis and stop thinking of ways to kill them or destroy Israel.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
03 October '19..

Arabs who dare to greet Jews in public on the Jewish New Year are being denounced by their fellow Arabs as traitors. Arabs who dare to engage in sports activities with Jews are also being condemned by their fellow Arabs as traitors.

In the past week, many Arabs have taken to social media to express outrage over a Jewish New Year greeting by Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

On September 29, the minister posted on his Twitter account "Shana Tova" ("Good Year" in Hebrew). His greeting to Jews celebrating the Jewish New Year has triggered a wave of condemnations from many Arabs, including Palestinians, who accused the minister of promoting normalization with Israel.

The vicious ad hominem attacks on the UAE foreign minister included prayers that God allow him to burn in hell and several posters comparing him to a monkey. Because of the greeting, the minister is also being denounced as a "Zionist," "war criminal," "dog," "traitor" and "pig."

Some Arabs expressed hope that the UAE will vanish "just like Israel will cease to exist."

Others seized the opportunity to remind the "shameless" minister of the Qur'an verse (Al-Ma'idah, 51) that says:

"O you who believe, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are allies of one to another (when against you), and whoso from amongst you takes them for allies, is indeed one of them."

The attacks on the UAE foreign minister came as many Arab social media users strongly condemned Qatar for allowing Israeli athletes to participate in the 2019 World Athletics Championship, held at the Khalifa International Stadium in Doha from September 27- October 6.

The presence of the Israeli athletes in Qatar drew sharp criticism from many Arabs, who expressed outrage on social media through a hashtag titled, "Normalization is Treason."

Qatar has been accused by its Arab neighbors, including Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies, of sponsoring and funding the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and extremist groups such as Hamas, the Palestinian terror group ruling the Gaza Strip.

Qatar's alleged support and financing of extremist groups, however, has not spared it criticism from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the second-largest terror group in the Gaza Strip. In recent months, Qatar has been playing a role in preventing all-out war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas. The Qataris have also been delivering millions of dollars in cash to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as part of an effort to boost the Palestinian economy there and help poor and unemployed Palestinians.

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BDS, the new face of the old antisemitism: What will we do to stop it? - by Adam Milstein

BDS is the new face of the old antisemitism, and when it comes to fighting antisemitism, the old adage “better late than never” is particularly apt for our moment. It’s time for us all to get to work.

Adam Milstein..
adammilstein.org..
02 October '19..

The dishonest proponents of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement have long claimed that they simply aim to further human rights. For years, they were able to recruit many progressives including Jews to support and justify their campaigns. Yet, in recent weeks, the true nature of this hate movement has been acknowledged in unprecedented ways.

After more than a decade of deception, new evidence is being presented by a range of governments, international organizations, and media outlets to show that BDS is nothing but a front for anti-Semitic hate groups and terrorists that seek nothing less than the destruction of the State of Israel. It is the new face of the old antisemitism. The world is just waking up to this horrifying truth, which sheds light on what America can do to address this growing hatred around the world.

On September 24, 2019, the United Nations — a body with no love for Israel and a well-documented history of bias against the Jewish State — released an unprecedented report on the worldwide spread of anti-Semitism. The UN acknowledged that anti-Semitism is growing around the world, wearing one of three faces: on the far left, the far right, and among radical Islamists. In the report, the UN recognizes for the first time that “the objectives, activities, and effects of the BDS movement are fundamentally anti-Semitic.”

The next day, the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy released a landmark report “Behind the Mask – the Antisemitic Nature of BDS Exposed that reveals the rampant antisemitism within the BDS movement, including its calls for violence against Jews and the dismantlement of Israel. The report demonstrates how the BDS movement has intensified hatred against Jews around the world and provides 80 examples of antisemitism by key activists in the BDS movement. It documents the true face of BDS: a 15-year-old campaign that promotes demonization and delegitimization of the State of Israel, and, in so doing, has exacerbated antisemitic rhetoric against Jews worldwide.

It followed another bombshell Israeli government report from earlier this year, titled “Terrorists in Suits”, which revealed more than 100 different connections linking Palestinian terrorist groups to BDS organizations.

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Adam Milstein is an Israeli-American Philanthropreneur. He can be reached at adam@milsteinff.org, on Twitter @AdamMilstein, and on Facebook www.facebook.com/AdamMilsteinCP.

