CENTER FIELD: The McGill model for fighting BDS

[shira]

Make the fight personal, because it is. BDS scapegoats Israel, Israeli students, Jewish students, pro-Israel students and harms the campus environment.

....For years Jewish students had felt that there was sustained hostility aimed at them from their anti-Zionist and pro-BDS classmates.” When these heartfelt arguments “were treated with varying levels of disdain,” students “came to vote with us because they saw the toll that the aggressive and at times personal attacks took on their friends.”

The McGill model teaches important lessons. First, make the fight personal, because it is. BDS scapegoats Israel, Israeli students, Jewish students, pro-Israel students and harms the campus environment. Students mobilized to support their friends. Second, make the fight about fairness, about treating Jewish and pro-Israel students with the dignity all students deserve. And third, don’t just say no. Turn the negative into a positive. Celebrate the open, tolerant pro-Israel, pro-democracy campus the McGill students and professors cherish, the provocative, civil academic values the principal champions, the fair, equitable, civil learning community the Judicial Board endorses, and what Paransky proudly calls “the strong Jewish and Zionist values” he learned from camp and his family.

Finally, be proactive. Other campuses shouldn’t wait for BDS ugliness to strike; celebrate fairness and openness by articulating what you believe now, affirming that your campus has zero tolerance for BDS intolerance.

more...
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/CENTER-FIELD-The-McGill-model-for-fighting-BDS-456185

[Little Tich]

1. It seems as if the author of the OP is totally unaware of the existence of the illegal settlements

in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Some of us are aware of their existence and believe that they're a breach of international law and a cause for the violations of human rights in the occupied territories.

BDS.

[shira]

2. People can be against settlements without being for BDS....

BDS is a hate movement.

In fact, everything BDS stands for falls under the working definition of antisemitism just adopted by the world's Democratic nations.

There is no functional difference between anti-semitism and BDS anti-zionism.

[Little Tich]

3. I think the IHRA definition is BS - anti-Semitism is a form of racism, nothing else.

I've told you before that it's dangerous to water down the definition of anti-Semitism by including criticism of Israel and Zionism. It would make some forms of anti-Semitism justified, which is wrong - unjustified is for me a core definition of anti-Semitism.

BDS is a legitimate form of political expression aimed at making Israel stop violating human rights. That's not racist nor anti-Semitic.

[shira]

4. Doesn't matter how you personally define it. The vast majority of Jews & now all.....

....Democratic nations acknowledge that BDS style demonization of Israel is antisemitic. Democratic nations know how to define other sorts of racism & bigotry, and antisemitism is no different.

Your notion of racism is a joke when you cannot unequivocally state that inciting, praising, and rewarding the murder of random innocent Jews is antisemitic & racist.