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Terror ties of BDS backers revealed

April 26, 2016

Terror ties of BDS backers revealed, Israel National News, David Rosenberg, April 26, 2016

BDSBDS activists (file) Wikimedia Commons

While the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement has done little to hide its malicious anti-Israel hatred, the movement hitherto has succeeded in maintaining the appearance of legitimacy, presenting itself as the peaceful alternative to terrorism.

Despite rhetoric which pro-Israel activists have noted signals a rejection of Jewish statehood per se and draws upon the kind of terrorist propaganda disseminated by Hamas and the PLO, no clear link tying BDS to supporters of terror organizations could be found.

Last week, however, a former terrorism finance analyst for the US Treasury Department offered testimony to congress suggesting connections between the BDS movement and supporters of the Hamas terror group.

Jonathan Schanzer, who worked for the US Treasury Department from 2004 to 2007 monitoring terrorist funding, spoke before a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee last Tuesday regarding the ties between the BDS movement and terror fundraisers including the now defunct Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.

Schanzer noted that three prominent Islamic organizations – the Holy Land Foundation, the Islamic Association for Palestine, and the KindHearts for Charitable Development – had been prosecuted and eventually shut down after serving as fronts for the Hamas terror group.

While many of the organizers responsible for these three groups were given prison sentences or deported from the US, others high-level members were involved in the founding of American Muslims for Palestine.

An inquiry by the Investigative Project on Terrorism found that five high-ranking officials in American Muslims for Palestine had been members of the Islamic Association for Palestine.

Schanzer pointed out other senior Islamic Association for Palestine members now operating in the AMP.

Rafeeq Jaber, for instance, had served as President of the IAP. Today, he is an official working for the AMP’s Educational Foundation. Former IAP secretary general, Abdelbasset Hamayel, is now listed as an AMP agent in the organization’s Chicago branch.

Other AMP members include Hossein Khatib, a former regional director for the Holy Land Foundation who now serves on the AMP board of directors.

Salah Sarsour is another AMP board member with ties to the Holy Land Foundation. Both Salah and his brother, Jamil, had served time in Israel over their ties to Hamas. Jamil admitted that he and his brother Salah had raised funds for the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.

Anti-Israel organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine, which operates on college campuses across the US, are heavily funded by the AMP. In recent years the AMP has become one of the leading financial backers of BDS groups like the SJP.

Aside from direct financial support, the “AMP provides speakers, training, printed materials… and grants to SJP activists. AMP even has a campus coordinator on staff whose job is to work directly with SJP and other pro-BDS campus groups,” Schanzer testified.

In some cases, terrorists were involved directly in the operation of BDS organizations. Schanzer offered the example of the US Coalition to Boycott Israel, a Chicago-based BDS group run by a former PFLP terrorist.

“The group’s president is Chicago resident Ghassan Barakat, a consular notary for the Palestine Liberation Organization who has been identified… as a member of the Palestine National Council.”

Barakat was a “’fighter in the ranks of the mountain brigade’ for the PFLP,” a reference to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terror group responsible for some of the worst atrocities committed in Israel including the 1972 Lod Airport Massacre and 2014 Jerusalem Synagogue Massacre.

Categories: BDS, Israel, Terrorism
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US Presbyterian Church officials promote the BDS Movement

March 10, 2016

US Presbyterian Church officials promote the BDS Movement and justify Palestinian terrorism According to NGO Monitor, a new document published by the US Presbyterian Church promotes the BDS Movement against Israel and downplays Palestinian terrorism: “International law gives an occupied people the right to armed struggle to resist the occupier.”

Mar 10, 2016, 3:34PM
Rachel Avraham

Source: US Presbyterian Church officials promote the BDS Movement | JerusalemOnline.com

 

image description
Photo Credit: Wikipedia Commons

According to NGO Monitor, a new document published by the US Presbyterian Church promotes the BDS Movement against Israel and downplays Palestinian terrorism. The report is titled “Israel-Palestine: For Human Values in the Absence of a Just Peace” and it was released by the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy of the US Presbyterian Church. The report will be presented at the 2015 PCUSA General Assembly.

Other NGOs that were relied upon for this report include Sabeel, which leads church divestment campaigns, supports a one-state solution, and promotes liberation theology that displays Jesus as a modern-day Palestinian who is oppressed by Israel and the Jewish people; Christ at a Checkpoint, which promotes anti-Semitic themes such a replacement theology, utilizes Christian rhetoric in order to demonize Israel, and also makes comparisons between Jesus and the modern-day Palestinians; and Badil, which supports a Palestinian right of return, declared an anti-Semitic cartoon the winner of their cartoon contest in 2010, and whose representatives went on a speaking tour together with Zochrot in order to teach American college students about the Nakba.