Who Would've Thought? A BDS Defeat The NY Times Found Not Fit to Print - by Ira Stoll

...There’s a structural bias to journalism encapsulated in the old newsroom saying, “write about the hotel that’s burning down, not the hotel that didn’t burn down.” So to some degree the decision by Times editors to emphasize the boycott votes that pass rather than the ones that fail may be driven by a general desire to focus on news that does happen rather than news that doesn’t happen. But that’s the most generous possible face to put on what operates functionally as an anti-Israel bias.

Ira Stoll..
Algemeiner..
23 September '19..

Some of the most telling stories are the ones The New York Times doesn’t print.

In that category falls the recent decision of a section of the American Political Science Association to reject a resolution calling for a boycott of Israel.

Miriam Elman, a political scientist on leave from Syracuse University who is the executive director of the Academic Engagement Network, which opposes boycotts of Israel, wrote a Facebook post reporting, “The proponents of a discriminatory anti-Israel academic boycott resolution (and its accompanying obnoxious FAQ) experienced a colossal defeat.”

She wrote, “This spectacular fail needs to be advertised WIDELY, as we all know that BDS zealots will either try to bury it or spin this as some kind of remarkable victory”

“Bury it” was precisely the approach The New York Times took to the news.

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Eradicating the industry of lies. Bringing BDS to its knees - by Ariel Kahana

After five years, the Strategic Affairs Ministry has the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement on the defensive after it exposed the movement's anti-Semitic character and direct links to terrorism.

Ariel Kahana..
Israel Hayom..
17 August '19..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/2019/08/17/bringing-bds-to-its-knees/

It's not every day you hear a confession like this in the European Parliament in Brussels. In a low voice, in fluent English, Khaled Barakat – who defines himself as a "Palestinian writer" – says, "Right now, I live in Germany. [But] on June 22, I was supposed to speak at an event and I was arrested by the German police, who told me that I couldn't speak. … This is an attack on our call to boycott Israel. The government ministry that is fighting us in Europe is the Strategic Affairs Ministry, headed by the racist right-wing Gilad Erdan."

After Barakat, his wife, Charlotte Kates, who is proud of being "the international coordinator for the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network," speaks. Kates told the EU Parliament that "the attack on Khaled we witnessed is only the latest in a series of consistent attacks." She then proceeded to detail each one.

"The campaign ultimately seeks to criminalize Palestinian writers, journalists, human rights defenders, social activists, and leaders of corporations, who are being accused one after the other of being 'terrorists in suits.' But we know that the true 'terrorists in suits' are sitting in the White House, in Tel Aviv, and in effect, here in Europe," Kates says.

Kates and Barakat, of course, are far from being noble human rights activists. He is a member of the steering committee for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terrorist organization that is responsible for – among other things – the murder of the late minister Rehavam Zeevi. The Samidoun organization that Kates heads unites terrorists who have served prison time in Israel for proven terrorist activity. So they, like the rest of the BDS industry, are under new pressure now that the truth about them is being exposed.

Threats are no longer scary

Six months ago, the Strategic Affairs Ministry, which is leading Israel's fight against the BDS movement, launched a campaign called "Terrorists in Suits," which includes detailed information about BDS activists' direct ties to terrorist groups. Journalists, legal scholars, diplomats, and lawmakers have been provided with material that shows "how terrorist operatives have become legitimate operatives in civil society organizations worldwide." The Israeli pressure, which is mainly directed at Western Europe, has produced results, as Barakat and Kates' words show. Salah Hawajeh – another terrorist freed from prison in Israel – said that "the biggest threat to the boycott campaign against Israel is the 'Terrorists in Suits' report."

At the Strategic Affairs Ministry, people were rubbing their hands in satisfaction. The remarks above showed the pressure the BDS movement is under. After four years of the ministry's activity, which including learning while doing and making adjustments along the way, BDS is on the defensive, and Israel and its supporters are taking the offense.

BDS activists are being deported. Bank accounts ties to the movement are being shut down. A harshly-worded resolution against BDS passed in the US House of Representatives by a huge majority. Most US states have already approved sanctions against BDS. The German Bundestag has outlawed it. Two years ago, the Swiss Parliament passed an identical resolution. The leaders of Canada and Britain have decided that BDS is anti-Semitic. International companies are expanding their activity in Israel and are uncowed by BDS threats. The same goes for performing artists. The Eurovision pop music competition took place in Tel Aviv despite an enormous push by Palestinians to interfere.

