Is singling out Israel for boycotts anti-Semitic?

[shira]

Marez’s response to the charge of bigotry in applying the double standard to the nation state of the Jewish people was “We have to start somewhere.”

That is the characteristic response of the bigot. When it comes to condemning violence, we have to start somewhere, so let’s target African-Americans for stop and frisk. When it comes to stopping pedophilia, “we have to start somewhere” so let’s start with profiling gays. Surely this would be recognized as bigotry personified.

Marez’s benighted response is more than simply bigoted, it is mendacious.

His association is not simply starting with Israel, it is stopping with Israel. A vote to boycott Chinese, Cuban, Russian or Palestinian academic institutions— which are worse by every measure of civil liberties, human rights and academic freedom than Israeli institutions – would garner few, if any, votes. This too is the paradigm of bigotry: starting and ending with one ethnic or religious group and applying a different standard to every other group.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Is-singling-out-Israel-for-boycotts-anti-Semitic-335596

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

1. Was singling out South Africa

for a boycott anti-Semitic?

Do you guys get tired of beating the same dead horse?

on edit: thank you again for trying to make this about somebody else. I'm not sure how proponents of Israel can be blind to its human rights record and always be playing the victim card.

[shira]

5. They're singling out academic institutions in Israel, not settlements, not the GOI....

So yeah, this is bad b/c they're boycotting fellow liberal and leftist academics who also oppose the occupation and settlements. IOW, they're boycotting the very institutions and academics (Jews) they should be teaming up with. This is a boycott under the guise of phony progressivism. The ASA won't be boycotting any other nations b/c they're 1-trick ponies. Count on it...

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

7. .

[King_David]

8. We don't expect support from others,

That's why we have a Jewish state,
We don't take it lying down anymore.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

9. I wouldn't expect support from others if I acted like a complete asshole either, dave.

I guess that part went right over your cap-n-bells.

[shira]

12. Watch this short video & explain how it's productive....

....to boycott Ben Gurion University.

#t=0


This is what you're cheering on.

Are you proud of boycotting a university like BGU?

[King_David]

13. Just helping people with their obsessions

[shira]

10. Even Chomsky says boycotting Israel alone is antisemitic. n/t

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

11. But we all know that you are a hypocrite when it comes to Chompsky.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=124&topic_id=224043&mesg_id=224178

shira Tue Oct-28-08 09:11 PM
Response to Reply #2

3. chomsky has a history with holocaust deniers and has been quoted as saying holocaust denial is not anti-semitism. He cannot be taken seriously on any matters concerning Jews.

What's fascinating is that you linked to a youtube video on 911 "fake planes". Do you take that crap as seriously as you do Chomsky?

[shira]

14. I don't take Chomsky seriously but most BDS antizionist leftists do...

That's the point of quoting him. Get it?

Probably not. Oh well...

I don't take Mahmoud Abbas seriously either, but what he said recently goes to show most Palestinians are against boycotting Israel. Chomsky made the same point. BDS'ers don't even have most Palestinians supporting their bullshit.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

26. Thank you for comming to terms with your hypocritical behavior.

[shira]

29. I can't match your own, even if I had 100 years...

Let's remember the only Palestinians whose human rights mean something to you are those whose human rights can be connected to Israel so that the Jewish state can be blamed. Otherwise, meh...

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

30. Aren't you late for your floatilla to Tibet?

[shira]

32. Tell me how proud u are wanting to boycott schools like Ben Gurion U...

#t=0


Do you get a thrill up your leg boycotting leftwing pro-Palestinian Israeli Universities?

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

37. Pride has nothing to do with doing what is morally right, and keep

your interest away from what's up my leg.

[shira]

40. You actually think it's moral to boycott mostly Jewish, leftwing pro-Palestinian academics...

...at schools like Ben Gurion and Hebrew U.



Says it all, really...about academic freedom and the very people you're throwing under the bus who should be your natural political allies. Obviously, the Israeli pro-Palestinian Jewish Left is part of the problem to you. Hence the question as to whether the boycott is antisemitic...



If your objective is to make enemies out of natural allies while also harming the Palestinians, you're doing a great job. As Chomsky said, you may as well just join AIPAC and be done with it.

