very well said, thank you for writing this

Yeah! Why won’t these NAZIS discuss this issue more rationally!

The poster above condemns the law of return one of the most compassionate and enlightened laws ever passed that gives Jews that were deprived of their homes all over the world a place to come home to. That is the reason there are no Jewish refugees unlike the Arab refugees who are imprisoned in refugee camps by their Arab brothers who indoctrinate them to hate Israel and use them as a propaganda pawn against Israel. These camps are breeding grounds for terrorists who the above poster wants Israel to let in to the country. That would be suicidal. At one point Israel offered to take them back in return for peace and all the surrounding Arab countries said no. They would just be a 5th column that would aid in the annihilation of Israel

The long list of alleged Israeli laws and crimes is an example of how people can distort the truth and do so in a way that seems plausible and so incite hatred against another group. To give some example the poster cites the Nakba Law as penalizing any institution that commemorates or publicly mourns the expulsion of the native Palestinian population when Palestinian Arabs hold such events all the time without any penalty whatsoever. The poster accuses the Israelis of uprooting trees when Palestinian Muslims have destroyed Israeli olive groves and set fire to Israeli forests. It’s true that the Israelis have uprooted trees that Arab snipers use to shoot at them from, a minor detail that the above poster left out. Arabs are operating tractors and heavy equipment in Judea and Samaria all the time as they build houses on land that isn’t theirs in order to claim it as their own yet the above poster says that Israel doesn’t allow them too. Hilmi Shusha along with his buddies was throwing rocks at Israeli cars of Hadar Beitar and was caught by the chief of security who subdued him by hitting him on the head with the butt of his rifle. The security chief said he didn’t want to kill the boy and tried to revive him which is plausible because if he wanted to kill him it would have been a lot easier to shoot him with the rifle. This is in contrast to deliberate terrorist attacks in which Palestinians murder entire families (see for example http://www.mypracticalphilosophy.com/jihadpages/howmoderate.htm#fogel) The Palestinian Authority doesn’t punish such terrorists but glorifies them instead and names streets after them if they die.

The propaganda list includes the statement Since Israel took the West Bank, the Christian population has declined from 20,000 in 1967 to less than 7500 today. That is incredibly outrageous because it was since the Palestinian Authority took over that the Christian population declined because of Muslim persecution of Christians. Christians are being brutally persecuted throughout the Middle East by Muslims.

Great column though I don’t think a two state solution will work. It didn’t work for India. Pakistan was cut out of India and has become a launching pad for terrorists. One of those groups killed friends of mine in Mumbai. There would be no limits on the arms with which a Palestinian state could arm itself. Pakistan is armed with nuclear weapons.

First of all, I am pro-Israel. I believe that Palestine has committed a number of atrocities against Israel and that it will take a long time for a peaceful solution to be made. I strongly disagree with the position and the politics of the BDS.

That said, I respect the attempt of the BDS to have a non-violent discussion of a very volatile subject. Palestine and Israel are in a state of war, and this means that both sides have suffered terrible losses. Israel has suffered a number of tragedies, but there are families and innocent civilians who have suffered in Palestine as well. While I disagree with the BDS, I do believe that they have a right to try to bring attention to what their nation has suffered during the war. However, that does not mean that the people who participated in the panel should be called Nazis or compared to the KKK. The purpose of the panel isn’t to try and prove that the Jewish people is an inferior race, or any of the terrible bs that the Nazis and KKK did. It’s a time of war, and the BDS wants their side to be heard.

The only way that a peaceful decision can be reached is to respectfully listen to the other side’s opinions, no matter how strongly you may disagree with them. Hateful speech towards either the supporters of the BDS and the people against the BDS will only make matters worse. Penn should be an example of how to peacefully talk about difficult topics, not of the hateful reactions people have when faced with an opposing position.

Very nice remarks, “keep calm.” We’re on different sides of the issue here, but your response gives me some hope, because I understand that while many people disagree with BDS perspective, I’ve thought it very strange for them to insist on its violent nature, when it’s actually obviously an attempt to inspire a non-violent position.

Even if people think some of its leaders have a history of association with violence, shouldn’t that mean that they should encourage this form of political engagement in the issue rather than violence?

I know I’ll get a lot of hateful responses to my remarks here from people who seem obsessed with the specter of the violent Palestinian, but your voice, even if a bit out numbered, is encouraging to here.