To sum-up, “You don’t have a right to exist. May we come in?” - by Victor Rosenthal

...My regular readers know that I have strong opinions about the value of an aggressively Zionist ideology, and the need for Israel to assert herself in the public sphere. I don’t know if the concept of national honor entered into Netanyahu’s calculations of how to respond to the proposed visit, but if it didn’t, it should have. Israel’s self-respect demands that we don’t allow people like Tlaib and Omar to use us as a doormat. And her self-interest tells us to minimize their opportunities for political theater against us.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
18 August '19..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2019/08/you-dont-have-a-right-to-exist-may-we-come-in/

It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib to visit. – Donald Trump

If you kill your enemies, they win – not said by Justin Trudeau, but could have been

Sometimes you have a non-issue that everyone wants to be an issue. That is what the controversy about the non-visit (at least as of now) by anti-Israel US congresspersons Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar to Israel (which they call “Palestine”) is.

This was a cognitive warfare operation against us that was guaranteed to be successful. Israel had to make the decision to either refuse admission to them on the grounds that they are BDS supporters, or to make an exception because they are members of Congress. Either way, we lose.

The operation was designed by Tlaib and Omar not only to harm Israel, but to achieve several domestic political goals: drawing attention to themselves, raising the profile of the “Palestine issue” in the coming election campaign, embarrassing the more moderate elements in their party, and of course slapping at the president.

PM Benjamin Netanyahu – he made the decision himself – had to consider the possible damage from banning them, in which case Israel would be accused of acting “undemocratically,” of weakness (“can’t face criticism”), of “insulting the US Congress,” of “having something to hide,” and needless to say, of “racism” in “singling out” these two Muslim women. All of these accusations and more have been made.

But allowing them in would have given them a stage for acts of political theater, even possibly the creation of international incidents.

Netanyahu examined the various scenarios, considering intelligence information about the plans of the two and of Palestinian groups here. He also had to take into account President Trump’s public opposition to the visit, and whatever private threats or promises Trump may have made. Netanyahu decided that the best of two poor options was to keep them out.

It was not an easy or obvious decision, and anyone not fully informed of all the facts would have been foolish to second-guess it. The pair planned a visit to the town of Nabi Saleh, a place that hosted weekly marches from 2009-2016 to protest against (and try to tear down) the security fence. These marches usually included violent clashes with local residents, extremist left-wing Israeli supporters, and foreign activists on one side, and IDF soldiers under heavily restrictive rules of engagement on the other. This is where young Ahed Tamimi famously slapped and kicked a soldier (video). One can only imagine the theatrical events that may have been scripted to occur.

Surprise! New York Times Stumbles on BDS Antisemitism

The New York Times finally acknowledges that BDS opposes Israel's existence, but seems to ask: Is that so bad?

CAMERA.org..
30 July '19..

The New York Times has long history of whitewashing the extremism of the BDS movement.

BDS stands for “boycotts, divestment, and sanctions,” and the BDS campaign seeks to leverage those tools to eliminate Israel and replace it with an Arab-majority state.

Although BDS leaders openly admit they seek to disenfranchise Jews by eliminating the country’s Jewish majority — BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti has admitted his goal is “a unitary state where, by definition, Jews will be a minority” — the Times has consistently downplayed the movement’s goals by reporting, for example, that BDS merely “seeks to pressure Israel into ending the occupation of the West Bank,” or that the its activists are simply “critical of Israel’s policies toward the West Bank.”

Language of this type had prompted Tablet’s Yair Rosenberg to charge the paper with having “dramatically misrepresented [BDS’s] stated aims and implicit goals, whitewashing the movement’s radicalism.”

Another Whitewash?

Days after the U.S. House of Representatives delivered an overwhelming, bipartisan rebuke to BDS with a 398-17 vote explicitly opposing “the Global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement,” the New York Times jumped in with a piece titled “Is B.D.S. Anti-Semitic? A Closer Look at the Boycott Israel Campaign.”

The piece purports to provide “answers to some of the most difficult questions” about BDS. And this time, the paper did manage to acknowledge that the campaign opposes the existence of the Jewish state, an improvement over earlier coverage that falsely cast the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement as merely anti-occupation. In that respect, at least, it is a needed improvement. Still, the article relies on distortions and omissions to make BDS extremism more palatable to readers.

