Last Sunday the New York Times ran a front-page attack on campus BDS campaigns–boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel–by characterizing BDS as a movement driven by minorities’ “hostility” toward privileged Jews, in a word, anti-Semitic.
The article again and again said that BDS targets Jews– “Where can I send my kids that will be safe for them as Jews?” asks one college administrator — and never quoted a Jew who supports BDS. Though there was a mention of Jewish Voice for Peace, which does.
Well, showing up the Times, the Forward, the Jewish publication, has not one but two pieces saying there are Jews in BDS.
First there’s this long piece, called, “Birthright paves path to BDS for some Jewish participants.” Lots of Jews who go on the free indoctrination trip to Israel (funded by Sheldon Adelson and Norman Braman) observe outright racism there and wind up boycotting the place. Naomi Daron of Haaretz wrote:
[Sam Sussman’s] group didn’t meet one Israeli Arab or Palestinian, and met maybe one or two Israelis who didn’t espouse right-wing views.
Sussman isn’t the only American to visit Israel on a Birthright or similar program and return filled with questions that morph into criticism. Many of these young people I spoke with say that after Birthright they became activists in left-wing organizations. They reflect the way some people see Israel when visiting for the first time — as well as young American Jews’ changing relationship with the land of their ancestors…
When [Chris Godshall] returned to the United States he volunteered for Jewish Voice for Peace, which works against the occupation and seeks to expand Jewish organizations’ dialogue with Israel. It supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel…
As Godshall puts it, “I need to thank Birthright for the understanding that Israel is connected to me, but I’m sure they didn’t intend to push me into supporting BDS.”
He says he’s not happy with the idea that Israel represents him in its actions. “My goal is still to identify with my Jewish identity, but to do so I have to take part in a movement that excludes Israel from this Jewish identity,” he says.
The article could also have mentioned Max Blumenthal, whose path to writing Goliath and leadership in the BDS movement included the promotional trip when he was in his twenties.
Then there’s a second piece in the Forward talking about Jews in BDS, that is actually inspired by the NYT article on BDS: “How American Jews Can Fight the Academic Intifada,” by Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin. The rabbi expresses great alarm over the New York Times report, but he at least recognizes the Jewish presence in the movement– Jews who have “capitulate[d]” to the bad minorities.
This is nothing less than an ethnic and class war. It uses Israel and the Palestinians as a backdrop and an excuse, but its target is clear — Jewish students — some of whom capitulate and join the battle against Israel. These verbal and political attacks cannot help but morph into anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism.
The rabbi says these Jews need an inoculation of Jewish education to survive the ideological onslaught.
Will our young people be prepared for the conversations that they will encounter this fall, right after they start unpacking their bags in their dorm rooms?..
When our young people get to college, they will need to intellectually defend the existence of the state of Israel. If we allow our teenagers to leave our homes without that knowledge and values base, they will enter the world without the inoculation they need against the ignorance and hatred that they will encounter.
It’s Phil’s estimate from attending dozens of campus events that about one in five BDS supporters is Jewish, and the inoculation failed. Shouldn’t the Times have acknowledged as much?
Meantime, the Washington Post practices the same sort of deception in a piece on Christian Zionist efforts to launch a “birthright” program to send young Christian Americans to Israel and Palestine and tell them it’s their inheritance, with the help of the Israeli Embassy:
“As young adults experience Israel firsthand, their faith is strengthened, their knowledge of the Bible is increased and their understanding of the connection between the Bible and the Land of Israel is put on solid ground,” said Steve Green [a sponsor of the trips, from the Hobby Lobby family]
There is not one word in the piece about why Israel feels this need to create ambassadors in the U.S., no mention of the occupation or Israel’s cratering international image, conditions that are turning a lot of young people off and leading many of them to endorse BDS. The Jewish press, the Forward and Haaretz, are giving a far more accurate picture of the world. When will American newspapers trust their readers to hear the facts?
“If we allow our teenagers to leave our homes without that knowledge and values base, they will enter the world without the inoculation they need against the ignorance and hatred that they will encounter. ”
I heard a rumour that an Israeli hi tech firm,(are there any other kind) is working on a “Digital lobotomy catheter” capable of hi speed delete and replace functions.It is thought that a rabid self hating Jew can be reprogrammed in less than two hours.These kids heading off to uni for the first time can be inoculated in less than an hour.
Given the urgency of the situation , the firm is working day and night to increase the speed of these gadgets.
