I hope this conference will make immediate plans for Boycott-Israel resolutions at Penn and nationwide.

Another talk shop would be fun, but real boycott action would be better.

A good example of action is the Wayne State University Student Council’s total-divestment resolution:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_EbIZBUj7TAg/S9GHXfkzyeI/AAAAAAAAAIg/38lsFh4ofi0/s1600/WSU.bmp

Can we try that at Penn?

Here’s an easier link to that successful Wayne State divestment resolution:

http://tinyurl.com/85r6um2

Hope to see a similar resolution come out of the conference at Penn.

You can try, but Wayne State rejected the 2003 boycott vote you highlight, as has every college and university (not to mention church and municipality) in the country, reflecting the fact that BDS has been given the heave-ho by America’s most progressive communities for more than a decade.

Find out more at www.pennbds-oy.com

Penn BDS should propose a strong boycott-Israel resolution at the UA. Don’t even wait for the conference.

A winning fight for divestment is the important thing, not a winning vote. That’s the spirit that abolished the apartheid state of South Africa.

The Berkeley divestment resolution won big majorities, in repeated votes. The resolution did fail to gain a super-majority and overcome a veto. Will you blame Palestinians for their inability to overcome a veto?

Time for the boycott debate to begin in the UA. Palestinian life is worth it. The civil rights movement did not win after one day of effort.

Try a few times in UA before you give up. And don’t give up.

Yes, boycotting companies run by Israeli civilians is surely fair and effective. Sounds like communal punishment. Tisk, tisk.

The fight for divestment you suggest has been going on for ten years. The problem is that you keep losing it. But rather than accept the fact that this means colleges and universities (like every other progressive institution where BDS has been proposed) reject your Israel = Apartheid propaganda message, you mistake your unwillingness to take no for an answer with continued support for your “movement” (by anyone other than yourselves).

I know your self-image is that of a courageous paladin, battling evil against all odds, but from my perspective BDS more resembles that annoying bar patron who keeps hitting on the same women again and again (unsuccessfully) and takes an unwillingness to take “no” for an answer as progress.

How about if this bill passes, Jon? Will you admit it’s apartheid then? What’ll it take?
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4173968,00.html

Thanks, M,

Of course Israel is an apartheid state. It was a longtime ally of Apartheid South Africa, too.

That’s why the Wayne State resolution has become a classic model in the divestment tool kit:

http://tinyurl.com/7wgahku

Try it at Penn!

Funny, I don’t remember South African blacks being allowed to serve in the military or the parlaiment (much less both). But then again, I define “Apartheid” as state-sponsored bigotry directed against individuals, such as what happens to Jews and gays in “Palestine” (or anywhere else in the Middle East, for that matter).

In contrast, you seem to define “Apartheid” as anything Israel does or, in this case, anything any Israeli proposes (even if it is not a law and everyone knows will never become one).

Your welcome.

Yes, Jon. Because it’s quite a generous privilege to get the opportunity to fire at your co-ethnics while protecting the settlers who are stealing their land.

Have you been to Palestine, Jon? I have. I’m Jewish. I let everyone I met know about that fact, and people treated me BETTER than they otherwise would have because they were glad that an American Jew had come to hear their story. You see, Palestinians are not all the anti-Semitic monsters you’d like to depict them as. Most of them are actually quite capable of distinguishing Jews from Zionists, even if the pro-Israel discourse is not.

Apartheid exists in the OPT, and when Avigdor Lieberman gets his way, it will exist in Israel proper. Maybe instead of wasting your time on an inane blog that nobody reads or cares about, you should focus your energies on trying to halt the trend toward fascism in Israel. Try working with the New Israel Fund people. Unless you consider them anti-Semites too.

First off, if there is Apartheid in the Occupied Territories it is because your allies are practicing it (just as the Arab League states provided Apartheid South Africa with almost 100% of its oil).

Second, I’ve not called anyone an anti-Semite. I have just pointed out that a “movement” that can only dredge up a student council vote from eight years ago to demonstrate its political virility might accurately be referred to as a LOSER (regardless of anyone’s personal attitude towards fellow Red Sea pedestrians).

And finally, if no one knows or cares about my blog (which is www.divestthis.com, by the way) – why did you mention it? I certainly didn’t bring it up.

