The best thing about this article in today’s New York Times on the nomination of pro-Israel activist Kenneth Marcus to be the assistant secretary for civil rights in the Education Department is the headline, which identifies him accurately: “An Advocate for Israel Draws Fire as He Nears Confirmation to Civil Rights Post.”
But a theme of the article is that the boycott movement against Israel, B.D.S., pits “Jews” against “students of color.”
“On campus after campus, the B.D.S. movement — Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel — has driven a wedge between Jewish students and students of color, challenging university administrations and straining the traditional bonds between Jews and other minorities.”
The article leads with an anecdote about a showdown at the University of Wisconsin, along those lines, over a resolution to divest from companies/countries doing human rights abuses.
A student representative who was Jewish said that the last-minute inclusion of Israel “crossed the line from legitimate conversation to a point where I consider it malicious.” The student government chairwoman, who is black, suggested the opposition to the resolution amounted to “white supremacy,” which she condemned with a four-letter expletive.
In the aftermath, Kenneth L. Marcus, the founder and president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, decided to enter the fray, writing to university administrators to denounce calls for divestment from Israel as anti-Semitic, and to assail the meeting as hostile toward Jewish students. He urged that the black student leader be disciplined.
Every Jew in this story is frightened by advocates for BDS.
Ariela Rivkin, the Jewish student representative on the [Wisconsin student] council. . . and other students felt targeted by [student government chairwoman Carmen] Gosey’s comments and believed that her decision to allow the divestment legislation to be introduced on the Jewish holiday of Passover was harassing and exclusionary.
Hold on. Lots of Jews support BDS. The burgeoning organization Jewish Voice for Peace, for instance. And the young Jews of IfNotNow are at least neutral on the matter, with many quietly supporting it. Peter Beinart and Americans for Peace Now and other liberal Zionists support BDS with respect to settlements beyond the Green Line — though Ken Marcus also sees those initiatives as anti-Semitic. In his view, “‘Israel’ means Israel or Israeli-controlled territories.” Where are all the Jews who disagree?
The article is not so bad later on. Maya Berry of the Arab American Institute says that Marcus is both more dangerous than and “infinitely more effective” than Betsy DeVos, Trump’s ideological education secretary.
And the Times reporter, Erica Green, links support for BDS not to anti-Semites, but to human rights groups.
Human rights groups also expressed concern that Mr. Marcus will use his office to further a more narrow agenda: combating the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement on college campuses, which he believes has devolved into violent, anti-Semitic harassment.
She also quotes Rahul Saksena of Palestine Legal.
“His primary mission is not to support students’ civil rights; it’s to protect Israel from criticism.”
But then it’s right back to all those Jewish students opposed to Palestinian ones.
Mr. Marcus has lobbied for institutions and the Education Department to adopt a definition of anti-Semitism that Jewish activists embrace but that many Palestinian rights groups say would render criticism of Israel as hate speech.
So long as Zionism is conflated with Judaism, then criticism of Israel would be anti-Semitic. But they’re not the same, as more and more Jews are trying to make clear to the media.
H/t Donald Johnson
Lots of Jews support BDS.
Indeed. JVP’s Rebecca Vilkomerson wrote in Twitter about the Times article:
To identify the truly sick racists google: chief rabbi of Israel says only purpose of goyim is to serve jews, life of goyim worth same as donkey. Netanyahu says this jerk is the greatest mind of this generation.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/5-of-ovadia-yosefs-most-controversial-quotations/
Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism. Judaism is a religion and an ethical code of behavior. Zionism, however, is a racist ethnocentric ideology that is used to oppress and exploit a helpless people. There are many Jews, believers, and non-believers, who object to Zionism and its ugly political face. Even they, as Jewish Voice for Peace, are slandered as anti-Semites because they support the BDS movement. This movement has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. The problem, however, is the millions of Philo-Semites who function as Zionist’s “Willing Executioners”. who does their dirty work, especially in Germany? Political functionaries, such as Kenneth Marcus, just do their work for which they were appointed, plus the Zionist political extra load. If one reads the work of Professor Jacov Rabkin or knows about the resistance of the millions of Rabbis against Zionism should fight this wicked ideology with the ideas and arguments of these great intellectuals. Compared to them, the so-called Zionist “intellectuals” are just a nobody.
I know the NYT is a “respected” institution of the mainstream media, but seriously where do they come up with this crap?
“On campus after campus, the B.D.S. movement — Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel — has driven a wedge between Jewish students and students of color, challenging university administrations and straining the traditional bonds between Jews and other minorities.”
Ya BDS is the culprit here not the racist violent tenets and actions of Zionism and Zionists. All BDS has done is provide a platform to expose Zionism for what it truly is – minorities can decide on their own whether to support a violent criminal apartheid regime and brutal occupation or the victims.