BDS On Campus: Bad Guys & Good (includes video)

"I've just completed a paper on Palestine and International Law as one of my UNSW courses. Max Brenner on campus is beyond my anti-apartheid comprehension."
So declares a female student ...

"as someone of Jewish background who has taught at UNSW, I am deeply offended about such a company neing [sic] on campus, just as I opposed South African companies and goods before 1994"
So asserts an activist in an evident hurry (it's not clear from his statement whether he can be described as an "as-a-Jew" or an "as-a-semi-Jew" or even an "as-a-demi-semi-Jew") ....

"The fact that this company financially supports the IDF which have committed horrific, and unthinkable crimes against the indigenous Palestinian population absolutely disgusts me!"
So declares another woman...

These four are among the signatories to an online petition to the Facilities Manager at the University of New South Wales opposing the opening of a Max Brenner outlet on campus.  Framed by the so-called Australian Students for Justice in Palestine, the petition says in part:

"We write as academics, members of staff, students, alumni and friends of the University of New South Wales....

We ask that you follow the example of universities worldwide who have taken a stand against companies that profit from or support a state and military that violates international law. For example, in late 2011, Chicago’s DePaul University removed Sabra hummus, also owned by the Strauss Group, from campus shelves and replaced it with an ethical alternative. Last year, the University of Toronto, Carleton University, the University of Regina and York University in Canada passed resolutions in support of withdrawing investments with companies connected to Israel’s international human rights law and humanitarian law violations, which included Hewlett Packard, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin. The London School of Economics (LSE) cancelled its contract with Eden Springs in 2011, a major water supply company, because of the company’s business dealings in the illegally occupied Golan Heights. LSE joined other UK universities in the United Kingdom, including Edinburgh and Strathclyde, in the boycott of apartheid. Sussex University and the University of London Union, Europe’s largest student union, heeded the call to withdraw support for Israeli goods.

Instead of voting for the Strauss Group and the Golani and Givati brigades, we prefer to vote for a local, Australian business that does not fund and support a military, responsible for severe breaches of international human rights and humanitarian law against the  indigenous [sic] Palestinian population."

(Hat tip: reader Shirlee)

This mean-spirited petition, based in ignorance and bigotry, contrasts sharply with another current online petition, one drawn up in the United States against campus BDS (hat tip: an anonymous reader).  This petition, well worthy of being signed, says, inter alia :

"Anti-Israel college campus activists have turned free speech into hate speech.

They spread anti-Israel propaganda that ignores facts and context, and their strong-arm methods prevent the informed, rational discussion expected at an institution of higher learning. They deceive campus communities about their real goals. They want to instill hostility about Israel's very existence, not champion the Palestinian people or peace. If they were genuinely concerned about the Palestinian people, they would be more honest and more invested in eliminating Palestinian terrorist groups like Hamas and eliminating the anti-Israel/anti-Jewish hatred that young Palestinians are indoctrinated with by religious, educational, and governmental officials as well as their media. They would be more concerned about Hamas’ use of human shields (including children and women) and its launching rockets into Israel from Palestinian schools.

We call for an end to harassment and extremism.

We call for responsible, knowledgeable debate on campuses and for constructive dialogue and actions. We support both Palestinians and Israelis and know that peace takes two. After 1,900 years of discrimination and persecution in the Middle East and Europe, the Jewish people restored their ancestral homeland and built one of the most successful nations of the post-World War II period. Our goal should be to learn from and support this extraordinary accomplishment and to support Palestinians who accept Israel as their Jewish neighbor and wish to establish the first Palestinian state in history, one that would exist alongside the Jewish state in peace and security. We advocate working together to educate our campuses about the facts and to help bring understanding about what is needed for peaceful coexistence in the troubled region."

 

Amid Oxford's Dreaming Spires, A New Gown In Town

To Oxford, the most illustrious English seat of learning of them all, a new student is bound, all the way from Gaza.

The  young woman in question is described thus by BBC reporter Jon Donnison:

"Rawan Yaghi is a bookish 19 year old who, appropriately for a student of literature, arrives to meet me in Gaza with a text tucked under her arm.

It is a well-thumbed copy of Catch 22, Joseph Heller's classic satirical novel on the absurdities of war; not an inappropriate choice for somebody who's spent her entire life amid one of the Middle East's most intractable conflicts.

