Northeastern University Rejects BS Resolution

Another campus sees the light and rejects BSemite nonesense. This time, the proposal failed to pass the student leaders' vote in Northeastern University, with a majority of 25 senators opposed and only 9 in favor. See this Jewish Journal report:

Another campus joins sanity

Student leaders at Northeastern University rejected a resolution that had the Boston school divesting from companies doing business with Israel. 

On Monday, the Student Government Association voted down the measure, with 25 senators opposed, nine in favor and 14 abstaining. The vote, which took place just before midnight, followed some two hours of passionate debate, according to Dylan Abraham, a student senator and former executive vice president of the school’s Hillel chapter 

“The outcome of the vote is welcome news to our Jewish student leaders, who feel justifiably proud of all the hard work they have put into lobbying, advocacy, educational efforts, strategy sessions, late night communications and social media efforts,” said Arinne Braverman, executive director of Northeastern Hillel, which worked with the New England chapter of the Anti Defamation League, StandWithUs and other Jewish organizations to support students in their effort to defeat the resolution.

Palestinian Affairs Analyst Opposes BS, Says It Hurts Palestinians

Bassem Eid, Palestinan affairs analyst for Voice of Israel radio station and founder of the Jerusalem-based Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, said in a radio interview that the BS attempts led by South Africa only bring harm to the Palestinian economy. See these very bold words from a very bold individual:

Bassem Eid: "BS hurts Palestinians"

These people are trying to cause a kind of destruction to the Palestinian economy. While they are calling to boycott Israel, that means that Israel is going to fire Palestinian workers. The SodaStream, it was a huge example, that 2,500 Palestinian workers have been fired and they became jobless right now. 

On the other side, the message to the South African people, that through the "Yearly Apartheid Week" that you are celebrating in South Africa, I think that you are adding oil to the fire, I think that you are bringing more hate to the existing hatred between the Palestinians and the Israelis. And in a such way, I don't believe that the South African people will be able to achieve any peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis. 

To hear Eid's interview, see here.

21 BSemites Arrested in Violent Protest in South Africa

So apparently, boycotting is not enough anymore; now BSemites have decided that the just cause is raiding and looting stores selling Israeli products. How civilized, wouldn't you agree? See this JP report:

A 'non-violent' protest

Dozens of BDS protesters and other anti-Israel activists raided a store in the Sammy Marks industrial park in Pretoria, South Africa, causing thousands of dollars of damage. They were protesting because the store sold products made in Israel. At the end of the riot, Pretoria police arrested 21 teens between the ages of 16 and 18. 

What began as a planned protest, accompanied by signs with slogans like, “Israel is the Devil’, turned into a riot as they entered the store and began destroying merchandise and equipment, throwing rocks, attacking employees, and looting.

Germans Demand Depiction of BS as Anti-Semitic

More Germans demand that the BS movement be recognized as what it is - a new brand of very ugly anti-Semitism.  The debate around BS anti-Semitism was sparked by hate mail sent to the Israeli ambassador to Berlin, Yakov Hadas-Handelsman, which included praise of Hitler.  As i24 news reports:

"Those who say the BDS movement isn't anti-Semitic just don't want to look harder," claimed MP Volker Beck of the Green party, who admitted to be stunned by the official stance. "This group isn't just critical of Israel. You can hear in many of their statements that their target isn't the occupation, rather the very existence of Israel." 

"Any criticism which blames Israel for being on the stronger side in this conflict is illegitimate," he continued. "I think we have to criticize the occupation and the enlargement of settlements, but if you are questioning Israel's right to exist or not seeing correctly its security challenges, that must be because its the homeland of the Jews, and that's anti-Semitism."

University of New Orleans Students to Boycott Palestinian Authority

A growing trend among U.S. campuses has reached Louisiana:  Students taking the initiative and provoking divestment debates in favor of Israel.  As with University of Georgia students earlier this month, pro-Israel students at the University of New Orleans are calling for divestment from he Palestinian Authority for its human rights abuses, particularly abuses perpetrated against women, gays and religious minorities.

 

Breitbart quotes campaign organizer and student activist Chloe Valdary:

In order to give expression to the Jewish struggle for freedom, my organization Allies of Israel has launched a campaign to symbolically divest from the Palestinian Authority. Because we understand many Palestinians are employed by the P.A., we do not wish to literally pull off the shelves products which are produced by the PA. However, we do seek to stand in solidarity with our Palestinian brothers and sisters who are imprisoned and persecuted by the P.A. This includes Palestinian women, gays, religious minorities and political dissidents. In addition, we stand in solidarity with Jews in Israel and around the world and call upon the P.A. to cease sponsoring, financing, and/or encouraging the lynching of Jews and the segregation of Jews from areas that are currently off limits to Jews in Israel.

California Faculty Support Israel 35 to 1

135 Stanford faculty members have joined in a petition of support for Israel and in opposition to BS maneuvers.  The signatories include four Nobel Prize winners, Haaretz reports.

The critical mass of signatories is significant because Stanford faculty is relatively small, less than 2,000 members, of which a full 7% joined the initiative.  

By comparison, a recent BS effort to gather anti-Israel signatures across the entire University of California system gathered only 40 signatures.  Since there are over 20,000 faculty in the U.C. system, this represents a meager 0.2% of BSemites on the faculty.