IOW, stick to boycotting settlements not Israeli academic and leftist institutions. You're doing the extreme far right a great favor by demonstrating that it's ALL Israeli Jews (both left and right) who are the REAL problem to you.

===========

I also love your hypocritical attempts to hijack the thread with off-topic ad-hominems and stupid smilies. Let's see you justify your position and defend what you believe rather than resort to your 7th grade jack-assery.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

41. It is moral to boycott an apartheid state. I understand how some would fergit about

human rights and the like.

Happy Christmas.

[shira]

42. Israeli Universities are core left-wing institutions against Israeli settlements/occupation....

BDS isn't boycotting the GOI by going after Israel's most leftwing institutions. They're only proving to be racist and hostile against all Jews of all political persuasions. This is a full frontal attack against Israel's Left, not the Israeli Government, and certainly not the Israeli Right. It's a complete joke to consider Israel's Universities to be rightwing, pro-settlement/occupation....

I don't recall the International Left boycotting S.Africa's Left. Do you? No...

They worked alongside the S.Africa's Left, not against it. No surprise though, considering the racist, anti-democratic, and illiberal BDS Left wants Israel gone altogether, replaced by a fascist theocratic racist warmongering dictatorship.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

43. You certainly get a aweful lot of

exercize jumping from one pet poutrage of the day to the next, my dear charletan.

Perhaps you can make the Guinness Book of World Records with the number of spins you have made at any one time.

[shira]

44. IOW you cannot defend BDS. Next time, just acknowledge that....

After all, BDS is a racist, mostly rightwing movement that wants to replace a western democratic liberal Israel with a totalitarian fascist and racist theocracy. So it's no surprise BDS targets Israel's Left. This isn't rocket science....

Or do u disagree, and if so why?

[shira]

46. If u want to attack Israel as the neighborhood bully that's one thing....

...but BDS right-wingers are attacking Israel's dovish pro-Palestinian Left-wing that is anti-occupation and settlements.

Why is that?

[shira]

33. Is now the time to point to your hypocrisy about hijacking threads? n/t

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

38. Not unless you wish to explain why your thoughts have found their way

up my leg as you have mentioned up thread.

[azurnoir]

2. yes every bit as much as 'singling out' South Africa was anti-white

or IOW no it's not the "Jewish people" are being singled out or boycotted, Israel is, just as in the case of South Africa white people were not being singled out for a boycott South Africans were were being boycotted

[shira]

6. But this boycott isn't against the GOI. It's against Israel's most leftwing universities.

Like Ben Gurion University, which is as leftwing and pro-Palestinian as it gets in Israel.

And this union is not going to be boycotting anyone else.

So yeah, it's antisemitic.

[azurnoir]

15. so they're only boycotting Ben Gurion University?

and that's antisemitic? However boycotting the Israeli government wouldn't be?

[shira]

17. See #16 below. It's Hebrew University as well. Sari Nusseibeh says it's counterproductive. n/t

[azurnoir]

19. it's from 2008 when Sari Nusseibeh was still promoting the 2 state solution that has since changed

and perhaps so have his other views I'd wager

[shira]

22. ROTFLOL! Oh sure, he changed his mind. When?

Do you have a quote?

It's more likely that his opinion is unchanged. Note Mahmoud Abbas' recent statement WRT opposing BDS.

[azurnoir]

24. Here is Nusseibeh on the 2 state solution these days a change from 2008

A Palestinian Take on the Mideast Conflict: 'The Pursuit of a Two-State Solution Is a Fantasy'

Prominent Palestinian philosopher Sari Nusseibeh believes it is too late for a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict. In a SPIEGEL interview, he outlines his vision for an Israeli-Palestinian confederation and why he mistrusts the new moderate stance taken by the Islamic militant group Hamas.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-palestinian-take-on-the-mideast-conflict-the-pursuit-of-a-two-state-solution-is-a-fantasy-a-816491.html

and BTW weren't you recently demonizing Nusseibeh on his stance concerning al Quds and Brandeis?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=51722

[shira]

25. So show where Nusseibeh supports boycotting Israeli academic institutions.

Something.

