Day: 8 June 2016

The first international #StopBDS conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York on 31 May – hosted by the Israeli mission to the UN and the World Jewish Congress – was focused on how to appropriate “the language of the left” emptied of its analysis and struggles against intersectional oppression. World Union of Jewish Students Chairperson Yosef Tarshish was one of the speakers; a former president of Union of Jewish Students in the UK, he told the audience that “A lot of anti-Israel organizations have managed to infiltrate the conversation on intersectionality. We need to remind students around the world that they need to stand with us because we will stand with them when their rights are trampled.”

Naomi Dann, an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), also attended the anti-BDS conference and later spoke on the ‘Treyf Podcast‘ #BDSWatchWatch. She said that what really struck her was “the underlying anti-Muslim messages and really racist messages that were so inherent in the discourse of pro-Israel advocacy.”

The speakers apparently saw no contradiction between propagating Islamophobic/racist views towards Arabs, and encouraging students, in Dann’s words “to show up for your allies in other minority groups because if we want them to show up for us we have to show up for them, and that kind of framing was a sort of transactional solidarity, and very clearly not rooted in the approach that organisations like JVP and people who are involved on campus in intersectional struggles see the ways that different types of oppression are connected and have a shared interest in struggling against oppression together.” This language of intersectionality is being “used by Israel advocates but is devoid of analysis for why those things are connected.”

Incredible seeing old friend @jtaarsh & @YoungRubicam CEO @DavidSable at the @UN @IsraelinUN! #StopBDS for #Israel pic.twitter.com/nbriY9Tq13

— Henry Max Goodelman (@HenryGoodelman) 31 May 2016

Dann added that there was this “bizarre sense that the speakers were trying to project that they were winning and there was power there, but it really was framed as if coming from a place of victimhood,” even though “Israel advocates have a lot of power particularly through their relationships with elected officials… they are not the underdog…. there is this sense that they’ve failed and the BDS movement is continuing to grow and bring in people who see the intersection of Palestinian rights with other struggles that they care about.”

Thank you to everyone who came, followed and supported the battle to #StopBDS & build bridges! pic.twitter.com/9UtvyNMT5A

— Israel Mission to UN (@IsraelinUN) 31 May 2016

Listen to Treyf Podcast, from 2:50:

New York Governor Cuomo has signed an executive order that will require state agencies to stop doing business with and divest public funds from institutions and companies associated with BDS. As several media commentators have noted, it is part of a multi-nation campaign to outlaw advocacy of boycotting Israel: the British government has already sought to legally bar certain types of boycott advocacy. Legal advisors on US anti-BDS bills have argued that BDS constitutes “discriminatory conduct.” The UK Conservative government has similarly said that “The problem with boycotts in public procurement is that they may often stray over the line from acceptable ethical procurement…to become an act of discrimination.”

Thank you, @NYGovCuomo, for serving as the Democratic co-chair of our new Governors United Against BDS initiative! https://t.co/JxpUYtulSJ

— AJC (@AJCGlobal) 7 June 2016

It’s also worth noting that AJC (American Jewish Committee) is behind another initiative that has global reach: ‘Mayors United Against Anti-Semitism,’ which London mayor Sadiq Khan signed last month:

508 mayors from the US & Europe signed their names to the largest denunciation of anti-Semitism in history #GloFohttps://t.co/D9sOi7fnX2

— AJC (@AJCGlobal) 6 June 2016

For BDS advocates in the UK the “McCarthyism and profound free speech threat” of the US anti-BDS executive order sets a dangerous precedent. Northwestern University Law Professor Eugene Kontorovich who has advised many US lawmakers on anti-BDS bills they are drafting, says that he distinguished between “biased speech and activity.” The new legislation “is not about the viewpoints a company holds. This is about discriminatory activity. A company can hang a banner saying ‘long live Palestine, out with Israel,’ and if it’s not actually engaging in discriminatory conduct” by boycotting Israel, then it’s fine, he said. “None of these statutes prohibit any speech by anyone,” said Kontorovich. “But when a state deems certain conduct discriminatory, even if it’s not illegal, they can say they don’t want to contract with it.” (Haaretz, Jun 06).

However, Donna Lieberman, executive director of the state Civil Liberties Union, has said in a statement “The state cannot penalize individuals or entities on the basis of their free expression, and political boycotts are a form of free expression… Creating a government blacklist that imposes state sanctions based on political beliefs raises First Amendment concerns, and this is no exception.”

While the Dutch and Irish governments have publicly stated that calls for a boycott of Israel are legitimate and “protected by the freedom of expression,” UK Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice Michael Gove only a few months ago denounced the campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) as follows:

But worse than that – worse than libelling the state of Israel – the BDS campaign, by calling for the deliberate boycott of goods manufactured by Jewish people, by calling for the shunning of the Jewish state, and the rejection of Jewish commerce and Jewish thought, actually commits a crime worse than apartheid (quoted in Middle East Monitor, 04.04.2016).

He told the Anti-Semitism Conference in Berlin, on 15 March, that the Conservative government has ‘made clear that local authorities and public bodies cannot adopt BDS policies aimed at Israel’. He was alluding to a public procurement note that – in a highly unusual departure from parliamentary protocol – was announced at a press conference with the Prime Minister of Israel on 17 February by Minister for the Cabinet Matthew Hancock, disregarding due democratic process. Ben White has explained, however that ‘the lack of an actual ‘ban’ on boycotts, as widely and incorrectly reported, is more damning; the government has not changed the law, but sought to intimidate local authorities into thinking that they have.’ Continue reading “Why the US anti-BDS order is relevant for UK advocates of BDS”