Throughout the piece, reporters David Halbfinger, Michael Wines, and Steven Erlanger put their fingers on the scales in support of BDS, including by:

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The Many Levels of Hypocrisy in BDS - And Will You Have Fries With That? (Daled Amos)

How widespread is this use of Israeli products by members of BDS? Consider Omar Barghouti, one of the BDS leaders.

Daled Amos..
Elder of Ziyon..
29 July '19..

In a recent post, Elder of Ziyon pointed out an ignored truth about the campaign to boycott Israel: BDS isn't about boycotts. It is about turning Israel into a pariah state.

Even BDSers admit that they choose their targets of boycott for maximum leverage and publicity, even as they use Israeli products themselves. The boycotts are indeed a sideshow to their real aim - to have average people associate Israel with racism and apartheid.

By repeating the lies that Zionism is racism, Israel is an apartheid state, Israel must be boycotted for human rights abuses, and so on - over and over again - it makes an impression on college students and people who don't follow Israel closely.

When an artist boycotts Israel, it makes a huge impression on people who want to identify as supporting social justice.

When an academic group calls to boycott Israel, it puts an aura of respectability on hating Israel.

BDS is a tactic, it is not a movement whose goal is to remake Israel as the previous boycott movement was capable of forcing change on the level it did with South Africa.

And the strategy behind that tactic is publicity.

Now more than ever, especially in the age of social media, it is possible to reach people without having to engage the mainstream media, who in the past were the gatekeepers who could to a larger degree control who got access to the public audience.

When small groups like If Not Now want attention, they stand outside and say Kaddish for Hamas terrorists -- not Jews who were murdered by terrorists -- because that is what gets attention, and it is that attention that is the crucial oxygen to breathe life into the membership and create the attention that such movements need.

Recently on Twitter, it was pointed out that both Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar -- vocal supporters for boycotting Israel -- used Israeli technology, Wix, for their website:

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The New York Times Inquires ‘Is BDS Anti-Semitic?’ - by Ira Stoll

It’s often a bad sign when an article fails to answer the question in the headline. The Times waffles. In a section headed, “Is B.D.S. anti-Semitic?” the article reports, “Leaders of B.D.S. insist that it is not anti-Semitic… But many Israelis and American Jews say it is.” That’s not particularly helpful. In a different section, the Times article does eventually concede, “There is some overlap between support for B.D.S. and anti-Semitism.” What a coincidence!

Ira Stoll..
Algemeiner..
28 July '19..

The New York Times devotes a full page in its Sunday newspaper to a deeply flawed look at the movement to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel.

Given all the advance work that usually goes into a long Sunday feature, you’d think the Times could be troubled to get the facts right the first time around. Yet by Sunday morning, the Times article already carried a two part correction: “An earlier version of this article incorrectly described the status of legislation in Ireland concerning goods produced by Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Ireland has advanced legislation to ban the import of those goods, it has not banned them. Also, the article misstated the status of Omar Barghouti, a B.D.S. spokesman. He is a Palestinian resident of Israel, not a citizen.”

That correction, though, only scratches the surface in terms of the problems with the Times article, which extend well beyond the errors that were corrected.

The so-far-uncorrected problems begin with first sentence, which claims, “In a matter of months, a campaign to boycott Israel has moved from the margins of politics — liberal college campuses and protest marches — to Congress.” Yet the overwhelming Congressional vote was to condemn the BDS campaign, indicating that the campaign remains marginal. And, far from being a recent phenomenon as the phrase “a matter of months” indicates, the effort to boycott Israel, and Jews, dates back to before Israel even existed. Laws forbidding American companies from cooperating with such boycotts were passed in 1976 and 1977, a fact the Times almost invariably ignores in its coverage attempting to hype the boycott as some sort of innovative, new, or recent development.

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Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. More of his media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.

Fighting the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) Movement (Part I) - by Victor Rosenthal

If BDS does not damage Israel’s economy – and Israel’s success since the initiation of the movement in the early 2000s shows that it doesn’t – and if its demands are so extreme that they will never be met, then what is its true objective?

