Israeli Companies Dismiss BS Threats, "Made In Israel" Labels Thrive

BS exerts great efforts to promote boycott of Israeli products. If anyone needed another sign of the negligibility of these attempts, the Times of Israel reports that more and more Israeli companies are labeling their exported products 'Made In Israel". This is, needless to say, despite BSemites' hypocritical outcries over the issue:

The boycott, divest, and sanction movement, which seeks to cut economic ties with Israel, shows no sign of letting up. Yet concern over the possibility that their products will be boycotted has not stopped Israeli manufacturers and exporters from identifying with Israel. Quite the opposite, according to Economy Ministry figures; while in 2013, 760 Israeli manufacturers marked their products marketed abroad as “made in Israel,” by 2014 that number had grown to 1,024. 

It was just another indication that Israeli technology is welcome around the world, according to Ohad Cohen, who heads the Foreign Trade Administration in the Israeli Economy Ministry. “BDS campaigns are really only effective against identifiable consumer products, and Israel does export some of these, but most of our production is in intermediate goods – chemicals, machine parts, technology, etc. Israel’s main customers are the businesses that use these components, and for most companies, business is business, and they keep politics out of the picture.

Apparently, the world doesn't care much for fake and hyporitical protests. Israeli products are just too awesome!

Tennessee General Assembly Condemns BS

While campuses across North America have had their fair share of denying BS hypocrisy, it is always nice to hear that political institutions also join in and condemn BSemites. Last week, the Tennessee General Assembly passed a resolution criticizing the BS movement as a platform for anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic voices who desire the elimination of the State of Israel. See this Algemeiner report:

The Tennessee General Assembly on Tuesday became the first state legislature in the U.S. to formally condemn the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. 

Senate Joint Resolution 170, initially passed April 9 by the Tennessee Senate in a unanimous 30-0 vote, was approved by the Tennessee House of Representatives in an overwhelming 93-1 vote on Tuesday, with Democratic State Representative G.A. Hardaway the lone dissenter. 

The resolution, which is expected to be signed next week by Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam, declares that the BDS movement is “one of the main vehicles for spreading anti-Semitism and advocating the elimination of the Jewish state,” adding that BDS activities in Tennessee “undermine the Jewish people’s right to self-determination, which they are fulfilling in the State of Israel.” 

Furthermore, the resolution states that the BDS movement and its agenda are “inherently antithetical and deeply damaging to the causes of peace, justice, equality, democracy and human rights for all the peoples in the Middle East.”

A round of applause to Tennessee, with the expectation of other states to follow soon!

Congress Marks Israeli Birthday with Actions against BS Efforts

What a pleasant birthday surprise! Congress approved actions to fight BS activity attempting to delegitimize Israel. An amendment was passed in order to discourage EU cooperation with BS activists, and another legislation was passed compelling reports on foreign investments in BS activities. See this Jerusalem Post report:

Happy Birthday Israel!

Both chambers of Congress marked Israel’s 67th Independence Day with action against efforts to boycott the state. 

One day before the anniversary, the Senate Finance Committee unanimously agreed to attach an amendment to a bill that would “fast track” US President Barack Obama’s trade negotiations with Europe, which suggests any trade deal should discourage the EU from promoting boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. 

Fast-track authority allows the US president to negotiate trade agreements that still require the approval of Congress, but that Congress cannot amend. 

Another Senate amendment passed a week ago would require the executive to report the participation of foreign companies in BDS activities.

 All of this happened one day before Israel's 67th birthday. So happy birthday and MAZAL TOV!

Princeton Rejects Boycott as Expected

To nobody's surprise, students participating at a Princeton referendum regarding BS decided to reject a boycott of Israel on April 24.

Though only two-thousand students participated in the referendum, anti-Israel students tried to spin the results as an exercise in eduction. In actuality, this first student-wide BS vote, and first of its kind at an ivy-league university, is a crushing defeat for Israel haters and the fifth humiliation of its sort this month, following anti-BS votes at the University of New Mexico, UT Austin, UCSB and San Diego State University.

A student leader of Princeton's No Divest coalition summed up the group's success in an interview with the Daily Princetonian:

"We were just really proud that the majority of the voting students saw through the misleading language of the referendum and ended up rejecting what we saw as a counterproductive proposition, especially coming from the University forum,” she said. ”We don’t believe that it’s a productive policy tool to improve the status quo in the region.”