It is comforting to the “pro-Israel” dead enders to consider what is going on a war, but as the list of Israeli laws and actions describes -what is going on is clearly not at all a war where the sides have any semblance of parity.

It is a military occupation, and a concerted effort to squash any realistic prospect of a viable palestinian economy independent or co-equal with Israel. It is from the kind of conditions created by Israel from which rotten fruit like the PLO and Hamas arise, as if the Israeli government was doing all it could to turn people towards violent resistance in the occupied territories.

That one of the “pro-Israel” commenters above describes the west bank as “Judea and Samaria” is indicative of the kind of tightly wound, ideologically driven fanaticism that drives the Israeli colonial project in disputed territories, and which co-opts the national biases and fears of well meaning Jews who would drop identification with the Israeli government in a heartbeat if they were fully aware of what their support a party too. Because most people see it for what it is, and that if we seriously wanted to talk about violence we would acknowledge that everyday the occupation exists and these kind of laws exists is in itself a form of violence.

for removing the really long comment.

I can’t wait for those saints at Electronic Intifada and Mondoweiss to re-print this article on their websites! (sarcasm/dare)

I don’t spend my time reading the DP’s bylaws, so I ask innocently, why was the really long comment removed?
Were facts a problem? (We’d hate to let those enter into the debate when we can just accuse everybody we disagree with of being a Nazi).

Does the DP feel that it’s given too much space for the BDS people to defend themselves against accusations of being Nazis? After all, this is only the second column that has made that association.

Or is it just good old fashion censorship?

another innocent question: why did both this column, and the other one you refer to, not appear in the print version of the DP? Whereas responses to the first letter were published in print (must have seemed odd to readers who don’t cross-reference the online version), and we’ll see if responses to this letter are also printed…

more to your point: i imagine it was removed because it was a list of bullet-points not directly related to the article, just distracting — perhaps an article in its own right, but not a comment. And I don’t think anyone is accused of being a Nazi in this article. Just saying things Nazis would say, perhaps (in the spirit of the heinous and hateful film Sh!t Jews say filmed by PennBDS speakers and students on Penn’s campus during the conference)

I’ll admit, I don’t know why the DP prints some stuff and has other stuff online, although I’m sure the online version is both much more widely read and much more permanent.

Your other points, however, are hilarious. Have ever read the comments on these things? I mean, really, hardly any of them are “directly related to the article.” If it was the DP’s policy to remove comments unrelated to articles, they’d have to spend a lot of time removing a lot of comments.

Of course, maybe you’re right. Maybe they just have a policy against bullet points. That makes sense. If only the poster had written in in prose paragraphs. Then everything would be fine.

My favorite though, is your comment that the article doesn’t claim the BDS people are Nazis, just that they say things Nazis would say while defending the papers decision to remove what one of them was saying. I mean, George Orwell eat your heart out. You defend removing a list of facts that positions the BDS movement as a humanitarian response (which is widely supported by all major human rights groups, including many Jewish and Israeli ones) and not a Nazi-like set of opinions while claiming that BDS people say things Nazis say. Your right, you better move quickly to delete the actual comments of BDSers so that you you have the right to describe what they say, not them. Delete what they say with one hand, tell everybody they speak the same things Nazis say with the other hand. Brilliant! You’ve proved your point and your perspective’s legitimacy.

The more I read from
proprietors of BDS
the more I smell BS

That list of Apartheid regulations is from Susan Abulhawa’s speech to BDS, she really hit it out of the ball park. I’ll re-print it here and the DP should let people decide for themselves if as Americans we want to take a critical stand on our nation’s foreign policy regarding the sponsorship of another corrupt middle east tyranny, and they can print another column denouncing all those who do as “anti-semites” and crypto nazis and anybody else who wants to continue to conflate the Likud government with all Jews can whine and wail about it too:

• Section of 5 in the Law of Political Parties and section 7A of the Basic Law: Stipulates that any party platform that calls for full and complete equality between Jews and non-Jews, can be disqualified from any political post. The law demands that Palestinian Arab citizens may not challenge the state’s Zionist identity.

• Law of Return: “Every Jew has the right to become a citizen no matter where they come from” while the indigenous non-Jewish inhabitants who were expelled in 1948 are expressly barred from returning to their homes

• Nakba Law: Penalizes any institution that commemorates or publicly mourns the expulsion of the native Palestinian population

• Anti-boycott law: Provides anyone calling for the boycott of Israel, or it’s illegal settlements, can be sued by the boycott’s targets without having to prove that they sustained damage. The court will then decide how much compensation is to be paid.

• Admission Committees Law formally allows neighborhood screening committees to prevent non-Jewish citizens from living in Jewish communities that control 81 percent of the territory in Israel. In March 2011 Israel passed a law to allow residents of Jewish towns to refuse non Jews from living in their communities.

• Amendment to the Citizenship Law: Stipulates that an Israeli citizen who marries a Palestinian cannot live as a couple in Israel with his or her spouse. A Palestinian spouse can neither gain citizenship nor residency.

• 93% of the land, the vast majority of which was confiscated from Palestinian owners after 1948, can only be owned by Jewish agencies for the benefit of Jews only. One of these agencies is the Jewish National Fund, which, in its charter forbids sale or lease to non-Jews.

• Specified Goods Tax and Luxury Tax Law [art 26, Laws of the State of Israel, vol. 6, p. 150 (1952)] Authorizes lower import taxes for Jewish citizens of Israel compared with non-Jewish citizens of Israel.

• National Planning and Building Law (1965) Through various zoning laws freezes the growth of existing Arab villages while providing for the expansion Jewish settlements and creation of new ones. The law also re-classifies a large portion of established Arab villages as “unrecognized” and therefore nonexistent, allowing the state to cut off water and electricity as well as to simply appropriate that property.

• Appropriations are carried out under The Requisitions Law which allows a “competent authority” to requisition the land – called “land requisition order” – so that only he may “use and exploit the land” as he sees fit. This applies to “home requisition orders” as well, whereby another “competent authority” who can “order the occupier of a house to surrender the house to the control of a person specified in the order, for residential purposes or for any other use, as may be prescribed in the order. “

• In the education sector within Israel, as an example, the state spends $192 per year per non-Jewish student compared to $1,100 per Jewish student.

• There is a planned Mosque Law that will prohibit the broadcasting of the Muslim call to prayer, which has been sounding over that land since the beginning of Islam.

• Non-Jews living in the West Bank are denied access to the holy places of Jerusalem, which are only a few kilometers away from them.

• ALSO, for the first time in the history of Islam and the history of Christianity, Palestinian Muslims and Christians in the West Bank and Gaza are denied access to their holy Places of Jerusalem, even on the high holy days of Eid, Christmas, and Easter Sunday.

• Since Israel took the West Bank, the Christian population has declined from 20,000 in 1967 to less than 7500 today.

• Military Order 1229: authorizes Israel to hold Palestinians in administrative detention for up to six months without charge or trial. Six-month detentions can be renewed indefinitely, without charge or trial.

• Military Order 329 and 1650 effectively prevents Palestinians from being anywhere in the West Bank without a specific permit to be there, making it a criminal offense to go from one Palestinian town to another.

• Military Oder #92 and #158: gives the Israeli military control of all water resources in the West Bank, which belongs to Palestinians.

• Israel then allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, while unlawful Israeli settlements there receive virtually unlimited supplies creating a reality of green lawns and swimming pools for Jewish settlers and a parched life for Palestinians, whose access to water, according to the World Health Organization does not meet the minimum requirements for basic human water needs.

• Furthermore, that fraction of confiscated Palestinian water is sold to Palestinians at 300% more than what it costs Jewish settlers in the same area. ($1.20/cubic meter vs $.40/cubic meter).

• Military Orders #811 and #847: Allows Jews to purchase land from unwilling Palestinian sellers by using “power of attorney”.

• Military Order #25: forbids public inspection of land transactions.

• Militar Order #998: requires Palestinians to get Israeli military permission to make a withdrawal from their bank account.

• Military Order #128: gives the Israeli military the right to take over any Palestinian business which is not open during regular business hours.

• Military Order #138 & #134: forbids Palestinians from operating tractors or other heavy farm machinery on their land.

• Military Order #93: gives all Palestinian insurance businesses to the Israeli Insurance Syndicate.

• Military Order # 1015: requires Palestinians to get Israeli military permission to plant and grow fruit trees. This permit expires every year.

• Through various military orders, according to the WHO, Israel has uprooted 2.5 million trees belonging to Palestinians, and which often represent their only means of sustenance.