Victor Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
22 July '19..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2019/07/fighting-bds-part-i/

The Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel has not been an effective economic weapon. It has had few victories and numerous defeats. I think that’s probably because market forces are stronger than ideological ones, at least among the populations that make decisions with economic impact. But I don’t think it’s intended to do economic damage.

Some people think that BDS is a nonviolent way to pressure an intransigent Israeli government to stop “oppressing the Palestinians.” That this is not the case is clear from the conditions that the BDS movement has set for the removal of its boycott. They are

 1. Withdrawal from all territories occupied in 1967 and removal of the security barrier.
 2. Giving “full equality” to Arab citizens of Israel.
 3. Recognizing a right of return for the descendants of Arab refugees.

The first is inconsistent with Israel’s survival from a security standpoint, and the last is inconsistent with it from a demographic one. The second condition is interesting, since Arab citizens already have full civil rights; so the demand is for national rights, which would mean that Israel (or whatever it would be called) would no longer be a Jewish state, but a state of all its citizens.

Accepting these conditions would result in the replacement of the Jewish state by an Arab-majority state. Practically speaking, this could not occur non-violently. It would certainly result in civil war and, if the Arabs were successful, expulsion and/or genocide for Israel’s Jews.

Israel will never agree to these demands. It would literally be national suicide, and everyone, Jews and Arabs, knows that. But the demands of BDS are not intended to be acceptable. They are intended to make it possible for the BDS movement to continue for as long as its leaders wish it to.

If BDS does not damage Israel’s economy – and Israel’s success since the initiation of the movement in the early 2000s shows that it doesn’t – and if its demands are so extreme that they will never be met, then what is its true objective?

BDS and the Human Shields of the New Anti-Semitism - by Prof. Asa Kasher

The human shields of the terrorists are not terrorists but nor are they harmless civilians, from the standpoint of the struggle against terror. Ultimately, there is no choice but to act against the voluntary human shields, even with military means, to defend oneself as necessary against the terrorists. The human shields of the new anti-Semitism are not anti-Semites but nor are they harmless civilians, from the standpoint of the struggle against the new anti-Semitism. Ultimately, there is no choice but to act against them, with diplomatic, legal, and economic means, to defend oneself as necessary against the new anti-Semitism.

Prof. Asa Kasher.. 

Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.. 

27 June '19..

I understand the mindset of the Israelis who came to the defense of the BDS movement in response to Germany’s anti-BDS resolution.1 They remind me of the Palestinians in Gaza who come to the defense of the terrorists of Hamas in response to Israeli activity against them. Although there are important differences between the two, the similarity in mindset is profound and clearly evident.

Those who stand on the roof of a building in Gaza, seeking to hamper Israel’s efforts to defend itself against the terrorists operating within the building, are not terrorists. They are not there to kill Israelis themselves. They are there to express a basic identification with the terrorists, with their goals, and with the violent, terrorist means that they employ. When they are there, they hamper the struggle against terror and thereby strengthen terror, and they become participants in the danger that terror creates for the soldiers and civilians of Israel.

Those who come to the defense of the BDS movement in response to Germany’s resolution are not anti-Semites. They do not do so to discriminate against Jews, whether in Europe or the United States. They do so to express a basic identification with a movement that is sullied by anti-Semitism, with its goals and with the malevolent, anti-Semitic means that it employs. When they take a stand there, they hamper the struggle against the new anti-Semitism and thereby strengthen it, and they become participants in the danger that anti-Semitism creates for Jews and for all aspects of their lives.

Identification with the BDS movement is immoral. It is not part of a general struggle against various instances in which one nation-state’s forces are present in the territory of a different nation. This movement has no interest in what happens in Tibet. It has no interest in what happens in the Crimean Peninsula. It has no interest in what happens in Western Sahara. It is interested solely in the presence of the nation-state of the Jewish people in a disputed territory. To take an operative interest in a single situation while fundamentally and perpetually ignoring all the comparable situations is a form of racism. A racist mindset toward Jews is called anti-Semitism. The racist mindset toward Israel is the new anti-Semitism. Those who stand against Germany’s resolution are standing up for it.

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Prof. Asa Kasher is the Laura Schwarz-Kipp Professor Emeritus of Professional Ethics and Philosophy of Practice and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Tel Aviv University in Israel. In 2000, Professor Kasher was awarded the Israel Prize for his work in philosophy and ethics. Prof. Kasher is author of the IDF's Code of Ethics.