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Background:
On June 12, USA Today published a story concerning efforts by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement to force Alicia Keys to cancel a concert in Israel.
It included some particularly nasty language such as a reference to “reports from rights organizations documenting Israel’s violation of Palestinian children rights” and the following paragraphs:
Andrew Kadi of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation who delivered the petition explained, “We assume Alicia Keys wasn’t familiar with Israel’s abuses of Palestinian human rights, when scheduling, because her performance is legitimizing a country that systematically undermines her non-profit’s mission, that ‘every person has the right to health care and that all children deserve a future.’ ”
In response to Israel’s large-scale abuses of Palestinian rights, Palestinian Civil Society launched a call for a global campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel in 2005, modeled on the call by black South Africans for a boycott of apartheid South Africa that helped bring an end to the racist system.
Why did USA Today’s article contain charges against Israel that were presented as fact rather than conjecture? Why did the article accuse Israel of “large-scale abuses of Palestinian rights” and include the above quote accusing Israel of denying Palestinians health care and of torturing children?
Because the article was copied almost verbatim from a press release put out by the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