US Presbyterian Church representatives also met with representatives of other highly politicized NGOs including B’tselem, which has been accused of misrepresenting international law, employing skewed statistics, and promoting inaccurate research in order to pursue their political agenda which is apparently against Israel as Tuvia Tenenbom interviewed a B’tselem researcher named Atef Abu A-Rub for his 2014 book ‘Catch the Jew’ and he referred to the Holocaust as a lie and accused Germany of giving money to the Jews; Breaking the Silence, who has donors who give money conditional upon them coming up with testimonies against the IDF and whose members partook in a Jews for Justice for Palestinians flotilla, and Rabbis for Human Rights, whose President Rabbi Arik Aschermwan was exposed by Tenenbom as holding anti-Israel positions despite claiming to be impartial, displaying ignorance about the Bible, as not interacting regularly with the people in the territories that he claims to care about and whose own wife claims: “No facts will persuade him.”

Based upon their consultations with such organizations without bothering to speak with others who hold a different point of view, the US Presbyterian Church document compares Israeli settlers to Hamas terrorists, portrayed Israeli strikes against Hamas as an attack upon the democratically elected leaders of the Palestinian Authority, and they argued that even though Israel claims the Palestinians implement terror attacks, “international law gives an occupied people the right to armed struggle to resist the occupier.” The report also claims that despite the rocket attacks and other violence that characterizes the Knife Intifada, Israelis live relatively secure lives, thus implying that Israeli arguments in favor of having strong security measures don’t hold validity.

Additionally, they noted “the traditional freedom of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and other religious, civic, and private organizations in the United States to determine their own practices of investment or divestment, boycott or selective purchasing.” They called upon General Assembly members to read documents like Christ at a Checkpoint and Kairos Palestine, which criticized Israel for imprisoning terrorists, supports a Palestinian right of return to Israel proper, blamed Israel instead of the Palestinian Authority for the shrinking Christian population in the territories even though the Palestinian territories had a positive Christian population growth rate under Israeli control and the population only started to shrink when the Palestinian Authority took over, and referred to Palestinian terror attacks as resistance to the occupation. Both the Christ at a Checkpoint and Kairos Palestine documents oppose Jewish self-determination and call for BDS against Israel. In conclusion, they called upon General Assembly members to hold hearings regarding US military aid to Israel, to enforce US laws on the labeling of Israeli settlement products and to bar Israelis from benefiting from the US Visa Waiver Program.

“This report, based on selective claims, myths and distortions from anti-peace NGOs promotes boycotts under the guise of religious responsibility,” Professor Gerald Steinberg said. “For years some factions of the Presbyterian Church have echoed calls by radical anti-peace NGOs promoting discriminatory attacks against Israel, while ignoring murderous Palestinian terror. Last year, these groups convinced the PCUSA to vote to join the BDS attack. Now, the ACSWP is again promoting this agenda, including the promotion of anti-Semitic theological themes. In order to advance peace between Israelis and Palestinians, PCUSA’s 2016 General Assembly must reject the blatant bias, distortions and immorality of the ACSWP report.”

 

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Canadian FM outdoes himself

February 23, 2016

Canadian FM outdoes himself, Israel Hayom, Ruthie Blum, February 23, 2016

(Please see also, Abu Mazen rebuffs Kerry’s appeal to cool Palestinian terror against Israelis. – DM)

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion exhibited a real knack for the twofer on Friday, by going after both his political opposition and the Israeli government in one disingenuous swoop.

In perfect doublespeak, Dion managed to announce his (Liberal) party’s support for a Conservative motion condemning the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, while attacking it as an attempt to foment discord in parliament.

The motion to “condemn any and all attempts by Canadian organizations, groups or individuals” to engage in BDS — “the demonization and delegitimization” of Israel — was tabled by Tory MP Tony Clement.

“This is not a partisan issue,” he asserted, urging Liberals to “side with us on this motion. Send a strong message to our fellow Canadians and to freedom-lovers around the world.”

Tory MP David Sweet went even further, calling BDS “anti-Semitic.” Sweet also got up and commended the Liberals for joining in a bipartisan effort to combat it. But this was too much for Dion, who made sure to say that though the Liberals would support the motion, they had “reservations” about it, among them the impure and divisive motives of the Tories in pushing the bill forward.

“To me, this is further proof that the Conservatives have not learned from their mistakes and are still trying to divide Canadians on issues that should unite them,” he said.

Huh?

And then he proceeded to defend not only “freedom of expression,” but BDS as well — at least its supporters whose motives (unlike those of the Tories) are pure.

“Some supporters of the boycott have bad intentions, do not want peace and are working against Israel,” he said. “However, it cannot be denied that many of the boycott supporters are mistaken in good faith. Many organizations and individuals in Canada and abroad support the BDS movement out of the belief that it will somehow accelerate the peace process and be a nonviolent initiative that leads to a lasting resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Their goal ultimately is the same as ours: a two-state solution with a secure, stable and democratic Israel, living side-by-side with a secure, stable and democratic Palestinian state. However, they are mistaken in the way this goal may be achieved.”

This is quintessential Dion drivel in its finest. Since the November election of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which marked the end of Stephen Harper’s conservative government, Dion has been making it clear in his convoluted way that Israel shares, if not bears, responsibility for the ills befalling it.