Students at Princeton who actually care about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lead the opposition to the BS vote and are instead pushing for investment in the region.  The initiative, called "Tigers Together" is supported by No Divest, the same group responsible for defeating the BS motion.

“Tigers Together wants to have as positive and constructive and immediate of an impact as possible on the ground by supporting organizations that work on development issues for Israelis and Palestinians, like entrepreneurship and water scarcity,” Backman said, adding that Tigers Together has already begun fundraising for such organizations.

She explained that next year, Tigers Together will also launch an internship program that will send students to Israel or Palestine, so that they can bring firsthand perspectives on the region back to campus. The organization is seeking faculty from a diverse arena of academic disciplines, including the Wilson School and development-oriented fields, Backman noted.

“We think the more students that know about the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians, the better,” she said, adding that the No Divest coalition is happy that there is dialogue on campus concerning the Israeli-Palestinian relationship.

University of New Mexico Rejects Divestment

Students at the University of New Mexico rejected BS at a 14 to 4 vote.  Naturally, pro-Israel students decried the proposed resolution for its bias.  But even neutral observers criticized the resolution for its negative effects on campus climate.  The student newspaper reports:

Sen. Tori Pryor said it was a problem that the resolution didn’t focus on the climate at UNM and the potential impact the resolution would have domestically.  She cited previous resolutions, such as legislation condemning Islamophobia and supporting undocumented students, as ones that were successful because they did not “shift the climate of fear” from one group to another, as she and many senators believed Resolution 12S would if passed.  “You have to value perception more than, if not just as much as, you value intention,” she said. “We want safety for everyone. We listen to our Palestinian students; should we not listen to our Israeli students?”

As at prior votes, anti-Israel students made a desperate effort to pass the resolution by removing any and all references to the BS movement itself but, as before, this ploy failed to sway those in the room who saw a transparent link between the bigotry of the resolution and the bigotry of the movement:

Calzadillas Chavez, one of three senators who sponsored the resolution, proposed an amendment removing two clauses referring to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that UNM must take part in, citing that as the main source of contention.  It passed, but Balis and Lobos for Israel were not swayed.  “No matter what you strike, the thing is the same,” Balis said. “It’s still calling for BDS even if you don’t talk about it. For that reason we still can’t accept this.”

University of Texas Rejects Boycott

On April 22, the University of Texas student assembly voted resoundingly against a boycott motion that would have targeted US corporations doing business with Israel.  The vote failed 23 to 11, the student newspaper reported.  Prior to the vote, 17 former student government presidents and vice presidents sent a letter to the current assembly, asking them to reject the BS effort.

Based on our count, the Texas vote is the third failure of BS this month:  San Diego State University rejected BS on April 9 and UCSB rejected BS on April 16.  Last month saw BS rejected at the University of Michigan, the University of British Columbia, Southampton University, Northeastern, the University of New Orleans, and the University of Georgia.

Government Senior Slams BS for Anti-Semitism

Noah Horwitz, a former government senior from Houston, in a recent column on The Daily Texan, mocked BS activists and exposed their real intentions: sheer olf-fashioned anti-Semitism:

Countless other countries around the world, including Armenia, China, India, Russia and Turkey, to name a few, occupy others’ lands. Plenty more, including Georgia, Morocco and Serbia, have dragged their feet on recognizing breakaway regions as independent. Where is the controversy and, more appropriately, where are the organized punitive measures?

Sadly, though, BDS is not about seeking justice for Palestinians. Instead, it is about seeking to stigmatize, isolate and otherwise attack the Jews in our two-thousand year quest for a homeland. As reported in a New York Times op-ed, the leaders of BDS have revealed that their true quest is not an independent State of Palestine, peacefully coexisting side-by-side with an independent State of Israel. Omar Barghouti, one of BDS’ founders, was quoted by the article as saying that he does not want “a two-state solution,” instead advocating for “a Palestine next to a Palestine.” National leaders of BDS like Barghouti want one Palestine and no Israel.

Just another man speaking out the truth.

UCSB Rejects Boycott for the Third Year in a Row

On April 16, students at the University of California in Santa Barbara rejected BS again (and again, and again). 

