BDS Movement Calls for Blockade of Israeli Container Vessel Offloading Today in the Port of Long Beach

This information that was received this morning August 13. The hypocritical Boycott Divestment and Sanction (BDS) Movement has been on our college and university campuses for years, calling for divestment from Israel.  Now this anti-Israel, anti-Jewish virus has spread through out the world.  Not a single word about the hundreds of thousands already killed in Syria or the brutal massacres of Christians by ISIS or the daily  rape and  killings through out the Middle East and Africa.  This community has been silent for far to long.  Where is the outrage? Make your voices heard!

 

 

 

 

The Stench of BDS: “Just Wait Until You Hear What UCLA Student Government Candidates Are Being Asked to Sign”

 Sharona Schwartz     May. 11, 2014 7:50am   The Blaze

 

Candidates running to serve as officers in the undergraduate student government at UCLA are being asked to sign a pledge that they will not go on certain free or sponsored trip to Israel, a prerequisite that one pro-Israel group is calling “bigoted” and “absurd.” According to the UCLA newspaper the Daily Bruin, the majority of candidates have signed the pledge.

The Joint Statement on Undergraduate Students Association Council Ethics to which the candidates have signed was drafted by the pro-Palestinian groups Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Armenian Students’ Association, the Bruin reported on Tuesday.

The Muslim Students Association has also expressed support for the initiative.

The Students’ Association Ethics statement would require council members to refrain from going on trips paid for or partially-sponsored by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Anti-Defamation League and Hasbara Fellowships, all groups with a pro-Israel stance, the Bruin reported.

It’s Back: This Years Edition of the Annual Hypocritical Rant Against Israel at U C Irvine

From the MSU Facebook page:

MSU-UCI Presents: Anti-Zionist Week 2014

https://www.facebook.com/events/1490431447839078/?ref=22

The Muslim Student Union presents a week long series of events during Week 5 (April 28th-May 1st) that are aimed at raising awareness and creating discourse, around the issue of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, for the campus and community.

The events will highlight the history, significance, modern impacts, and much more information surrounding the injustices of the conflict through informative discussions, creative expressions, and interactive displays.

Topics include the following:

Monday: Borders and Racism
Tuesday: BDS
Wednesday: Sexual Violence
Thursday: Environmental Degradation

More details will be posted shortly. See you there! Do share and spread the word, and bring your friends.

Note:

In Syria, entire cities have been reduced to rubble, women and children have been  murdered with chemical weapons and millions displaced in refugee camps.  In Saudi Arabia,  Jews are forbidden and conversion to Christianity can carry a death sentence. In Egypt, Christians are persecuted and ancient churches have been reduced to rubble. Where is the outcry over the degradation of women and so called “honor killings” in many countries? Just look at the human rights records of most Middle Eastern countries. Many of these countries are ancestral homelands of the people involved in this obnoxious and hypocritical BDS farce.  

The University of Manitoba Student Union (UMSU) bans anti-Israel “Israel Apartheid Week” and strips anti-Israel group of official status.

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Canadian university student union strips anti-Israel group of official status

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Posted on April 15, 2013  by JNS.org.

(JNS.org) The University of Manitoba Student Union (UMSU) in Canada has become the first student group in North America to ban the anti-Israel “Israel Apartheid Week” and strip the anti-Israel “Students Against Israel Apartheid (SAIA)” group of official status.

The motion, which passed 19-15, bars SAIA from receiving student funding or using student activity space on campus, the Winnipeg Jewish Review reported.

Pro-Israel students argued that the anti-Israel student efforts violate university policy which protects the “dignity and self-esteem” of its students and prevents them from “discrimination or harassment.”

“According to the UMSU policy, I didn’t have to prove that IAW has actually incited hatred, but that it is likely to undermine the dignity or self- esteem of students on campus who are Zionists,” pro-Israel UM student activist Josh Morry told the Winnipeg Jewish Review.

