BDS Israel boycott group is anti-Semitic, says US

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: BBC

The US has declared as anti-Semitic a prominent international movement which calls for a complete boycott of Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) was "a cancer", adding the US would stop funding groups linked to it.
...
HRW condemned the US' latest move as "undermining the common fight against the scourge of antisemitism".

"Americans have a long history of supporting peaceful boycotts to promote social justice and human rights... The Trump administration has no business trying to tar groups because they back boycotts."

Read more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-54999010

[My Pet Orangutan]

1. NSDAP: 'Don't buy from Jews'

German parliament condemns 'anti-Semitic' BDS movement
https://www.dw.com/en/german-parliament-condemns-anti-semitic-bds-movement/

[TheRickles]

7. That link gets a "404 error"

This would be a surprising story, so I hope you can come up with a working link to it. Thanks.

[Archae]

11. Here's one that worked for me...

https://www.dw.com/en/german-parliament-condemns-anti-semitic-bds-movement/a-48779516

[TheRickles]

16. Thanks!

[TheRickles]

15. Right you are. Here's one from May 2019

Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-bds-israel/germany-designates-bds-israel-boycott-movement-as-anti-semitic-idUSKCN1SN204

[Mawspam2]

2. Right, and the South Africa anti-apartheid boycotts...

...and calls for divestment were anti-black. Thing is, they worked. It took from 1958 to 1994 to accomplish, but it worked. There was no invading army, no fields of unexploded mines, no air force dropping napalm. If the best they got is to call BDS anti-semetic, I say bring it.

[oldsoftie]

3. Thats mostly right. I've seen protests for this nonsense; its obvious.

Caricature posters with the over sized noses, evil grins, etc. Meanwhile, more of the ME countries make peace agreements with Israel. Because they know they're not a threat. The palestinians have had a myriad of chances to have an agreement; probably the best brokered by Bill Clinton. But the CHOSE to walk away because of their hardliners. Every time. And the attacks keep coming every day.

[pecosbob]

4. Many states have anti-BDS clauses written into employment contracts

Regardless of your position on Israel or their policies, these states' prohibitions are unconstitutional.

[KG]

5. I lol'd

[JonLP24]

6. Israel is where Trump has the highest percentage of people that approve of him

Mexico is the lowest. Only 8% of the population approves of him. We need to find a way to annex Canada & Mexico

I think perhaps many people in Israel are right wing.

[Ford_Prefect]

8. An Apartheid state is an inhumane institution which begs the question:

How is that a defense against oppression? When you claim that no other solution will do and insist on that dogma as the measure of loyalty in your allies you are exporting that oppression, or as we have come to call it: Racism.

I have heard all of the arguments and seen the changes in how they are dressed up for public viewing for over 60 years. I supported the movement to divest over South Africa. It worked to bring pressure and to expose the lies over what was acceptable.

There are a number of arguments which need to be settled in the complex question of Israel and how it maintains its place in the world. None of which is binary in the end. Israel exists and has a place but must have a humane future or no one living there will be safe.

As we found in South Africa, as we found in Northern Ireland, as we found in Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan: Racist exclusion does not work as governance. It is so self destructive it cannot stand.

Now ask yourself if an excuse to ban political speech against apartheid is an appropriate thing for Americans to do?

[Happy Hoosier]

9. Israel is a NATION, not a religion.

I buy stuff from Jews all the time. But Israel is a nation with policies I oppose. Opposing their POLITICAL actions has nothing to do with their religion or ethnicity.

[cab67]

13. THIS

Israel and Judaism are obviously linked, but they're not equivalent.

I disagree with a lot of the shit the US does. That doesn't make me anti-American.

[JonLP24]

19. Exactly

I remember a conservative in Britain said progressives there are Xenophobic against the US because they criticize our policies and it made me laugh.

This also made me laugh too. Toryphobic

Link to tweet

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Pompeo makes unprecedented visit to Israeli settlement in West Bank

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is touring a Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, marking the first such visit by a top US official.

The trip to Psagot comes a year after Mr Pompeo said the settlements did not contradict international law, reversing a long-held US position.

The declaration outraged Palestinians, who oppose settlements on land they claim for a future independent state.