The wave of Palestinian terrorism against the Jewish state that surged shortly before Trudeau took office provided Canada’s recently instated top diplomat with the perfect opportunity to show the international community that he — the new peace sheriff in town – grasped this tenet. To illustrate he meant business, Dion promptly took a sharp turn away from his predecessor’s public display of support for Israel as a staunch Western ally, under the same kind of attack at the hands of radical Islamists as the rest of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim world.

The way he did this was to issue a public statement equating Palestinian and Israeli “violence and incitement,” and calling on “both sides” to return to the negotiating table. His timing was impeccable, as an additional heads up about a more harshly worded reprimand to Israel came on the heels of two particularly horrifying stabbing attacks by Palestinian terrorists against two Israeli women — one slashed to death in front of her traumatized teenage daughter, the other wounded while pregnant.

Imagine how painful it must be for him, then, to have to join forces with his enemies at home in countering Israel’s enemies abroad. No need to worry, however. We have not heard the last of Dion, whose ability to distort reality to suit his fantasy may yet surpass that of his counterpart, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Fortunately for Israel, Canada has no real power; it has simply become yet another former ally professing to have its best interests at heart.

Categories: BDS, Canada, Israel, Palestinian terrorists, Two state solution
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White House Rejects New Pro-Israel Trade Bill

February 12, 2016

White House Rejects New Trade Bill Because It Is Too Pro-Israel Obama admin continues to fight against anti-BDS measures

BY:
February 11, 2016 7:00 pm

Source: White House Rejects New Pro-Israel Trade Bill

The White House has announced its partial opposition to a new bipartisan trade bill because of a portion of the legislation that would strengthen the U.S.-Israel economic relationship, according to a statement issued late Thursday.

The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, which the White House says it mostly supports, overwhelmingly passed on a bipartisan vote.

“The president intends to sign H.R.644 into law to help strengthen enforcement of the rules and level the playing field for American workers and businesses,” the statement reads.

However, a portion of the bill that seeks to enhance U.S.-Israeli economic ties drew criticism from the White House, which announced that it would not support these new provisions.

The White House did not explicitly express its opposition to any other part of the comprehensive trade legislation.

Congress directed in the bill that the U.S. government work to strengthen its economic ties with Israel and boost efforts to combat international boycotts of the Jewish state.

The Obama administration’s rejection of this effort comes on the heels of a controversial memo mandating that the U.S. trade community label Jewish goods produced in disputed areas of the West Bank.

Elements of the pro-Israel community and many in Congress objected to this order, claiming that it encourages boycotts of the Jewish state. The Obama administration separately has endorsed a European Union effort to label Jewish goods, a policy that Israeli leaders have described as patently anti-Semitic in nature.

Congress moved earlier this week on legislation that would facilitate divestment from anti-Israel companies by state and local governments.

The White House, in its latest statement, expressed opposition to certain congressional efforts aimed at combatting the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment movement, also known as BDS, which aims to wage economic warfare on Israel.

“As with any bipartisan compromise legislation, there are provisions in this bill that we do not support, including a provision that contravenes longstanding U.S. policy towards Israel and the occupied territories, including with regard to Israeli settlement activity,” the White House said, referring to efforts to stop the labeling of Jewish goods.

One senior congressional aide who works on these issues expressed surprise at the administration’s statement, saying that it goes out of its way to single out Israel.

“This administration never misses an opportunity to take a swipe at Israel—even if it means criticizing bipartisan anti-BDS measures passed unanimously in the House and Senate,” the source said. “Don’t fall for any White House doublespeak: Opposing efforts to combat BDS equates to supporting BDS. That’s why history will show that President Obama actively advanced a movement solely aimed at delegitimizing the State of Israel.”

The bill seeks to combat the BDS movement. 

Congress “supports the strengthening of United States-Israel economic cooperation and recognizes the tremendous strategic, economic, and technological value of cooperation with Israel,” the legislation states.

It goes on to support “efforts to prevent investigations or prosecutions by governments or international organizations of United States persons on the sole basis of such persons doing business with Israel, with Israeli entities, or in Israeli-controlled territories,” according to the legislation. 

Additionally, Congress extends support to “American States examining a company’s promotion or compliance with unsanctioned boycotts, divestment from, or sanctions against Israel as part of its consideration in awarding grants and contracts and supports the divestment of State assets from companies that support or promote actions to boycott, divest from, or sanction Israel.”

The legislation also mandates that the United States work to eliminate “state-sponsored unsanctioned foreign boycotts against Israel or compliance with the Arab League Boycott of Israel by prospective trading partners,” according to the bill.

Additional portions of the legislation direct U.S. trade partners and companies that may have been participants in efforts to boycott Israel to disclose such behavior, particularly the labeling of goods produced by Jews in the West Bank.

 

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The Insanity of Jewish Philanthropy Funding Hamas

February 9, 2016

The Insanity of Jewish Philanthropy Funding Hamas Only the insane think that Jews should help Hamas kill Jews.

