This is a particularly crushing blow to the boycott movement, with 150 fewer students voting in favor than signed the Petition. This reflects that many students were pressured into signing the Petition and also were misled as to the nature of the boycott.
That 85% of student body participated reflects that the student body spontaneously rose up against this threat to academic freedom.Indeed, academic freedom has once again been protected, and BS nonsense has once again been rejected.
Earlier this week, on May 3, a similar bid failed to pass when the California Community College system, the largest educational system in the United States, rejected a resolution to divest from companies doing business with Israel.
The General Assembly of the Student Senate of California Community Colleges – which represents over 2.1 million students – voted against the divestment measure with a final tally of 25 in favor, 44 opposed, and six abstentions.
Two young Jews were assaulted Friday afternoon on the street in Paris by a mob of about 40 people, an organization monitoring anti-Semitism in France reported.
The gang of attackers was associated with anti-Israel groups Gaza Firm and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).
Friday’s attack marks the latest in a growing anti-Semitic trend in France and Europe as a whole. Last January, an Islamist terrorist took hostages in a kosher supermarket in Paris and killed four Jews. Just a few weeks later, a security guard was killed in Copenhagen when a lone gunman opened fire in front of the city’s Great Synagogue.Well done, BSemites, your true intentions are gradually revealed. After such outrageous claims such as that the Charlie Hebdo attacks were Mossad work, you are practically doing everything you can to show the world how ugly your intents really are.
A significant understatement, given this quote by Williams about his Israel visit:Professing his love for Israel (and especially its women), the singer declared that he plans to tell his friends that his visit was “f**king amazing.”
photo credit: Jerusalem Post/David Brinn
“It’s all about love, folks,” Williams said as his nearly two-hour concert drew to a close.
“I’ve always wanted to visit Israel and to see you and feel you, and I think now I have,” he said as hundreds of blue and white balloons sifted through positively giddy crowd of 30-40 year-olds who spent decades humming along to the vast array of Williams chart-topping hits.
Nobody tells Robbie Williams what to do. And, on Saturday night, Williams gave the entire BDS movement his middle finger.
Roger Waters would not be pleased.
"I was really really looking forward to coming here more than anywhere else I've played on this tour. I wanted to see you, I wanted to feel you, I wanted to know more about you, and I think I've done that and I want to come back again and stay a bit more time."The Palestinian propaganda website Mondoweiss promised two days ago that "pressure rises on Robbie Williams over Israel gig."
The Indiana General Assembly has become the second-ever state legislature to pass a bill that formally opposes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. Tennessee lawmakers approved a similar measure on April 21.
Adopted in a voice vote, the Indiana Senate approved Resolution 74, which “expresses opposition to the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel” BDS movement.
The Senate’s move came after the Indiana House of Representatives unanimously (93-0) passed the anti-BDS House Resolution 59 on April 22. The measure now goes to Indiana Governor Mike Pence for his signature.
The Indiana bill contends that the global spread of anti-Jewish speech and violence “represents an attack, not only on Jews, but on the fundamental principles of the United States.” The resolution goes on to thank the presidents of Indiana University and Purdue University for “strongly” condemning the boycott of Israeli academic institutions after some faculty members and other staffers at those schools voiced support for the BDS movement.Way to go Indiana! And as we can see, it is very likely that this will not be the last anti-BS state legislation in the near future.
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!
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!
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| 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!
"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.
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?”
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.”