Mr Pompeo will later pay a similar visit to the occupied Golan Heights.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-54999008

Normalizing an illegal occupation.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. Not the US. The dying remnant of a Rump administration that lost the election both ways. . . . nt

[backroadblast]

14. i have doubts

if the boycott was targeting Jewish owned business and products no matter where they were located in the world, i would agree.
that doesn't seem to be the case here.

[Dorn]

17. So a jewish person who supports divesting in Israel is anti-jewish : That makes 0 sense

[still_one]

22. So when Clarence Thomas and Candice Owens, etc. approve of policies which hurt African Americans,

because they are African American, means they cannot be against African Americans?

[JT45242]

18. Difference between anti-Semitism and being against actions of the Israeli government

I can oppose the atrocities (including war crimes, illegal annexations, etc) that the Israeli government has unleashed on the Palestinians and not be anti-Semitic.

The harsh reality is that the same plot of land was promised to two different groups during WW II. Post WW II, the US government has backed all the actions of one group (the Isreali government) while ignoring legitimate complaints of the other (the Palestinians).

However, let us NEVER FORGET that Pompeo is one of the Neo-Christofascists who think that an Isreali state is a necessary component of the end times based on a crazy interpretation of the book of revelations.

[question everything]

20. That a Palestinian protester against Israel shouted: Jews, back to the oven

shows you that for too many there is not difference between being anti Israel and anti Semite.

[still_one]

21. While no doubt there are some BDS supporters who believe those efforts will

encourage Israel to change policies with which they disagree, the predominant drive of the BDS campaign and its leadership is not criticism of policies, but the demonization and delegitimization of Israel.

The BDS campaign generally does not support Israeli-Palestinian peace effors, and rejects a two-state solution to the conflict

[JonLP24]

24. There is going to be an overlap with those who are anti-semitic

And those that criticize Israel's human rights violations. On coverage of the alt-right I think it was Richard Spencer who said he wants a white ethnostate and he used Israel as an example.

I'm sure you can find someone that supports Israel and is Islamaphobic. There is a lot of overlap there as well.

[PatrickforO]

23. Israel has annexed about 46% of land on the West Bank, and

has built a 500 mile wall to separate that portion from the rest. Basically, what they have done is round up the 2.6 million Palestinians who live in that annexed area, and forced them into ghettos surrounded by militarized zones. Then, the developers came in and built new housing for around half a million Israelis who have 'settled' in the area.

This is an apartheid system. It just is. No government has any business doing something like this. We boycotted South Africa for the same thing clear back in the 80s. We overturned our own 'separate but equal' apartheid system in America in 1965. These kinds of systems are immoral.

To my mind, being against these acts by the Israeli government is not the same as being anti-Semitic. Israel is a state, not a religion.

And, in this argument, we must also recognize, if we're to be fair, that Israel has been surrounded since its inception by Arab states that have never recognized its right to exist as a nation, and have repeatedly waged war to eradicate it.

In addition, if we are to delve back into history, we can blame the Brits for the way they, and other western powers, 'partitioned' the old Ottoman Empire after its defeat in the First World War. As late as 1938, it was the official British position that Palestine should not become a Jewish state.

This whole thing is long and complicated, with wrongs on all sides. There is no easy answer. But to say this BDS thing is anti-Semitic is way too simplistic.

It is kind of like the right wing saying that if we criticize a war, we are anti-soldier, anti-veteran, or saying that we can either have jobs, or fracking, but not both.

And, even more sadly, and to the point, it is like us here in America saying that taking the land from the Native Americans, and then forcing them to live on reservations was our 'manifest destiny.' It was not, but we let might conquer right. We've been doing that for far too long, haven't we?

[Universal Karma]

25. I approve of BDS

Just because your against Isreal facist apartheid control doesn't make you anti Semitic.
Giving Isreal a pass on their own crimes against the Palestinians is racist itself.

[MurrayDelph]

26. I don't need

someone from an administration who said the people chanting "Jews will not replace us" were "very fine people,"

a person whose main interest in supporting Israel is in the hopes that it will foster a war that will bring his favorite demigod back to earth,

a person who is hoping to run for president on the bona fides of his support for a repressive regime,

I don't need that person goysplaining to me what is (and isn't) anti-Semitic.