February 9, 2016 Daniel Greenfield

Source: The Insanity of Jewish Philanthropy Funding Hamas | Frontpage Mag

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.

Jane Kahn and Michael Bien, two activists with the anti-Israel New Israel Fund, had a complaint about San Francisco’s Jewish Community Federation. They were unhappy that JCF wouldn’t fund Hamas.

Or more specifically, they whined that “we were unable to make donations through our JCF donor-advised philanthropic fund to certain organizations that we support”. One of those organizations was the American Friends Service Committee because the JCF narrow-mindedly refuses to help fund groups that “endorse or promote anti-Semitism” or promote BDS.

The American Friends Service Committee does these things and more. It promotes BDS as if that were its religion right down to a “BDS Summer Institute”. And it has a long and troubled history with anti-Semitism from urging Jews  to “tolerate some anti-Semitic remarks” to throwing a shindig for Iranian madman Ahmadinejad.

But, more importantly, the AFSC has urged the United States to deal with Hamas despite its call for the eradication of the Jewish people. It has a history of supporting Hamas front “charities” and its website defends Hamas and describes its murderous terror attacks against Israeli civilians as “the use of violence in resisting Israel’s occupation”. It tells supporters “U.S. government policy officially supports Israel’s continued siege on Gaza and the Isolation of Hamas.  This is a situation that must end.” It urges supporters to demand a, “complete end to Israel’s siege on Gaza and engagement with Hamas.”

AFSC Palestine-Israel program director Mike Merryman-Lotze justifies anti-Semitic terrorism by arguing that, “Violence is the inevitable response.” AFSC figures advocate the destruction of Israel in various forms. AFSC coordinates with other extreme anti-Israel groups, including JVP.  This isn’t a new development for the AFSC which has an ugly history of defending politically correct genocide.

Like many on the left, including Noam Chomsky, the American Friends Service Committee denied Pol Pot’s crimes for as long as they could, instead describing the horrifying atrocities as “the example of an alternative model of development and social organization.” There is doubtlessly an anti-Semitic component to the AFSC’s hostility toward the Jewish State, but the AFSC has supported enough horrifying dictatorships for ideological reasons that it is simply what the organization does.

The left has become so thoroughly corrupted that it is possible for Judith Butler, the Hannah Arendt Chair at the European Graduate School, and Zaid Jilani, formerly of the Center for American Progress, to argue that Hamas or Hezbollah are “progressive” organizations. The notion that there is a distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is swiftly collapsing as a former Doctors Without Borders president argues that Jews wearing Kippahs  have it coming because Jewish religious clothing shows “allegiance to the policies of the state of Israel” or when a respected NPR host casually accuses Bernie Sanders of dual loyalty, despite his anti-Israel credentials, simply because he is Jewish.

The question though is should the Jewish Community Federation be expected to provide aid and comfort to the advocates for an organization that speaks of “Our struggle with the Jews” and states that, “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews)”?

Is it really too much to ask that a Jewish community group shouldn’t be funding organizations that “endorse or promote anti-Semitism” or promote the revival of Nazi boycotts of Jewish businesses?

According to Jane Kahn and Michael Bien of the New Israel Fund, an organization that is responsible for more than its own share of controversial funding programs to groups that libel, smear and wage an unceasing war against the Jewish State, it is.

This debate did not begin yesterday. The original open letter attacking the Jewish Community Federation’s “No anti-Semites” policy back in 2010 was signed by, among others, Cindy Shamban of the misleadingly named Jewish Voice for Peace, who more recently became the only speaker to oppose a call by Jewish faculty, alumni and students for the University of California to fight anti-Semitism.

There’s a pattern here and it’s a very ugly one. Advocates of boycotting Jews complain that it’s wrong for Jewish charities to boycott them. Endorsers of an academic boycott against Israel warn of a “chilling effect” if they and their groups don’t get the money they want. Activists with organizations that aid anti-Semitism demand civility and respectful dialogue even while their comrades scream hate outside Jewish synagogues and businesses in a twisted hateful reenactment of 1930’s Germany.

All of this is an obscene farce and it should have come to an end long ago.

Jewish charities should not be funding organizations that hate Jews, that kill Jews and that justify the murder of Jews. There is no dialogue, civil or otherwise, to be had about this subject.

These phenomena are not new. Max Naumann and his VNJ blamed Nazi anti-Semitism on the Zionists. They boycotted pro-Israel programming and sponsored a tour by an “Ex-Zionist” to reveal the “Truth About Palestine”. They endorsed Hitler. The Gestapo came for them anyway. The Marxist movements in Russia that became the Yevsektsiya, the Jewish Section, helped the NKVD round up and kill Rabbis and Zionists. Until their turn came and they ended up on the wrong side of the fence.  Just like the VNJ.