But Rawan's life is about to take a different direction. Currently a student at Gaza's Islamic University, she has just won a scholarship to Oxford University to study linguistics and Italian...."

And  he quotes her as saying: 

"Most people think it's like a war zone here and that everyone here is really depressed and involved in politics.  But it's not always about war. It's also about families, friends and love. It's not only about the conflict with Israel."

However, as Hadar Sela has demonstrated over at BBCWatch, there's more to Ms Yaghi than Donnison's account is willing to reveal.

What the weasely (my adjective, not Ms Sela's) Donnison neglects to mention is that she's a political activist and blogger and (see here) contributor to the foul Israel-demonising website Mondoweiss, which is naturally cock-a-hoop at the news that Ms Yaghi will be coming to Oxford.

Ms Yaghi has received the Jesus College Junior Common Room Scholarship:

"In 2011, the students at Jesus College Oxford, headed by undergraduate, Emily Dreyfus, led an initiative to establish a full undergraduate scholarship for a student from a university in Gaza. Future scholars will be chosen from other regions where access to higher education is limited. Applications for the first scholar will open in September 2011 for courses beginning in 2012.

A significant portion of the costs of the Scholarship will be funded by the students themselves. In response to this pledge of student support, the University of Oxford will waive 60% of the tuition fees. Further external funding for the first scholar has been pledged by the Hoping Foundation, the Hani Qaddumi Scholarship Foundation, and the A.M. Qattan Foundation. Jesus College has also agreed to waive the College fee...."

I don't begrudge Ms Yaghi her opportunity to study at Oxford.  But what I find disturbing, yet oh-so-woefully-instructive, oh-so-typical of our times, is that it took tiny beleaguered Israel's defensive response to continuing Hamas terrorism towards Israeli civilians to rouse the student body out of its apathy towards poltical issues: not Darfur, not Sri Lanka, not abuses of human rights in Iran and Saudi Arabia, not oppression, slave-trading and women-trafficking in Burma, nor the subjugation of women in Afghanistan, Pakistan and whole swathes of the Middle East, not Iranian persecution of the Bahai, nor the Islamic persecution of Christians:

'Around the UK, thousands of students have occupied lecture theatres, offices and other buildings at more than 20 universities in sit-down protests. It seems that the spirit of 1968 has returned to the campus.

While it was the situation in Gaza that triggered this mass protest, the beginnings of political enthusiasm have already spread to other issues....

Beginning with a 24-hour occupation at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) on 13 January, the sit-ins spread across the country. Now occupations have been held at the LSE, Essex, King's College London, Birmingham, Sussex, Warwick, Manchester Metropolitan, Oxford, Leeds, Cambridge, Sheffield Hallam, Bradford, Nottingham, Queen Mary, Manchester, Strathclyde, Newcastle, Kingston, Goldsmiths and Glasgow.

Among the demands of students are disinvestment in the arms trade; the promise to provide scholarships for Palestinian students; a pledge to send books and unused computers to Palestine; and to condemn Israeli attacks on Gaza....

Emily Dreyfus, a 21-year-old political activist in her third year of reading classics at Oxford, was one of around 80 students to occupy the historic Bodleian library building in the city and demand that the university issue a statement condemning the Gaza attacks and disinvest from the arms trade. She said: "I found Oxford politically very dead when I arrived, but it's completely different now. There seem to be more and more people talking about politics, which is so exciting. It's really been aided by the communication tools we've got, things like Facebook."....' [Emphasis added] Read more here

BDS: Leftist Snakes Show Their Fangs

A Phial Of The Venom

Here's a mob of BDSers in Brisbane demonstrating against what it seems fashionable in Israel-demonising circles these days to denigrate as the "Zionist Project".  Specifically, this mob are protesting against the "Nakba" and demanding that sly and slick manouevre called "the right of return" which would lead to what they seek, the destruction of the world's only Jewish State.

Perhaps the most notable feature of these poisonous snakes is that they come in various guises...
(Hat tip: reader Shirlee)

There are, as well, plenty of snakes, and poisonous ones at that, in Ireland.  Their latest and most ignoble escapade to date is the decision of the Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI) to pass (unananimously) this vile motion at its annual conference last Thursday:

"TUI demand that ICTU step up its campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against the apartheid state of Israel until it lifts its illegal siege of Gaza and its illegal occupation of the West Bank, and agrees to abide by international law and all UN resolutions against it.