The GOI is financing the entire project, known as “save our children”.
lol, amigo!
Thanks for covering these two stories, gentlemen.
On another note, but very much about BDS:
“A witch hunt with shofars on 59th Street
There is nothing new about protests against progressive groups participating in the Israel Day Parade. But this year, the campaign is far wider.
The protesters lined up in front of the headquarters of the United Jewish Appeal on East 59th Street holding shofars, just as the Manhattan evening rush hour began.
“Shut down the UJA!” A man in a baseball cap shouted, holding a homemade sign.
A few dozen picketers showed up on this summer afternoon for a rally organized by the self-styled JCC Watch and sponsored by Americans for a Safer Israel and the Zionist Organization of America, among other right-wing Jewish organizations; most of the demonstrators wore yarmulkes and baseball caps, T-shirts and jeans. Average age: approximately 60.
“The UJA is supporting groups that call for boycott of Israel, and they’re allowed to march in the Israeli Day Parade [sic],” the speaker at the megaphone announced. Among the groups that purportedly “call for boycott” and which JCC Watch hopes to ban from the scheduled May 31 parade, the New Israel Fund is the main culprit.
On Monday afternoon, protesters were invited to bring their shofars to an “anti-BDS rally”: Perhaps as Joshua once blew a shofar to bring down the walls of Jericho, so too this group intended to bring down the UJA’s midtown building – figuratively, of course. They called for the dismissal of Alisa Doctoroff, President of the UJA Federation of New York, as well as, for some reason, the ADL’s Abe Foxman, who long ago announced his retirement. They are a “terrible shame within our own community,” the protestors cried. “They are fighting for the Other side.
But while the sparsely attended and somewhat eccentric demos of JCC Watch against the participation of progressive groups in the annual Salute to Israel parade have become a largely ineffectual annual ritual, communal Jewish politics have been ruffled far more this year with the wider campaign attacking Doctoroff, one of New York’s most active Jewish philanthropists, for her private support of NIF. The campaign is funded by far-right Islamophobic activist Pamela Geller and her organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, host of the latest Muhammed cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, which was the target of an attack – allegedly sponsored by ISIS – in which the two assailants were killed. Like JCC Watch, Geller’s ads maintain that NIF funds the BDS movement. …
…On the sidelines stood Tuvia Tenenbom, German-Israeli journalist and author of “Catch the Jew!,” a controversial portrait of modern-day Israel and the Palestinian territories. His wife Isi stood next to him, holding a copy of her husband’s book. They were slated to promote the book at several pro-Israel events in New York, but were uninvited in the last minute by some of the community leaders present at the rally, Isi tells.
“One lady convinced the organizations to uninvite us, because the book admits that there is racism in Israel,” Isi says. “It shows Israelis as just people. We are human. In Chapter 7, we asked an Israeli boy if he would ever marry an Ethiopian girl. And he said, ‘No, she’s black, I don’t want her.’ This small story was enough to ban the book.”
Tuvia lit a cigarette. “I am a journalist. These American Jews, they tell me, ‘You can’t touch anything, you must write exactly what I want to see in Israel. Because I have the money.’ Well, I am not for hire. This is journalism. What am I? A PR company?”
Later that night, the Tenenboms would receive an email from the event organizers who had uninvited them, threatening that if they would dare to arrive at the event the organizers would have them arrested.
“American Jews are done for,” Tuvia declared, taking another puff from his cigarette.”
For the rest, behind the wall: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/.premium-1.656165?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Whoa!
“Student troubled by New York Times reporter’s “Jewish litmus test”
Students interviewed for a New York Times article about campus Palestine solidarity activism say they were asked leading and inappropriate questions by reporters. In one case, a student says he was subjected to a troubling “Jewish litmus test.”
The students who spoke to The Electronic Intifada also expressed surprise that none of the statements they gave appeared in what they see as a heavily skewed article, which appeared on Saturday with the headline “Campus Debates on Israel Drive a Wedge Between Jews and Minorities.”
Lead reporter Jennifer Medina, who co-wrote the story with Tamar Lewin and Ronnie Cohen, referred questions to New York Times assistant national editor Jennifer Kingson.
In an email to The Electronic Intifada, Kingson said that Times reporters “behaved professionally and that the story we published was both fair and accurate.”…
…Questions from an iPhone
Paul Hadweh, a Palestinian student at UC Berkeley, met with Ronnie Cohen. His experience corroborates that of the other students: that instead of reporting, the Times was attempting to shape a very specific narrative, looking for anti-Semitism where it didn’t exist.