JVP is just VNJ. J Street is just the Yevsektsiya. And none of their twisted antics will stop a Muslim terrorist from killing them anyway. A great deal of spilled ink has been wasted on analyzing such pathological behavior.  But it’s a waste of time and energy. Arguing with the insane is insanity.

Aiding those who want to kill you or those who want to help kill you is suicide. Anyone who aids their own killers is by definition insane and their arguments and justifications should be viewed as the ravings of the utterly unhinged who have chosen to commit suicide and want to take everyone else with them.

The insane can have great charismatic powers of persuasion. Not everyone who drank the Kool -Aid at Jonestown was crazy. But those who had a choice, chose to participate in homicidal and suicidal insanity. The Jewish Anti-Israel left is just Jonestown on a multinational scale. Their Kool-Aid is routed through a sophisticated network of NGOs and delivered to students on campuses around the world.

But for all the cleverness and sophistication, the billionaire funders and policy papers, the front groups and brand names, it’s all just a Jewish Jonestown with a much better marketing campaign.

That’s all it was in 1930. That’s all it is today. That’s all it ever will be.

Instead of following insanity through its complex pathways of rationalization in which black turns white and up seems down, insanity is best met with common sense. If you follow the logic of madness far enough, you can come to a point at which mass suicide seems like the logical solution. It takes common sense to say that we should not kill ourselves and we should not fund our killers or those who aid them.

The San Francisco’s Jewish Community Federation’s policy of not funding those who hate Jews and the Jewish State is only controversial to those whose survival instincts have been drowned in ideological insanity. It is elementary common sense to everyone else.

The only people who really think that a policy of not funding anti-Semitism is controversial are anti-Semites and their insane Jewish accomplices.

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It’s Not Just About Israel. BDS Threatens Us All

December 23, 2015

It’s Not Just About Israel. BDS Threatens Us All, Huffington Post, , December 22, 2015

(Yes, it’s from the Huffington Post. Reader comments indicate that it was not well received. — DM)

A campaign of hate is sweeping across our country. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement – advancing an agenda to demonize the Jewish people and destroy the State of Israel – is moving from the fringes of our society and into the mainstream. Churches, labor unions, and associations have voted to divest from Israeli companies. In the past year alone, more than 30 student governments at American universities have considered resolutions calling for divestment from the State of Israel. More than a dozen academic trade associations have followed suit, voting to prevent their members from making any contact with Israeli institutions of higher education, preventing the free exchange of information and infringing on academic freedom.

Those that believe this is just an issue for Israel or the Jewish community are sorely mistaken. These developments endanger the future of America. Like a wildfire spreading out of control, BDS is a menace that must be contained today, before it alters our society’s moral compass and threatens the values and freedoms at the heart of our very way of life.

What’s the big deal about BDS? In short, what it teaches and what it seeks.

What does it teach? Growing legions of Americans are now being brainwashed by BDS to join an attack on the Middle East’s only oasis of democracy and human rights, while turning a blind eye to the brutal dictators and terrorists that dominate the rest of the region. Iran hangs gays and tortures political dissidents. ISIS enslaves young girls and murders minorities. The Assad regime is responsible for the slaughter of 500,000 civilians. Lebanon brutally oppresses Palestinians, denying them the right to own land or become lawyers and doctors. Yet, in the warped moral universe of BDS, none of these of abuses merit mention, while Israel’s vibrant democracy – which shares our values, advances our interests, and safeguards the rights of women, gays, minorities – is public enemy number one.

What does BDS seek? This Movement wants to do much more than boycott Israel. It seeks to destroy it. BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti, has said publicly that he’s working for Israel’s “euthanasia”. The maps that BDS groups publish of the region make this clear, depicting a single Palestinian state that extends from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean Sea, with no trace of Israel.

Yet, many fail to recognize that those driving the BDS agenda have ambitions that extend well beyond Israel. For them, Israel is the small Satan. America is the big Satan. They hate America’s belief in individual liberties and democracy, our capitalist system, and our influence around the world.

In the wake of BDS, we have seen other resolutions to remove the American Flag at UC Irvine and to cancel the 9/11 commemoration at the University of Minnesota.

Hatem Bazian, the founder of the largest on-campus BDS organization – Students for Justice in Palestine – has called for a violent uprising – in his words “an Intifada”, here in America against the United States. Like many other BDS leaders, Bazian has been connected to a range of groups shut down by the Justice Department for raising money on behalf of the Hamas terrorist organization and other radical Islamist groups.

It should be no surprise that the leading BDS activists are fundraisers and cheerleaders for terrorists. The top-listed signatory on the foundational document for today’s BDS Movement – a declaration issued in 2005 – is the Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine, which includes representatives of terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The acceptance of these groups as legitimate voices in public discourse is dangerous. Those who justify suicide bombings in Tel Aviv or stabbings in Jerusalem, also find reasons to endorse the brutal murder of American civilians in the World Trade Center, the stabbing of students at UC Merced and innocents in London, and bombing of commuters on trains in Spain and tourists on a Russian airliner in Egypt. Indeed, the same radical Islamist groups that staged violent anti-Israel protests on the streets of Europe in the summer of 2014 have provided fertile ground for ISIS and others to recruit the terrorists that have committed recent wave of attacks in Brussels, Paris, London, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and San Bernardino, California, which have claimed hundreds of lives.