Congress instructs the Executive Committee to:

(a) Conduct an awareness campaign amongst TUI members on the need for BDS

(b) Request all members to cease all cultural and academic collaboration with Israel, including the exchange of scientists, students and academic personalities, as well as all co-operation in research programmes."

The TUI, reflecting the vicious Israel (and Jew)-obsession of the Far Left and its cohorts, becomes the first teaching union in Europe to do so.

Crowed architecture lecturer Jim Roche, who moved the motion:

"BDS is a noble, non-violent method of resisting Israeli militarism, occupation and apartheid, and there is no question that Israel is implementing apartheid policies against the Palestinians"

Read more here 

And how ghoulishly, grubbily opportunistic of the increasingly antisemitic Guardian newspaper to link the Scottish writer Iain Banks's announcement that he has terminal gall bladder cancer as a spirngboard from which to launch his excerpted-from-a-pro-BDS-book-the paper-is-touting explanation of why he supports the cultural boycott of Israel.

Mark Goldberg comments powerfully on Banks's muddled nonsense here

Blaming The Good Guys: YouTube Punishes Palestine Media Watch

It permits all sorts of dark and evil conspiracy theories involving Jews and Freemasons.  It's cluttered with the most hardcore racist, antisemitic, and misogynist comments.

But it seems that, like the Israel-bashing Methodist bloggers' site that last week censored a reference of mine to this link and video, YouTube is sensitive towards exposure of hate speech like this, the text of the hate poem recited by a young girl on PA TV's children's program:  

Girl: "Allah created me and formed me
He made me prouder and made me a Palestinian
He made defiance flow like blood in my veins
And I made the revolution burst forth like clay stones
I raised the flags of certain victory:
Allah's book [the Quran] and the tradition of the most esteemed among prophets [Muhammad].
I called in the voice of hidden justice
I lit a fire like volcanoes under their feet
I refused to be submissive and degraded
I rejected [everything] but dying with the honor that will give me life
From a nation that has forgotten the Muslims' heroism
- Omar ibn al-Khattab and Saladin - [Muslim fighters who conquered Jerusalem]
from between the whistles of the bullets I sing:
'Long live the nation of Fatah and Yasser Arafat'
Allah's enemies, the sons of pigs [i.e., Jews, in Islamic tradition]
Destroyed and uprooted the olive and fig trees
They murdered children with guns, like snakes
They cut off their limbs with stones and knives
They raped the women in the city squares
They defiled Allah's book [the Quran] in front of millions
Where is the nation of Islam?
Where are the nation of Islam and the Jihad fighters?
Where is the fear of Allah in Jerusalem, which has been defiled by the Zionists?"
PA TV host: "Bravo, applause, applause, applause to Hadeel."
[PA TV (Fatah), March 22, 2013]

For, Palestine Media Watch [PMW] reveals:

'Last week, Palestinian Media Watch released a video-bulletin showing a Palestinian Authority children's TV broadcast of a hate-poem. A young Palestinian girl recited a poem referring to Jews as "Allah's enemies, the sons of pigs" who "murdered children," "cut off their limbs," "raped the women in the city squares" and "defiled Allah's book." The host responded with enthusiastic applause and "Bravo!"

The following day, YouTube blocked access to PMW's video, defining it as a "violation of YouTube's policy prohibiting hate speech."

In the past, YouTube has closed PMW's account or frozen PMW's account for exposing PA religious leaders promoting genocide of Jews. This is the first time YouTube has defined a broadcast on PA children's TV as hate speech, and blocked PMW from exposing it.

PMW does not promote hate speech, but exposes it. PMW believes that the only way to stop the Palestinian Authority's ongoing Islam-based hate speech and terror glorification is to expose it. By preventing PMW from exposing PA hatred, YouTube is actively impeding our ability to fight the PA's hate promotion.

YouTube has even threatened PMW with termination of its YouTube account should PMW continue exposing this hate speech:

 "Additional violations may result in the temporary disabling of your ability to post content to YouTube and/or the permanent termination of your account."'