At one point, according to Hadweh, Cohen told him, “I don’t know how to rephrase these questions so I’m going to read out the questions my editors told me to ask.”
She then pulled out her iPhone and read questions that to Hadweh’s recollection included: To what extent is BDS used as a fig leaf for anti-Semitism? Why is it that you are singling out Israel when there are multiple Arab countries that violate human rights and women’s rights?
Hadweh says that in his responses he stressed that the BDS movement was not about Judaism, but about a settler-colonial project and ending the abuses of military occupation. He also stressed that SJP has members of all faiths and backgrounds, including many Jewish students.
That is a message Times reporters heard consistently from the SJP activists they interviewed – and would certainly hear speaking to students in the Palestine solidarity movement across the country.
But it is not a message that fits with the bogus narrative of Jews on campus besieged by “angry brown and Black students,” as UCLA’s Agatha Palma put it.
The experience has left a dirty feeling that Times reporters attempted to manipulate these students, and when their words didn’t fit a preordained story, their voices were excluded altogether.”
heaps more @- http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/student-troubled-new-york-times-reporters-jewish-litmus-test
David Palumbo- Liu in Salon:
“The New York Times claims BDS is the reason for “a wedge between Jews and minorities” on campus
The Times reduces both Jews and minorities to single, monolithic groups. Of course it’s not that simple
…On May 10, the doyen of New York, and indeed American, newspapers, stooped to such yellow journalism as to garner notice not only across the nation, but also internationally. This is not surprising, for three reasons. First, one of the most valuable plots of New York real estate remains the front page of the New York Times — and that is where the story ran. Second, the story took up a hot-button issue — Israel-Palestine. Third, the headline can justifiably be labeled “race-baiting”: “Campus Debates Drive a Wedge Between Jews and Minorities.”
To really assess just how bad this piece of journalism is, and the cavalier way in which the New York Times engaged in yellow journalism so as to actually exacerbate conditions on U.S. campuses, it’s important to separate myth from reality.”..
The rest: http://www.salon.com/2015/05/12/the_new_york_times_claims_bds_is_the_reason_for_a_wedge_between_jews_and_minorities_on_campus/
~and~
“California Senate mulls new attempt to squash Palestine solidarity
The California legislature is once again attempting to formally conflate opposition to Zionism with anti-Semitism.
California Senate Resolution 35 (SCR 35) urges each of the nine University of California campuses to condemn “all forms of anti-Semitism,” including those “justified…as expressions of disapproval or frustrations over political events in the Middle East.”
On 29 April, the California Senate’s education committee approved the resolution after making two changes recommended by opponents. The resolution must pass in the state Senate before going on to the Assembly for a final vote.”…
more @- http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/california-senate-mulls-new-attempt-squash-palestine-solidarity
53 comments at The Forward in response to the Naomi Daron piece so far, but a Zionist posting as “Scott Graham” may well get the last word. Any suggestions for a good riposte? (I’m also seeking book recommendations: other than Goliath, which I’ve read, what book offers the best systematic description of civil rights abuses against Palestinians?)
“Scott Graham”
First of all druze aren’t required to serve either. But Arabs and druze are welcome to. There are several categories of Jews that are not required to serve or have reduced requirements. Most religious women have the option of alternate non.military service. But everyone is welcome to serve. Most Arabs don’t. In part because some don’t want to but also because draftee pay is about $100-300 per month. For everyone. Some see it as a kindness to arabs, not putting them into a position to fight against family members that may be on the other side or having to take arms subject to military discipline in service of objectives they don’t necessarily agree with. If an Arab wants “status” of serving he or she may sign right up. In this case Arabs actually have more rights than Jews.
Secondly nobody has to take any oath of office to a Jewish state. The traditional oath if office doesnt use that language anyway. This year several Arab mks didn’t. They’ll be seated anyway.
Third no country grants citizenship automatically because of marriage. The us doesn’t even grant residency let alone work permits or green cards without a lengthy process. And in many cases citizenship is ultimately denied. Try getting citizenship in gernamy France or england…Israels laws are a breeze.
Its not just that your points are invalid…its that they go further than that….they’re silly.
http://forward.com/news/israel/307941/birthright-paves-path-to-bds-for-some-participants/