The Jewish people have come to learn that when we are targeted with economic sanctions, much more dangerous things are often on the horizon – and the consequences often extend well beyond our community.

Germany staged economic boycotts of all Jewish businesses before Hitler and the Nazis sent the Jews of Europe to death camps. More than 60 million people died in the war that followed.

The Tsarist Government in Russia issued the “May Laws” – which imposed severe economic sanctions on the Russian Jewish population – in the years before Jews were mass murdered in pogroms across the country. Nine million died in the Russian civil war that followed.

The Arab League had an official boycott on Jewish-owned businesses many years before the vast majority of Jews in Arab Lands were systematically expelled or murdered in the wake of Israel’s independence. Since the mass exodus of Jews across the Middle East, the region has erupted in flames, with Christians, B’hai’s, Yazidis and other minorities next in line for persecution.

History’s lessons hang over our moment. What begins with the Jews never ends with the Jews. Now is the time for Americans to take action. For the sake Israel and America, for the sake of our shared values and our common future, we must stop BDS dead in its tracks. Nothing less than our very way of life is at stake.

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How to insult a “progressive”

July 6, 2015

How to insult a “progressive,” Pat Condell via You Tube, July 6, 2015

 

Categories: BDS, Cognitive dissonance, Foreign policy, Hamas, Islam, Islamic State, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamic war on women, Islamism, Islamophobia, Multiculturalism, Pat Condell
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Obama Won’t Enforce Anti-BDS Provision Language in Trade Bill he just Signed

July 1, 2015

Obama Won’t Enforce Anti-BDS Provision Language in Trade Bill he just Signed, The Jewish Press, Lori Lowenthal Marcus, July 1, 2015

(To enforce the anti-BDS provisions of the legislation Obama just signed would be Islamophobic. Or something. — DM)

Obama (1)U.S. President Barack Obama Photo Credit: WhiteHouse.Gov screen capture

This week the United States officially put on notice its trade partners that it will not countenance boycotts or other economic warfare against Israel.

After signing the relevant trade legislation into law, however, the White House signaled to all its trade partners that they are still free to boycott goods made in the disputed territories, despite the clear language of the legislation the president signed.

This week the Trade Promotion Authority bill was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama.

The TPA is primarily focused on international trade between the U.S. and Europe. It also included a section which addresses trade between the U.S. and Israel.

That part of the legislation, the U.S.-Israel Trade and Commercial Enhancement Act, bans boycotts and other means of economic warfare against Israel or the “Israeli-controlled territories.” This amendment, introduced by Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill-6) with bi-partisan co-sponsorship, was unanimously adopted into the PTA in April.

The passage of the TPA, including the anti-BDS section, should sound a death knell for the BDS (Boycott of, Divestment from and Sanctions against Israel) Movement. It should.

However, as pro-Israel Americans and Israelis learned only a few weeks ago in the Jerusalem passport case (Zivotofsky v. Kerry), there are certain spheres of international decision making over which the president has exclusive, or at least primary and controlling, control. Obama claims that international trade is one of those areas, even though Article 1, Section 8, clause 3, expressly gives Congress the power to regulate foreign commerce.

So even though the TPA is intended to act as a strong deterrent to European and other countries to pass and enforce boycotts of Israeli products, the White House has already signaled that it will not extend its protection to any goods produced in the disputed territories.

The anti boycott of Israel language in the TPA is: “actions by states, nonmember states of the United Nations, international organizations or affiliated agencies of international organizations that are politically motivated and are intended to penalize or otherwise limit commercial relations specifically with Israel or persons doing business in Israel or in Israeli-controlled territories.” [emphasis added.]

In a statement which Matt Lee of the Associated Press attributed to State Dept. spokesperson John Kirby, the administration made clear that despite signing the TPA, the position of the White House remains, as it has been, that the U.S. opposes boycotts of the State of Israel, but it also opposes the presence of Jews in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria and the Golan Heights.

In the statement the administration argues that by “conflating Israel and ‘Israeli-controlled territories’ a provision of the Trade Promotion Authority legislation runs counter to longstanding U.S. policy towards the occupied territories, including with regard to settlement activity,” and says that every U.S. administration has opposed “settlement activity.”

It goes on to point out that the “U.S. government has never defended or supported Israeli settlements and activity associated with them and, by extension, does not pursue policies or activities that would legitimize them.”