Anything.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

27. See post #22 for your hypocrisy.

[azurnoir]

28. show something recent where he doesn't like since Brandeis's boycott of his institution Al-Quds

my point is minds and ideas change

[azurnoir]

31. also on the thread about Brandeis's boycott of a Palestinian University

you giving that boycott your full throat approval ? I guess reciprocity isn't in the vocabulary of some

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=51718

[azurnoir]

18. here perhaps this will clarify for you

but as you can see it's already been suggested that Eric Cheyfitz is a 'fake' Jew or something


In its press release approving the resolution the ASA included statements from prominent scholars endorsing the boycott in light of their personal histories and areas of professional scholarship. Among the scholars who endorsed the resolution was Eric Cheyfitz, an American studies professor at Cornell University who wrote, “I am a Jew with a daughter and three grandchildren who are citizens of Israel. I am a scholar of American Indian and Indigenous studies, who has in published word and action opposed settler colonialism wherever it exists, including of course the Palestinian West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. It is worth noting in this respect that just as the myth of American exceptionalism seeks to erase the genocide and ongoing settler colonialism of Indigenous peoples here in the United States so the myth of Israeli exceptionalism seeks to erase Israeli colonialism in Palestine and claim original rights to Palestinian lands.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/inside_higher_ed/2013/12/israel_academic_boycott_american_studies_association_joins_the_fight.html

http://www.democraticunderground.com/113454253

[shira]

20. So quoting a Jew in favor of this boycott makes it kosher & not antisemitic? n/t

[azurnoir]

21. nice try no I was quoting the reasons for the boycott

the other was another posters suggestion, myself I do not think whether or not someone is a Jew is needed here, simple right from wrong will do nicely

[oberliner]

3. Author: Alan Dershowitz

I know he is none too popular round these parts.

[King_David]

4. They may deny it but there's no doubt,

What other reason could there be for calling for the boycott of The Jewish State and ignoring far bigger and real human right abusers .

Most of BDS supporters are obsessed with all things Jewish.. They obsessed with Halachah , Jewish immigration etc.

They deny AntiSemitism in Europe and France and get upset when Jews win the Nobel prize for anything .

They call for boycotts of Jewish Businesses and call Israel a Nazi state or an Apartheid state and accuse Jews of Israel of being ethnic cleansers.

It's not antiZionism that drives and motivates... It's not new or novel..
It's been around 2000 years... Stormfront and David Duke and other ultra right wing loons are full of it--- all disguising it as antiZionism ...

The USA Democratic Party and Obama understand this ....

[shaayecanaan]

34. Why did people call for the boycott of South Africa...

when there were far worse human rights abuses in Africa?

[shira]

16. Pro-Palestinian Ben Gurion University is being boycotted...

#t=0

The Palestinian President of Al-Quds University teamed up with his counterpart at Hebrew University:

Will the boycott help Palestinians? In 2008, Sari Nusseibeh, the president of the Palestinian Al Quds University, joined the president of Jerusalem-based Hebrew University to oppose a boycott. They warned that far from helping end the “shared tragedy” of the Palestinian situation, a boycott could prolong it by fostering antagonism. Nusseibeh noted that the Israeli academic community has a strong pro-peace, pro-human rights outlook and should be the last sector to be punished.

http://www.newsday.com/opinion/columnists/cathy-young/young-hypocrisy-of-boycott-against-israel-1.6496274

But the haters push on cheerleading the process of making Israel a "pariah" state, against the wishes of most Palestinians and Israel's most dovish academics.

[painesghost]

23. I don't know about anti-semitic, but it definitely is hypocritical.

I think it has more to do with Israel being seen as part of the West than it has to do with antisemitism. Academics have had a particular blind spot for the failings of the Far-Left or people the see as the oppressed. It's the same as when Che gets a pass on his homophobia or people forget that Gramsci basically wanted to set up a Communist State that would be only slightly less oppressive than Lenin's that is if it would haven been at all.

[BlueToTheBone]

35. Was singling out N. Korea anti semitic?

How about S. Africa? How about Cuba? How about Iran? Really? Really? You and the king seem to be so concerned about Israel's stance, there must be something there. I think Shakespeare said it best, "I think the lady doth protest too much."

[Niceguy1]

36. yeah they conveniently leave out the other countries that are involved

that are Muslim to it's not just the jews that control ehat goes in to gaza