The move at the University of Manitoba comes amid recent battles on North American college campuses between pro-Israel and anti-Israel students.

Last week, the student government at the University of California (UC), Santa Barbara rejected a resolution to divest from Israel, joining several other California schools—UC Riverside, UC Berkeley and Stanford University—who have rejected Israel divestment resolutions. But the student union at Toronto’s York University, Canada’s largest, recently endorsed an Israel divestment resolution.

http://www.jns.org/news-briefs/2013/4/15/canadian-university-student-union-anti-israel-group-of-official-status

University of California Campus Student Governments Endorse BDS Cancer on Three Campuses.

March 20, 2013 Three UC student governments endorse BDS By Jonah Lowenfeld http://www.jewishjournal.com/ los_angeles/article/three_uc_student_governments_endorse_bds/

In the first two weeks of March, student governments at two University of California campuses — UC Riverside and UC San Diego (UCSD) — voted to approve resolutions urging their campus administrations and the University of California as a whole to divest from companies doing business in the West Bank.The resolutions, both of which passed by significant margins, came just a few months after the student government at UC Irvine voted unanimously to approve a similar measure. And, according to pro-Israel activists, divestment measures are in the works at two other public universities in Southern California. The approved resolutions urge the University of California, and the administrations of each of the individual campuses, to divest from companies with business interests that either assist in or profit from Israel’s presence in the West Bank. The measures are unlikely to force the individual campuses or the UC to take any action because of a UC policy limiting such action, but their passage has nonetheless proved disconcerting for pro-Israel students on those campuses. “As a result of this bill, Jews, Israelis and their friends have been alienated from the rest of the student population,” Jacqueline Zelener, co-president of Highlanders for Israel, the pro-Israel student group at UC Riverside, wrote in an e-mail. The BDS movement — the initials stand for advocacy of boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel — has become well known in recent years, and resolutions urging divestment from companies doing business with Israel have come before student governments at California universities before. In 2010, UC Berkeley’s student government approved a resolution urging divestment from two companies that supply Israel with war materials, however the UC Berkeley student body president later vetoed the resolution. Earlier this month, Stanford University’s undergraduate student government voted against a divestment bill that targeted companies doing business with Israel. Unlike at Stanford, where debate over the divestment bill lasted for multiple weeks before a vote was taken, pro-Israel students at UC Riverside only learned about the proposed resolution on their campus the night before the Associated Students of UC Riverside (ASUCR) voted on it. They [the resolution’s backers] kept it very secret from anyone who might have even been the slightest bit neutral or in the opposition,” said Danny Leserman, a business economics major at UC Riverside, who serves as president of Hillel and co-president of Highlanders for Israel.

Tonight: Students for “Justice” in Palestine (SJP) at UC Irvine hosting Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) Farce

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Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction = Double Standard, Demonization and Delegitimization*

Remember the Pakistani teenager who was shot in the head by the Taliban for advocating education for young girls? video here.  In November 2012 a 14-year-old Afghan girl was beheaded by two men  for refusing one of the mens marriage-proposal.  According to Amnesty international, This was the 15th deadly attack on a female victim in 2012.

BDS Advocate Appointed To Chair Committee Combating Anti-Semitism At California State University System?

Gary Fouse forwarded this article to OCITF:

Israel-Bashing CSU Prof to Fight Anti-Semitism?

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/lee-kaplan/israel-bashing-csu-prof-to-fight-anti-semitism/

by Lee Kaplan
FrontPage Magazine
December 11, 2012

Does appointing an advocate of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel to chair a committee aimed at combating anti-Semitism in the California State University system make sense? That’s exactly what happened in the case of Manzar Foroohar, a well-known anti-Israel activist who teaches modern Middle Eastern and Latin American history at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. The Iranian immigrant was placed in charge of an Academic Senate 2012/2013 CSU committee charged with implementing the “Governor’s Task Force on Tolerance and Anti-Semitism Training,” an effort that originated in 2010 under former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Foroohar does indeed have extensive experience in training students and faculty members—in how to delegitimize and demonize the state of Israel, an activity that hardly promotes an environment of “tolerance” for pro-Israel CSU students.