The U.S. administration announced that it will not jeopardize the holy grail of the two-state solution by enforcing the U.S. law as written and which its leader signed. In the statement it claims that “both parties have long recognized that settlement activity and efforts to change facts on the ground undermine the goal of a two-state solution to the conflict and only make it harder to negotiate a sustainable and equitable peace deal in good faith.” It is on this basis, ostensibly to promote a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, that this administration

Professor Eugene Kontorovich of the Northwestern University School of Law analyzes several other provisions of the U.S-Israel trade aspect of the TPA which have been largely overlooked. In particular, Kontorovich points out, U.S. courts cannot recognize or enforce the judgment of any foreign court “that doing business in or being based in the West Bank or Golan Heights violates international law or particular European rules.”

Categories: BDS, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Ideology, Israel, Jewish occupation of Israel, Obama, Obama's America, Palestinians, Peace process, Settlements, U.S. Congress, U.S. Constitution
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Coca-Cola Palestinian CEO On Video Endorsing Racism, Endorsement of BDS & Sanctions Against Israel

June 20, 2015

NYSE: KO: Coca-Cola Palestinian CEO On Video Endorsing Racism, Endorsement of BDS & Sanctions Against Israel

via NYSE: KO: Coca-Cola Palestinian CEO On Video Endorsing Racism, Endorsement of BDS & Sanctions Against Israel | Pamela Geller, Atlas Shrugs: Islam, Jihad, Israel and the Islamic War on the West.

The Arab [Muslim] League boycott of Israel is a systematic effort by Arab League member states to isolate Israel economically to prevent Arab states and discourage non-Arabs from providing support to Israel. In 1977, the United States Congress passed a law which fines would be levied on American companies which cooperate with the boycott. For the surveillance after the implementation of this law, an office called the “Office of Antiboycott Compliance” was opened in the United States as part of the US Department of Commerce.

Why isn’t this law being enforced against companies that are engaging in the BDS terror campaign against Israel?

As we reported a few days ago, the CEO of Coca-Cola “Palestine” has urged a boycott of Israel, and urged sanctions against Israel.  Thus far, there has been no response from Coca-Cola corporate.

Further research reveals more disturbing information on Coca-Cola’s business practices, which may violate United States law.  A corporate video (can be viewed here, starting at 1:15) shows the CEO of Coca-Cola Palestine noting proudly, “We must be the only bottling company in the world that has only one nationality amongst its staff.  We are all Palestinian.” Anywhere else in the world, that would be considered racism.  Is there no need for “diversity” in this company?

coca-cola-palestinian-business-604

 

The company has an entire fact sheet devoting to distancing themselves from the Jewish state which can be read here: http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/did-you-hear-the-one-about-coca-cola-myths-in-the-middle-east#TCCChttp://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/did-you-hear-the-one-about-coca-cola-myths-in-the-middle-east

 

They make sure that Muslims worldwide know that “We can categorically confirm that Coca-Cola does not transfer funds to support armed forces in any country – not to armed forces in Israel nor anywhere else in the world.  They also make sure everyone knows that they don’t operate in what they call “.. any disputed territory in Israel.”

 Corporate has completed a study on Palestine Coca-Cola – http://assets.coca-colacompany.com/17/c2/8bb89053450084896fd5bf3658e7/harvard_kennedy_study.pdf – but nary a word on Israeli Coca-Cola can be found on their corporate website.

Zahi Khouri, the CEO who supports a boycott also supports J Street financially, noting that  he believes that “..they are sincere about being pro-peace. And AIPAC I consider an enemy of Israel rather than a friend of Israel because they’re not helping it to achieve peace.” He then went on to advocate a divided Jerusalem and a return to Israel for Palestinian refugees.  One wonders where the CEO of Coca-Cola Palestine feels that would leave the Jewish state.

More information is forthcoming shortly on Coca-Cola’s connection and the endorsement of the Palestinian Coca-Cola CEO of BDS. We urge everyone in the stock market to closely review NYSE: KO

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Who Is Blocking Palestinian Elections?

June 4, 2015

Who Is Blocking Palestinian Elections? The Gatestone Institute, Khaled Abu Toameh, June 4, 2015

  • Fatah is afraid that Hamas’s chances of winning the elections, especially in the West Bank, are very high. Hamas is not willing to relinquish control over the Gaza Strip, certainly not to Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, who were expelled from there in 2007.
  • Each party cares only about its own interests, while at the same time lying to the world that it is all Israel’s fault. Hamas continues to invest enormous resources in digging new tunnels, in preparation for a new war with Israel.
  • All this is being done with the help of anti-Israel governments around the world, and groups such as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, whose only goal is to delegitimize Israel and demonize Jews rather than to help the Palestinians.

One year after Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas announced the establishment of the Palestinian Fatah-Hamas “national consensus” government, the two rival parties remain as far apart as ever.

The “national consensus” government, headed by Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, was formed after a series of “understandings” between Fatah and Hamas on the basis of previous “reconciliation” agreements between the two sides.

A year later, it has become obvious that the “national consensus” government has failed to achieve its main objectives: the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip; ending the conflict between Hamas and Fatah, and preparing for new presidential and parliamentary elections.

Fatah and Hamas can only blame each other for the failure of the latest attempt to end their dispute and do something good for their people. There is no way this time that they could lay the blame on Israel.