You linked to it in your first post.

Tell us about your visits to Palestine, Jon. We’d like to hear about them.

I know, I was just looking for another excuse to link to it (thanks for providing it, BTW). Although, I guess it must be doing its job, given how much you PennBDSers can’t stop referring to it.

And before we move onto my travel history, can we perhaps get an answer as to why a political movement that’s been around for 11 years that can’t muster more than a student council vote from 2003 as a demonstration of momentum should be considered anything other than a LOSER?

I’m not sure where your timeframe is coming from. While I’m sure there have been people calling for divestment from Israel from the very beginning of the conflict, the official call was issued in 2005 and, impressionistically, the movement seems to have gained most of its adherents in response to Cast Lead in 2008/9. Also, Jon, tell me, how long did South Africa take? Even if we assume your fictitious 11 year timeframe, that’s a drop in the bucket.

You and your fellow PennBDSers really have to compare notes in order to get your dates straight. The 2003 Wayne State vote we’ve been asked to take as the great (and, so far, only) “triumph” of BDS points out one thing we can all agree upon: that the year 2003 preceded 2005.

In fact, a full BDS timeline appears in the Divest This guide that’s linked to the graphic of the three clowns at the top of the www.divestthis.com site (there I go again). In it, I point out that your propaganda strategy to brand Israel an Apartheid state and associated tactic of boycott and divestment was born not in 2005 or 2003, but 2001 at the Durban I conference. And, as a matter of fact, the most important BDS victories and subsequent defeats took place between 2004-2006, while Omar Barghouti (leader of the current movement) was still preparing his applications to Tel Aviv University (where he now resides and demands that everyone but him boycott Jewish academia).

The “movement” went into remission until 2009 when, like a vampire, it was resurrected and inflicted upon another generation. But while the first round of BDS from ’01-‘06 at least contained a few glimpses of political success (notably with the Presbyterian Church which voted in a divestment resolution in 2004, only to rescind it by a margin of 95%-5% in 2006), the latest version of the “movement” has had to contend itself with a string of divestment hoaxes (Hampshire College, TIAA-CREF), defeats (Berkeley, UVM) and embarassments (you), all during a decade when the Iraeli economy you’ve been trying to bring to its knees actually doubled in size.

Since most of the people responsible for these debacles will be participating in your event next month, I recommend you spend some time at least getting your years straight.

Israel’s massacre of Gaza and Lebanon were very recent illustrations of a Nazi state in action. That state is unworthy of anyone’s respect.

Penn BDS ought to go full speed for full divestment.

You hardly have the moral authority to do anything but get out of the way.

The spirit that demolished the South African segregation system was successful because South Africa was actually segregated and any reasonable person could see it without the benefit of a conference or being force fed BDS propaganda. Israel does not have a system of Apartheid, nor does it resemble Apartheid in any way except in the minds of the most rabid haters. Pretending to fight against racism simply serves as a cover for deeper anti-Jewish bigotry BDS supporters harbor.
The BDS campaign is a vile echo of the Kauft nicht bei Juden (Don’t buy from Jews) campaign that precipitated the ugliest chapter in human history ever documented.

M, I bet the Palestinians love you and treated you like a king. You are a most useful tool.

BA, if you’re interested in battling apartheid, you might want to look for it where it actually exists, like in Lebanon and Syria where Palestinians are banned from certain jobs, denied citizenship, and forced to live only in certain areas. You also might want to research the proposed Palestinian state, which like Gaza, will be Jew-free. Of course, Palestinians who now reside in refugee camps inside the proposed state will also be denied citizenship. Please explain that to me.

And for all of the talk about apartheid, nobody has explained what makes Israel an apartheid state. Women have equal rights, unlike many of the Islamic nations where women are property. Members of all religions are allowed to practice their religions, unlike in the surrounding Islamic nations where Jews have been effectively ethnically cleansed except for a few tiny communities, something that’s happening to Christians in Muslim nations right before our eyes. Of course in Israel, the Christian population is growing.

Dear Boycotting Apartheid Guy – Your fly is down. Made you look!

Honestly, does that type of arch bombast actually work in the 20th/21st centuries, or do you fellow Penn students find you to be as ridiculous as I do?