When asked about Foroohar’s appointment, Diana Guerin, chairwoman of the Academic Senate CSU (ASCSU) who oversees committee selections and appointments, offered the standard bureaucratic response, making sure to include politically correct praise for the professor’s “divergent” point of view:

The Executive Committee of the Academic Senate makes appointments each year based on senator interest in serving on the various committees. With over forty senators eligible to serve and approximately fifty committees to staff, this is a very involved process. We note that sometimes committees do their best work when there are divergent points of view that lead to careful consideration and thorough discussion of issues. Senator Foroohar has been elected by her peers at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo multiple terms and has served the Academic Senate of the CSU with distinction.

After further questioning, the chairwoman explained that at a 2010 meeting with the Governor’s task force at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, “Concern arose about the potential blurring of the lines between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, which are two separate issues [emphasis added]” and that, “It was important for faculty to have a voice on this type of training for our students.” This sheds light on the ASCSU’s true agenda: using the committee to promote the idea that campus anti-Zionism has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. Foroohar’s appointment to “train” faculty effectively ends any meaningful attempt by the Governor’s task force to battle campus anti-Semitism.

Among Foroohar’s anti-Israel activities:

Disturbing article about BDS, “Alternative Travel” and the Olive Tree Initiative

Posted By Nichole Hungerford On January 4, 2012 @ 12:02 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage

Many were disturbed at a recent video of young Jews — the hope of the next generation — “occupying” a Birthright event and spewing noxious anti-Israel rhetoric in and outside the gathering. But considering the competition Birthright is up against, it’s not difficult to see how such a scene was produced. The fact is, not only have anti-Israel activist made 21st century blood libels fashionable, but they have found a way to turn a profit from them in the process. More and more, sojourners to the Holy Land are falling into the orbit of the growing “alternative travel” or “justice tourism” industry, which specializes in politicized tourism to Israel and adjacent territories. As the name indicates, alternative travel is entirely focused on exposing tourists, not with mainstream, commonly accepted information on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but with an “alternative” account predicated on needless Palestinian suffering at the hands of their brutal Israeli oppressors.

JPost: “Elcott and Margolis do admit that students meet with speakers who support BDS and the branding of Israel as an apartheid state.”

So, sending students into a dangerous neighborhood and into the arms of those who seek to destroy Israel and the Jewish people  to get their “perspective”is appropriate, so long as they get the other point of view?  And this is what we call  leadership? 

A very balanced itinerary?

By BEN HARTMAN JPost.com
06/15/2011 23:20

Is the Olive Tree Initiative, an interfaith program that brings American students here to learn about the Israeli-Arab conflict, offering its participants the appropriate mosaic of views?
Shalom Elcott thinks you may have gotten the wrong idea.

In Israel this past week for Shavuot, the Orange County Jewish Federation president and CEO said that criticism of his group’s support for the Olive Tree Initiative (OTI) was misplaced and not based on an honest examination of the program.

“We could all agree that we don’t love all the speakers, but we have to work with American Jews to develop a greater understanding about how important that diversity of opinions in Israel is. Our job is to work with OTI and open the door to the best possible teachers and people who know the facts on the ground and make sure they’re engaged on the trip,” he said.

Another Anti-Israel Divestment Resolution Scrapped at UC San Diego

You can express your concern by clicking Here and vote against the support of one sided divestment resolutions against Israel

Divestment Resolution Scrapped   

By Laira Martin The Guardian, U C San Diego

Efforts stalled Wednesday to pass an A.S. Council resolution that called for the UC system to divest funds from non-neutral corporations currently providing technology to the Israeli Defense Forces. This is the second year the resolution, proposed by Students for Justice in Palestine, has been brought before council.

Once again, OC Federation asked to endorse pledge to deny funds to those who support BDS and those who seek to destroy Israel

On December 28, 2010 The Orange County Independent Task Force on Anti-Semitism,  formally asked  the Orange County Jewish Federation, Hillel and the Rose Project. to adopt the Jewish Community of San Francisco’s guidelines for funding. Among other things, the guidelines prohibit funding for any activities that “advocate for, or endorse, undermining the legitimacy of Israel as a secure independent, democratic Jewish state, including through participation in the [BDS] movement, in whole or in part.” On March 21, 2010, we published the Pledge in memory of the Fogal Family.  To date those entities, The OC Jewish Federation, Hillel and the Rose Project have not bothered to respond. The following  letter is endorsed by the Orange County Independent Task Force on Anti-Semitism:

Fight “Boycott Israel Day” March 30th. Buy Israeli Products

“Kauft Nicht Bei Juden” The BDS (Boycott Divest Sanction) Movement. Is there any difference?

Those who wish to  harm the Jewish People and destroy of the State of Israel have designated March 30, 2011 as “Boycott Israel day”.  You can help counter this world wide threat from haters and hypocrites by going to your local retailer and requesting  and purchasing Israeli products.   To find a list of Israeli Products in your city click this link

More on BDS, the Olive Tree Initiative and “Lip Service”

Note: On December 28, 2010 The Orange County Independent Force on Anti-Semitism issued an Open Letter Concerning the Olive Tree Initiative at UC Irvine to leaders of the Orange County Jewish Community. In the letter we urged  the Jewish Federation, The Rose Project and and Hillel to adopt the The Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties Funding Guidelines. As of this date, that letter has gone unanswered. (OCITF)

What’s the Matter with Boycotting Israel?

Nichole Hungerford on Mar 11th, 2011 Front Page Magazine

“How ironic — no, scratch that; how incredibly shortsighted — that just as Egypt starts to open up, an American Jewish community would start to clamp down.” This, Rob Eshman penned February 16th in a piece for the Jewish Journal in which he argued against the removal of Jewish communal funds from organizations engaged in BDS (boycott, divestment, sanction) strategies against Israel. To do so, as Eshman intimates, would be to close the Jewish community; to stifle the freedom of thought and expression from within its ranks. Although it is a well-meaning call for openness, it is, nonetheless, a deeply misguided assessment of the danger posed by the BDS movement. To understand the true nature of the movement, is to understand why it cannot be countenanced by the Jewish community in any form — at least not a Jewish community interested in the preservation of Israel.

NGO Monitor Launches “BDS Sewer System”

NGO Monitor Combats Israel Apartheid Week and BDS

Click  here for  BDS Sewer System Map

Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) 2011 is underway in cities and on college campuses worldwide. This cynical anti-Israel activity, based on the campaign to falsely label Israel as an “apartheid state”, is part of a larger “Durban strategy” adopted at the 2001 UN Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa.

NGO Monitor’s report on IAW 2011 demonstrates the anti-peace and anti-human rights dimensions of this campaign. The non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that sponsor and speak at IAW events reject “two-state” approaches to the conflict and oppose the very existence of Israel.

To help students and faculty, NGO Monitor developed and is distributing the “BDS Sewer System” to partner organizations and campus activists throughout the world (see the Jerusalem Post story below). Promoting BDS is a central goal of IAW, and the BDS Sewer System provides detailed information on the sources of delegitimization campaigns against Israel.

*      Read NGO Monitor’s report on IAW, including useful fact sheets on NGOs and activities.

*      Learn about the legal fallacies inherent in the apartheid analogy.

*      Visit www.ngo-monitor.org/bds to view the BDS Sewer System.

*      To order print copies of the BDS Sewer System, please email mail@ngo-monitor.org.

Israel Apartheid Week, and efforts to combat it, begin

By JORDANA HORN

Exclusive: NGO Monitor announces efforts to combat Apartheid Week with “BDS Sewer System” to detail sources of delegitimization campaigns.

NEW YORK – Israeli Apartheid Week, an effort by groups and activists supporting boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel to discredit it and label it an “apartheid state,” kicked off Monday in many cities and college campuses worldwide.

Tammi Rossman-Benjamin’s response to Dr. Daniel Wehrenfennig, Director of the UCI Olive Tree Initiative

Dear Dr. Daniel Wehrenfennig,

You did not write to me directly, though you did blind-copy me on your recent widely-circulated letter (forwarded below), in which you mentioned my name 18 times and attacked a letter I had sent to the heads of the Orange County Jewish Federation and Hillel.  My letter urged these Jewish communal organizations to withdraw their funding and promotion of the Olive Tree Initiative (OTI) because at least 15 of the OTI’s speakers are affiliated with organizations that have ties to terrorist groups that have murdered Jews, advocate the elimination of the Jewish state, and support boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns against Israel.  I also pointed out to the OC Federation and Hillel that it is wrong for Jewish communal resources to be used for a trip that engages Jewish students in activities that desecrate Jewish holy days, such as the OTI trip in 2010, during which students spent the two days of Rosh Hashanah and the following Sabbath (and other Sabbaths) engaged in non-Jewish activity in Jordan and the disputed territories.

You fiercely criticized my letter, stating that I “made up facts” and that my analysis was “incomplete and misleading,” “completely inaccurate,” and filled with “wrong information and missing facts,” “a pattern of misinformation,” “erroneous statements,” and “distortion.”  I would like to reply to your charges, which I believe are wholly baseless, extremely disingenuous, and highly offense to the Jewish community in general, and to me personally as a UC faculty member, and as a Jew.

Anti-Israel Boycott Defeated in Washington State

As 175 watch, Port Townsend Co-op rejects request to boycott Israeli products over Gaza issues

PORT TOWNSEND — The Port Townsend Co-op board rejected a proposal to boycott Israeli products after much discussion Tuesday night.

Quilcene peace activist Kit Kittredge speaks to the Port Townsend Co-op board while others wait in line for the microphone. — Photo by Charlie Bermant/Peninsula Daily News

The six-member board voted 4-2 against the proposal, saying that it was not consistent with its boycott policies.

An estimated 175 people attended the board meeting at the Quimper Universalist Unitarian Fellowship hall in Port Townsend.

Event at USC (Sunday 9/19) to train students to collect signatures for the Israel divestment petition to qualify for the California ballot

Courtesy of Tammi Benjamin:

http://uscsjp.wordpress.com/2010/09/18/sunday-los-angeles-campaign-kick-off-and-petition-circulator-training-to-qualify-the-israel-divestment-initiative-for-the-california-ballot/

BDS (Boycott Divest Sanction) Movement. Is there any difference?

European Union Fundamental Rights Agency’s (FRA) working definition of anti-Semitism

Click Here

Berkeley Update: Divestment motion to be reconsidered next week. Berkeley Hillel director: Overriding the veto “…will definitely cause a decrease in the number of Jewish students willing to attend Cal”

(No Olive Trees at Cal?)

ASUC Senate Still Undecided on Vetoed Divestment Bill

“By Allie Bidwell and Nick Myers | Thursday, Apr 15, 2010

Following a nearly nine-hour discussion that began at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday evening and lasted into Thursday morning, ASUC senators have yet to reach a decision on whether or not they would uphold or override President Will Smelko’s March 24 veto of a controversial bill urging the student government and the UC to divest from two companies that have supplied Israel with materials for alleged war crimes.

UC Berkeley: President Smelko’s veto of anti-Israel bill sustained. Motion to reconsider passes.

U.C. Berkeley student senate votes to sustain veto of divest-from-Israel resolution

by amanda pazornik

Jweekly

The fate of a divest-from-Israel resolution passed last month by the U.C. Berkeley student senate and vetoed a week later by the ASUC president was decided April 15, with a 12-7 vote to sustain the veto, according to the Twitter feed from the Daily Californian, U.C. Berkeley’s student-run campus newspaper.