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:
