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Today’s Top BDS Stories:
1. Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky says the BDS campaign against SodaStream shows that the movement is less concerned with the Palestinians and more concerned with harming Israel. “BDS claims it wants only what is good for Palestinians, no matter how many of them it has to hurt,” he writes, referring to the hundreds of Palestinians whose jobs would be in danger if economic sanctions against SodaStream took hold.
Meanwhile, Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers documents a case of BDS bullying and ultimate capitulation involving SodaStream.
2. Anti-Scarlett Johansson meme spreading through social media. Time for a pro-Scarlett version to start appearing.
3. New York University has responded to Forbes journalist Richard Behar’s open letter to the university accusing president John Sexton of treating the ASA boycott too lightly.
“We do not accept that the opposition NYU’s president and provost have expressed on this matter is different in kind or degree than statements issued by other like-minded university presidents,” NYU spokesman John Beckman said. “Indeed, I do not see how their views on the matter could be clearer or more firm — they have said it contravenes the tenets of academic freedom, and called on the ASA to overturn the vote.”
Other BDS-Related Content:
* Australian MP slams Oxfam for “attempting to denigrate” Scarlett Johansson for stance on SodaStream.
“There’s no rational explanation for Oxfam attempting to denigrate one of its own ambassadors and prevent them from dealing with an Israeli company. SodaStream employs hundreds of Palestinian workers and if Oxfam had its way, a divestment would cost people their jobs and livelihoods.”
“Oxfam is undoubtedly being pressured by the extremist BDS movement run by Omar Barghouti. The BDS and Barghouti are not seeking to modify individual Israeli policies but see the elimination of Israel as a state entirely.”
* William Jacobson, of Legal Insurrection, draws light on the burgeoning Redwashing movement –spearheaded by Wesleyan University Professor J. Kehaulani Kauanui. Kauanui defines Redwashing as:
“the promotion of Indigenous Peoples of the Americas as a deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violations of the Palestinian people. In these cases, Israelis typically appeal to indigenous peoples by drawing parallels between their respective claims to indigeneity, legacies of genocide (evoking the Jewish holocaust), and ongoing adversity regarding threats to “cultural extinction.”
Kauanui is one of the founders of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, which called an academic boycott of Israel the same week as the ASA but with far less backlash, probably due to its small size.
* A Jerusalem Post op-ed looks at the current state of European boycotts and their relationship to anti-Semitism.