The two parties had a chance to cooperate on the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of last year’s military confrontation between Israel and Hamas. The international community even offered to assist in the mission, but Fatah and Hamas chose to continue fighting each other at the expense of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Until today, the two rival Palestinian parties have not been able to reach agreement on a mechanism for the transfer of funds from international donors to the Gaza Strip.

Fatah claims that Hamas wants to steal the money, while Hamas is already accusing Fatah and the Palestinian Authority government of working to lay their hands on the funds.

Fatah and Hamas agreed back then that the Hamdallah government would remain in office for only six months — the period needed to prepare for long overdue presidential and legislative elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But the “interim” government has just completed its first year in power, while the chances of holding new elections under the current circumstances are non-existent.

1096One man, one vote, one time? Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (left) and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas (also president of the Palestinian Authority) are pictured voting in the last election for the Palestinian Legislative Council, which took place in 2006.

Again, the two sides do not seem to be interested at all in sending Palestinians to the ballot boxes. Each side has many good reasons to avoid holding new elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

First, Fatah and Hamas do not trust each other, and each side is convinced that the other would try to steal the vote. How can there be free and democratic elections while Hamas and Fatah continue to arrest and torture each other’s supporters in the Gaza Strip and West Bank?

Second, Fatah is afraid that Hamas’s chances of winning the elections, especially in the West Bank, are very high. That is because many Palestinians still do not trust Abbas and Fatah, whom they accuse of maintaining close security ties with Israel. Moreover, many Palestinians remain disillusioned with Fatah because of its failure to combat financial and administrative corruption and pave the way for the emergence of new leaders.

There is no way that Hamas and Fatah can cast the blame on Israel regarding the issue of elections. If they were really interested in holding new elections, they could do so with the help of the international community, as was the case with previous votes in 2005 and 2006. Israel even helped the Palestinian hold those elections.

When several Hamas candidates from east Jerusalem ran in the January 2006 parliamentary election, Israel did nothing to stop them. Israel even opened its post offices in the city to allow Arab voters from the city (who hold Israeli-issued ID cards) to vote in the election.

Charges made by some Palestinians and anti-Israel groups around the world, to the effect that Israel is responsible for “foiling” efforts to achieve Palestinian unity, are baseless. Although the Israeli government initially opposed the Fatah-Hamas “reconciliation” deal that was reached in 2014, it has not stopped the Palestinian prime minister and some of his cabinet members from visiting the Gaza Strip to pursue the implementation of the accord. In fact, Prime Minister Hamdallah has since visited the Gaza Strip twice, after receiving permission from Israel to go through the Erez border crossing.

Recently, ten Palestinian ministers were forced to leave the Gaza Strip, after Hamas placed them under house arrest in their hotel and banned them from meeting with locals. The ministers entered the Gaza Strip through the Erez border crossing. They came to the Gaza Strip to help solve the problem of thousands of Hamas government employees who have not received salaries for more than a year, and to discuss issues related to the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.

So while Israel facilitated the visits by Hamdallah and his ministers to the Gaza Strip, it was Hamas that expelled them and prevented them from carrying out their duties. Had Israel expelled the ministers from the Gaza Strip or stopped them from entering the area, the country would have been condemned by the international community for “blocking” efforts to achieve Palestinian unity and rebuild the Gaza Strip.

Today, it has become unavoidably clear that Fatah and Hamas, and not Israel, are responsible for the ongoing plight of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The two parties are unlikely to resolve their differences in the near future, further exacerbating the misery of their people. Each party cares only about its own interests, while at the same time lying to the world that it is all Israel’s fault. Hamas is not willing to relinquish control over the Gaza Strip, certainly not to Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, who were expelled from there in 2007. As for Abbas, he does not seem to be interested in regaining control over a problematic area such as the Gaza Strip, where most of the population lives under the poverty line and in refugee camps.

Yet instead of being honest with their people and admitting their failure to improve their people’s living conditions, Hamas and Fatah continue to wage smear campaigns against each other and, at the same time, also against Israel.

The campaigns that Hamas and Fatah are waging against Israel, particularly in the international community, are designed to divert attention from their failure to provide their people with basic services or any kind of hope.

While ignoring the plight of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority leaders were prepared to invest huge efforts and resources in trying to have Israel suspended from the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA). It is as if the Palestinians had solved all their major problems and all that they needed to do now was to stop Israeli soccer players from playing in international matches.

Hamas, for its part, continues to invest enormous resources in digging new tunnels, in preparation for another war with Israel. The money that is being invested in the tunnels and the purchase and smuggling of weapons could benefit many families who lost their homes during the last war. But Hamas, like the Palestinian Authority, does not care about the misery of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. They want to fight Israel to the last Palestinian. And this is all being done with the help of anti-Israel governments around the world, and groups such the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, whose only goal is to delegitimize Israel and demonize Jews rather than to help the Palestinians.

Categories: Abbas, BDS, Fatah, Foreign policy, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian elections, Peace process, Two state solution
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