Look, if you are truly doing battle with the kind of Nazi, Apartheid, alien-vampire, Sauron-worshiping, all-encompassing evil of your dark fantasies, then why the hell are you bothering with talk about getting some toothless, symbolic divestment resolutions passed by a student council that will go as unnoticed as Wayne State’s 2003 vote?

Just gather up the 99% of U Penn students who no-doubt are more than ready to follow your lead, march them down to the administration and demand the President divest from Israel immediately, regardless of the fact that no college administration has taken that advice since before you hit puberty.

Absent such real action, what are we to make of your “movement,” beyond seeing it as a gang of poseur wusses whose political program consists of little more than gathering for mutual back-patting sessions every couple of years, punctuated by posting pictures of yourselves acting naught in front of grown-ups on Facebook?

Just as a point of information: how many invited speakers at this upcoming conference will be supporting peace between a Jewish state of Israel and an Arab state of Palestine? I believe the over/under on that is zero. And if that doesn’t tell you all you need to know about the BDS movement, listen to its leaders tell you what they REALLY want:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifZLk6Ei9-U

Humor me here, DrMike, and explain to me why, in theory, two states with exclusionary ethnic identities are preferable to a single state that guarantees equal individual rights to all citizens.

A Saudi Apartheid Week would be so much more appropriate and relevant to human rights activists. Set up campus check points. Stop women who have their hair uncovered and threaten them with beatings. Halt Christians wearing crosses and ask them to please hide their cross under their clothing. Ask lone women if they have permission from a male relative to be out of the house. Set up two sidewalks, one for Muslims only, one for others, which much take a longer path. Display a stack of confiscated bibles. Stage mock executions of Wiccans. Tell Jews they aren’t allowed in the area. Hold mock arrests and beatings of gays. In short, emulate the Kingdom!

It will be fun for all! And it will highlight the most apartheid country on Earth, Saudi Arabia. Why waste your time with fabricated allegations of apartheid when you can go after the Real Deal? Saudi Apartheid Week, make it happen Monday, March 5, 2012 at 1:00pm until Friday, March 9, 2012 at 3:00pm.

M, there is a single state that guarantees equal rights to all citizens. It’s called Israel.

Harry,
that’s just not true, I’m sorry. Do your research. In Israel, there is a two-tiered system, which grants national identity, and a slew of rights associated with identity, only to Jews. For non-Jews, the best they can hope for is treatment as second-class citizens and are prohibited from purchasing property on over 90% of Israeli land and restricted in their movement and work opportunities, among other things.

As to the Saudi Apartheid suggestion, I certainly recognize the flaws in the Saudi system. Syria, Somalia, etc…The list goes on and on of human rights offenders in the middle east, and I don’t deny it. However, the idea of BDS originates from the reality that Israel, unlike the other nations named, is the only country that enjoys a privileged status as a “moral democracy” WHILE committing human rights and upholding a discriminatory system. We just want to call it what it is. Israel should not enjoy impunity or the undeserved title of “Western democracy” while it discriminates against its own citizens and allows illegal colonial settlements to continue.

I believe the writer’s original point was that by any conceivable measure the rights of women and gays in Israel are superior than they are in any other Middle Eastern country. The fact that some ME countries are better than others with regard to women driving and wearing what they want without being arrested and beaten does not negate the writer’s primary point that with regard to these two issues Israel is superior to any other country in the Middle East, and some would argue many Western countries as well. You are free to argue (appropriately) that this superior record on these two issues should not give Israel a free pass on all subjects, but Mr. Klapper’s key point remains intact.

With regard to boycotts, you are making the error of assuming since some boycotts (such as those used during the Civil Rights era) are moral, then all boycotts are moral. But some boycotts (such as the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses) are clearly immoral, and others can be considered moral by some and immoral by others. For example, if we characterized Israel’s blockade of Gaza as a form of BDS, then your Civil Rights paradigm would make Hamas the equivalent of white racists and you the equivalent of their supporters (a characterization you would no-doubt reject).

I understand that you would like to characterize yourself as the inheritors of the Martin Luther King and anti-Apartheid movements, but the rest of us (especially those who have seen the BDS “movement” in action) are under no obligation to accept this inaccurate characterization, any more than you are required to accept our characterization of BDS as the inheritor of far darker traditions.