As usual, the vote at UCSB was accompanied by abhorrent anti-Semitic outbursts.  This, even though the student senate had passed a unanimous resolution against anti-Semitism earlier this month.  As one UCSB student reported in his letter to the local student paper:

I am disgusted by the normalization of anti-Semitic language so casually thrown around at the meeting. In those eight hours, I was told that Jews control the government, that all Jews are rich, that Zionism is racism, that the marginalization of Jewish students is justified because it prevents the marginalization of other minority groups, that Israel sterilizes its Ethiopian women (this is obviously not true), and that Palestinians in America who speak out against Israel are sought out by the IDF and denied entrance into Israel (also a ridiculous conspiracy theory). I heard a senator—someone who is supposed to be my representative—say that people were only voting against this resolution because they were afraid of losing “Jew support.” I heard my peers laugh at the mention of terrorists hurling stones at the heads of Israeli civilians intending to kill them. I saw students smile and cheer enthusiastically as a woman stood up and said the words, “I am ashamed to be a Jew.” The rhetoric I heard from students opposing Israel at this meeting could easily be equated to arguments that I have only seen in quotes at museums or mentioned in textbooks for their use in the justification of historical persecution of the Jewish race.

One ought to praise the Israeli and Jewish groups at the UCSB campus for defeating BS yet again.  But it seems that there is little justification to praise the campus itself.  As with all campuses that have opened space for BS debates, this campus too has fallen prey to the dark side of Palestinian activism.

San Diego Campus Joins the anti-BS Wave

Once again, another American campus shows BSemites the door. A resolution at San Diego State University (SDSU) calling for Israeli product divestment was defeated after a student-wide referendum held in campus. This once again proves the enfeeblement of the BSemites inside US campuses, and simply shows how American college students don't fall for anti-Israel propaganda. See this report from San Diego Jewish World:

SDSU. Another campus
proves sanity.

StandWithUs has congratulated students at SDSU for defeating a student-wide referendum calling for divestment from companies doing business with Israel. The referendum, which occurred from April 6-9, 2015, was defeated with a vote of 1701 (53%) in favor and 1510 (47%) against. A two-thirds majority was required for the measure to pass. Only 10.7% of SDSU’s roughly 30,000 undergraduates voted on the issue. 

We commend Students Supporting Israel (SSI), AEPi, Hillel of San Diego, and other members of the SDSU community for working tirelessly to educate their peers about the bigotry of BDS and the damage divestment would cause to their university. They defeated the referendum despite being outnumbered by anti-Israel campaigners on campus, their opposition committing several campaign violations, being silenced by pro-BDS professors when they tried to speak out against BDS in classrooms, and suffering a surge in vicious anti-Semitism on social media while the vote was happening. 

“We overcame a lot to defeat BDS at SDSU this year,” said SSI President and StandWithUs Emerson Fellow Sarah Katularu. “We faced a lot of hate, our opposition used underhanded tactics, and many students were misled about the true nature of divestment. Nevertheless, we were able to educate a large new audience about Israel and how divestment undermines hopes for peace and justice in the region.”

Israeli Trade with Latin America on the Rise

Sorry to inform you BSemites, but your boycott ain't working too well. A recent Israeli commercial delegation to Panama was met with warm welcomes, and successfully negotiated further deals between Panama and several high-tech Israeli companies. This is just a beginning of the further enhancing of Israeli-Latin American economic ties. See this Times of Israel report:

Last week, a dozen members of an official Ministry of Economy delegation visited Panama City to meet with colleagues regarding the formation of a free trade agreement between Israel and Panama. Twelve working groups discussed access to markets, customs, services and investments, intellectual property, protection of flora and fauna, trade obstacles, institutional issues and conflict resolution. 

Israeli officials who have been working on deals with Latin American countries believe that there is a great demand for Israeli technology and expertise, in a wide variety of fields. 

Israel has observer status within this group and already has deals with some members of the Alliance, such as a recently signed cooperation agreement with Mexico for industrial R&D. Under the deal, Israeli and Mexican companies will receive assistance in funding joint projects in several areas of research and development, including water management, desert agriculture, pharma and medical devices, electronics and communications.

In your face, BSemites!

University of Michigan Rejects BS Resolution (Again)

The students at the University of Michigan have, once again, rejected a motion to divest from companies working with the Israeli military.  This rejection follows closely a rejection of BS by students at Northeastern University two weeks ago and a series of votes against BS by several southern universities last month.  