Read more here
(Hat tip: reader Rita)

Update: YouTube, contacted by many indignant followers of PMW,  has restored the video (Hat tip: reader Shirlee)

What The Camera Saw: Peaceful Coexistence Between Neighbours

An older image of harmony

The phrase "your friendly neighbourhood grocery store" takes on a genuine and heartwarming meaning in the case of this, the Rami Levy supermarket at Gush Etzion.

The video (which augments the Elder of Ziyon's on the same topic) is one of a documentary series on cordial relations between Israelis and Palestinians that's being made by Missing Peace:

"US Secretary of State John Kerry  recently said that progress in the peace process  was up to the people of Israel and the Palestinians.

President Obama during his visit to Israel repeated this. He said during his address at the Jerusalem International Convention Center that ‘peace must be made among peoples, not just governments’.

During the same address Obama repeated stereotypes about the reality on  the West Bank. For example he claimed that settler violence against Palestinians goes unpunished and that Palestinians are restricted in their  ability to move around the West Bank.

Views like those of the American president are generally based on biased main stream media reporting about the West Bank and on Palestinian propaganda. Not a day goes by without another report about ‘settler violence’ or  ‘Palestinian victimhood’.

When examined many of these reports prove to be distorted or simply not true."

For more information see here

A View From A Vicarage In Virginia Water

For the background to this Facebook message (hat tip: reader P) from (avowedly non-antisemitic) Anglican vicar Stephen Sizer see here

And as usual the clerical incumbent of Virginia Water in Surrey has undermining the Zionist Entity very much on his mind.

 I understand from my bemused informant that, among the numerous Israel-bashing messages and links that the reverend gentleman posts on social media is this exhortation today to his followers:

"Please sign the petition: Britain should make amends to the Palestinian people now."

That petition is none other than this dodgy online screed:

"We call on our Government to acknowledge publicly that British policy and actions in Palestine from 1917 to 1948 led to catastrophe for the Palestinian people.

As Britain prepared to leave Palestine in 1948, its army stood by while Zionist forces terrorised hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into fleeing their homeland. In that way Palestine was transformed into Israel.

More than half of all Palestinians are still refugees today, most in dire straits. Israel denies them their right of return to their ancestral homes in what had been Palestine, and from the day of their flight has prevented them by force from returning.

As author of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which was the origin of the catastrophe, and as the responsible power at the time of the crime, Britain has an obligation to make amends. It should acknowledge its share of responsibility for the creation of the refugee crisis, and recognize and promote the right of the refugees to return home.

Britain should make amends to the Palestinian people now." 

The Flying Kangaroo Turns Demi-Dhimmi

Qantas (advertising motto: "The Spirit of Australia, The Flying Kangaroo") has a new business partner, Emirates airlines.

As a result, the Flying Kangaroo, changing its stopover from Singapore to Dubai on the Australia-Europe route, will not be carrying any foodstuffs offensive to the Islamic faith.  Reports the Sydney Daily Telegraph:

'QANTAS has removed pork from its in-flight menu on flights to and from Europe as a result of its partnership with Middle Eastern airline Emirates.

No food containing pork or pork products will be served on those flights - which now has a stopover in Dubai - because it is strictly forbidden in Islam and is considered "unholy".

All meals offered on the route in first, business and economy classes will also be prepared without alcohol in keeping with the Islamic religion. A note on the Qantas menus on flights in and out of Dubai states that the meals do not contain pork products or alcohol. The airline has also introduced a mezze plate offering traditional Middle Eastern fare in its upper classes and has Arabic translations after in-flight announcements.

A Qantas spokesman said the decision to remove pork, ham and other related food items had had minimal impact on its menu and it was still offering the same meal choices.

"Qantas in-flight catering often reflects the cultural and regional influences of the international destinations we fly to," he said....'

Ah, well, the airline industry's a cutthroat business and dem is the breaks.  That the Flying Kangaroo has done what it needed to do to stay airborne above the fierce competition  makes no difference to me (as long as they still serve a [pre-ordered] vegetarian option) and it might save some Jewish passengers the hassle of pre-ordering kosher.

But there are those who are distinctly upset.  Read more here

Hat tip: reader Rita