Yet another perspective for the level of support for Israel on California campuses can be gained from a 2013 faculty petition against divestment at U.C. Berkeley, one of 10 University of California campuses.  On this campus alone, 25 faculty members signed on to support Israel.

Go California!

British BSemites: Now Resorting to Death Threats

Having nothing to show for their efforts to cajole, beg or plead with artists to stop supporting Israel, BSemites have now added death threats to a growing repertoire of anti-Semitic slander and hooliganism.  Nonetheless, the success rate remains precisely nil.

The most recent target of their (failed) vitriol is British actor Rory Cowan who, despite being warned of (failed) efforts to have him fired from his television show, remained cool as a cucumber and thumbed his nose at BSemites, ynet reports.

"I love going to Israel," he told the paper. "I've been going since 1982 and I was telling them about my good experiences there and why I wouldn't be boycotting it."

Cowan also vowed that the onslaught would not adversely affect him.

"You can't take that on board. I don't know who these people are. If I did I'd be scared to go outside my house," he said. "The one thing that really bothered me were the anti-Semitic comments."

In other entertainment news from ynet, American comedienne Sarah Silverman has thrown her weight behind the Meretz party in Israel's elections whereas Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones will be coming to Israel in the summer to receive the Genesis Prize, at a Jerusalem ceremony hosted by Jay Leno.  Leno also hosted last year's ceremony at which the award was given to New York mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Another Exit for Israeli Start-Up

Israel's start-up economy is thriving, and BS nonesense about isolation is getting more and more ridiculous. Yesterday, the Israeli cyber-security start-up CyActive was acquired by PayPal for $60 million. See this report from algemeiner:

The American online payments giant PayPal is purchasing the Israeli cybersecurity start-up CyActive for $60 million. Spokespeople from PayPal and CyActive both did not comment on the acquisition, but Globesreported that the deal has been signed and is expected to close shortly. 

CyActive, which was founded in 2013 by CEO Liran Tancman and Chief Technology Officer Shlomi Boutnaru, claims that its technology can predict and prevent hacker attacks by forecasting the future of malware evolution “using bio-inspired algorithms and a deep understanding the black hats’ hacking process.” 

The Israeli start-up was part of an incubator program launched by the Be’er Sheva-based venture capital firm JVP. CyActive is PayPal’s second acquisition in Israel. In 2008, PayPal purchased the financial fraud-monitoring company FraudSciences for $169 million.

Antisemitism in BS Rally in South Africa

This isn't surprising, we know, but once again cute South African BSemites have failed to distinguish between protest and Antisemitism. See this report from Politicsweb:

Protestors outside a SA Zionist Federation conference in Sandton today, yelled: "You think this is Israel, we are going to kill you". From the outset, it was clear that the aim of the demonstration, in the protestors own words, was to "shut down Sandton" and ensure "no Zionist conference be held on our soil". When their attempts at doing so, failed, it became apparent that the rally was nothing more than a front to stoke up Jew-hatred in South Africa.

Sentiments such as: "You Jews do not belong in South Africa" were shouted from the ranks. As worrying as these displays of anti-Semitism are, equally worrying, is that a Deputy Minister, Obed Bapela chose to attack the SAJBD, specifically calling out the name of our National Director, Wendy Kahn. One would expect a more measured and dignified tone from a government official. It is unbecoming of a Deputy Minister.

Furthermore, Deputy Minister Bapela made a libellous allegation and accused a Jewish marshal of assaulting a protester. A look at the video footage shows that this allegation is unfounded and malicious. It is apparent in the video footage that the protester in fact raised her hand to the marshal, who asked her to remove her hand from his person.

University of Georgia Students Vote for Israel

The University of Georgia Student Government Association passed a resolution supporting "study abroad opportunities in Israel for students across all focus areas, graduate and undergraduate."  The Atlanta Jewish Times reports that the resolution, drafted by the student group Students Supporting Israel, passed unanimously.  The vote occurred on the same day as a vote by students at Liberty University to reject BS.

According to The Algemeiner, the text adopted by the Georgia students calls Israel “one of the most stable countries in the Middle East, and the country with the highest ratings in freedom, human rights, and democracy in the region.” The resolution outlines the academic advantages for UGA students studying in Israel, noting that the Jewish State is a “global leader in science and technology research and is home to a world-renowned business environment with the most startups per capita in the world.”

 “We are here to show the university community that the pro-Israel movement on campus is strong and vibrant, and this resolution is just one example,” SSI co-presidents Eytan Palte and Lara Schewitz told the Salomon Center via Facebook. “Hopefully, this resolution is just the beginning of strengthening the relationship between UGA students and Israel, and we look forward to doing all within our capabilities to help this relationship grow and prosper. Our goal is to shed a positive light on Israel and show the community the success of her thriving democracy and diversity.”

In an exclusive statement to the Salomon Center, Roz Rothstein, CEO of the Israel advocacy group StandWithUs, congratulated SSI UGA, adding, “It’s refreshing to see that while extremists push their anti-Israel agenda on campuses, students at the university took a strong pro-active stance in support of cooperation with Israel. We look forward to seeing more and more student campaigns in support of peace, justice, and partnership between Israel and America.”