And here are the numbers that scare me and break my heart the most. These are the cold prose of statistics pertaining to Palestinian children, that reflect the systematic destruction of Palestinian society:

• (UNICEF): “Conditions have rarely been worse for Palestinian children.” One in 10 Palestinian children now suffer from stunted growth due to compromised health, poor diet and nutrition and 50% of Palestinian children are anemic, and 75% of those under 5 suffer from vitamin A deficiency.

• Palestinian children are routinely imprisoned for months and years for throwing stones at Israeli jeeps, tanks, and soldiers. Many of them, as young as 12 years old, are tortured and held in solitary confinement.

• Meanwhile, for bludgeoning a 10 year old Palestinian boy (Hilmi Shusha) to death with the butt of his riffle, an Israeli settler received community service and a fine.

• A Palestinian man was convicted of rape and sentenced to 1.5 years in prison for having consensual sex with a Jewish woman, because he did not disabuse her of her assumption that he was Jewish

Meanwhile, maybe mr Glickson can explain how the Arab monarchies building a pipeline is going to help the Palestinians as long as this set of regulations is in place and enforced at gun point by one of the most powerful militaries on the planet.

the regulations are not in place to prevent financial success. They are in place to protect Israelis (Jewish and Arab) from suicide bombings and the like. That is why saying what goes on in Israel is akin to Jim Crow is so ridiculous: slavery in America was 100% financially motivated. That is why, after slavery had been “legally” abolished Federally, there were still numerous practices that allowed Jim Crow to endure for 100 years in states across the U.S. And some would argue still today…

So the situation in Israel/Palestine is not anything like that: does Israel gain anything financially by maintaining the status quo? No, to the contrary, they stand to lose $$$ (see: attempts by BDS movement).

So it is too bad you are off-handedly dismissing this idea because you feel the limiting factor would be Israel — an actual idea dismissed so easily, too bad.

Right, because the following laws and policies (all cited above) are about preventing suicide bombings, not transferring Palestinian resources to Israelis:

• Military Oder #92 and #158: gives the Israeli military control of all water resources in the West Bank, which belongs to Palestinians.

• Israel then allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, while unlawful Israeli settlements there receive virtually unlimited supplies creating a reality of green lawns and swimming pools for Jewish settlers and a parched life for Palestinians, whose access to water, according to the World Health Organization does not meet the minimum requirements for basic human water needs.

• Furthermore, that fraction of confiscated Palestinian water is sold to Palestinians at 300% more than what it costs Jewish settlers in the same area. ($1.20/cubic meter vs $.40/cubic meter).

• Military Orders #811 and #847: Allows Jews to purchase land from unwilling Palestinian sellers by using “power of attorney”.

• Military Order #25: forbids public inspection of land transactions

• Military Order #128: gives the Israeli military the right to take over any Palestinian business which is not open during regular business hours.

• Military Order #138 & #134: forbids Palestinians from operating tractors or other heavy farm machinery on their land.

• Military Order #93: gives all Palestinian insurance businesses to the Israeli Insurance Syndicate.

No profit at all here—not to land-hungry settlers, not to colonial agriculture projects, not to Israeli producers who profit from the captive Palestinian market. Israel’s just protecting itself! Minding its own business!

This is the SECOND tenured Penn professor to call an officially recognized student club a group of Nazis. He compares its members to the KKK and their conference to a lynch mob! Not only is that completely inaccurate, hateful, violence mongering, and a whole lot else…

If there is anyone guilty of spreading hatred and lies, it is Professor Glickson.

Prof Glickson is also diluting the ABSOLUTE HORROR of the Holocaust and lynch mobs by comparing them to a benign student-run conference.

It is an insult to those who have experienced real suffering by the hands of the Nazis and the KKK. He should be ashamed.

Everyone who condemns Israel including all BDS members should see this video of a Palestinian girl who was saved by an Israeli
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWzSVZ-I0-c&feature=related
and this video of a woman who believed all the anti-Israel propaganda until an Israeli helped her out. Both the girl and the woman were Arab victims of Palestinian violence. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1QGyosnwRI

Invoking the KKK or Nazis to describe BDS, even tangentially, is beyond the pale. Perhaps Glickson and the pro-Israel crowd should explain to us precisely how to criticize Israeli political policies without achieving the heinous “anti-semite” label. It must be impossible. It seems that the Zionists use antisemitism as a cudgel to pulverize any and all criticism of Israel. In a sane world, this would offend the true victims of hatred.