Students at the University of Michigan tabled, and then rejected, a similar motion last year.  This year's resolution was far weaker:  rather than propose actual divestment, it proposed establishing a committee that would investigate whether divestment was even possible.  That committee would have been tasked with exploring whether the university even had investments in companies that work with the Israeli military.

But even this watered-down proposal failed, as the campus newspaper reported:

Speakers against the resolution discussed the perceived lack of consensus on campus on the alleged violations. They also spoke about the issue being a divisive subject on campus. Speakers urged students to focus on dialogue between groups instead.

During the Executive Communications portion of the meeting, CSG President Bobby Dishell, a Public Policy senior, as well a CSG Vice President Emily Lustig, an LSA senior, said they were against the resolution. “This resolution in no way embodies or is in concert with the University’s mission statement,” Dishell said.

After the vote on the divestment resolution, LSA freshman Ean Seinfeld said he was pleased the resolution did not pass.  “I think the committee was created to investigate divestment would place the University in a conflict it does not belong,” Seinfeld said. “It’s easy to say human rights violations have been committed without knowing the root causes of them.”

University of British Columbia Rejects BS Resolution

Canadian campuses are also taking their part in denying BS nonesense. This time, students at the University of British Columbia (UBC) voted against a BS resolution that was brought up to vote last week. See this Candian Jews News report:

Another campus has
seen the light

A student referendum at the University of British Columbia on boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel failed to pass last week after the yes side didn’t get the required percentage of votes. 

Among students who chose to vote on whether they want their student union to support the BDS campaign against Israel, 3,493 voted “yes” and 2,223 voted “no.” The referendum required a quorum of 4,130 “yes” votes, or about eight per cent of UBC’s 48,000 students, in order to pass. 

“We are proud to announce that after a long and rough campaign period, we have succeeded in keeping BDS off of our campus!” the group UBC Students Against BDS said in a statement. “This is a great day for peace and dialogue at UBC.”

The number of votes cast against the resolution, 2,223, a great number of opposers to BS rubbish. On this matter, Rabbi Phillip Bergman, director of Hillel UBC, commented: “What was truly a surprise was that the pro-BDS group failed to get at least 4,130 votes. And what absolutely shocked me was the number that voted no or abstained--almost 2,700.That number is the largest number of anti-BDS votes ever cast in Canada, and I believe possibly in all of North America.” Way to go, UBC!

Southampton University Forced to Cancel BS Event

The University of Southampton has caved to national and international pressure and has canceled an event designed to vilify Israel.  The Israel haters intended the conference, titled "International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism", to question Israel's legitimacy and its very right to exist.

News of the conference led to outcry in Britain.  The conference was condemned not only by Jewish and Zionist organizations but also, as the Guardian reports, by Members of Parliament.  Alumni returned their degrees in disgust and sponsors threatened to cut funding.  According to the Telegraph, potential employers told the university that they would hesitate to hire students from the institution if it sponsored the conference.

A petition in support of the bigoted conference gathered 800 signatures, excusing the organizers' bias as an exercise in free speech, but the counter-petition garnered 6,400 signatures. The Telegraph further reports:

Fiona Sharpe, co-chair of the Sussex Friends of Israel, said: “Our aim had been to exercise our freedom of speech by exposing its bigoted, one-sided, politically motivated nature; it was not an academic conference but a gathering of Israel-haters and boycott activists. While we did not seek to subdue free speech, we are pleased it will no longer be able to hide behind the veneer of respectability and academia, which also threatened to severely damage the university’s reputation.”

Douglas Murray, associate director of the Henry Jackson Society, said: “The event at Southampton University was not an academic conference but a rally of bigots. The proposed line up consisted only of people dedicated to the delegitimising and destruction of the state of Israel. “No academic conference on Pakistan, for instance, founded just a year before Israel - would consist solely of discussion on whether it should have been created and how to end it.”

The Board of Deputies of Jewish Deputies had urged Southampton University to cancel the event. Its president, Vivian Wineman, said: “It is formulated in extremist terms, has attracted toxic speakers and is likely to result in an increase in anti-Semitism and tension on campus.”

The lesson is clear:  The reputation of BS has hit rock bottom, even in academia.  Since top universities will not dignify it at all, it is trying to make inroads at third rate institutions like the University of Southampton, but these are particularly vulnerable to outrage by donors and alumni.  Such weak inroads as BS has made there can be crushed with ease.