Jewish Donors Unite to Combat BDS

Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban at a Las Vegas summit of pro-Israeli Jewish philanthropists

Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban give a 'high-five' to mark their coalition against BDS

Boycott Movement Grows, But Israel Fights Back - Oren Liebermann

To counter the growing influence of the movement, Jewish-American mega-donors Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban bridged their political differences -- Adelson is a Republican, Saban a Democrat --   and pledged to start and fund an anti-boycott movement.

"This isn't over. This is just the beginning," Saban told Channel 2 Israel about the Orange CEO and the boycott movement. "Any company that chooses to boycott business in Israel is going to look at this case, and once we're done, they're going to think twice whether they want to take on Israel or not. Trust me, this is just the beginning."  
(CNN)


BDS and the Politics of "Radical" Gestures - Todd Gitlin

[M]any supporters of BDS do not understand, or have not thought through, just what they are subscribing to. The 2005 BDS call, which can be read on the official BDS website, calls on Israel to end its "colonization of all Arab lands."

The phrase is coded to imply that the very existence of the State of Israel is what constitutes "colonization." 

Unlike all proposals for just settlements of the murderous ethnic wars of our time - Rwanda, former Yugoslavia, Kashmir - BDS demands that one of those peoples give up the state in which they predominate.
The writer is professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University.
(Tablet)


Fight BDS in the Name of Human Rights - Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

The BDS movement is the latest incarnation of the denial to Jews as a distinctive faith and people the right to be: the right to govern themselves in the land of their beginnings. The rebirth, in this mutated form, of anti-Semitism within living memory of the Holocaust should be chilling for anyone with a genuine sense of humanity. An assault on Jews or the Jewish state is never an assault on them alone.

Today, when Christians are being persecuted and Muslims murdered by the forces of radical political Islam, all who care for human rights, particularly European governments and their Jewish communities, must stand together with the Israeli government in their defense. 
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks is the former chief rabbi of the UK and Commonwealth.
(Jerusalem Post)


It's Time to Go on the Attack - Liel Leibovitz

Too often, we respond to hate the way a hapless nerd might respond to the bully about to stuff him into a locker, with some sad mixture of pride in our intellectual superiority and desperate attempt to be liked no matter what. But the only way to stop bullies is to fight them.
    
This means, first, stop apologizing. Haters are going to hate. Do not try to debate them or appease them or engage them in any sort of feel-good exercise. Instead, drag their bigotry into the light and make them pay for it. Force those who fail to condemn the atrocities of Hamas, those who believe that the Jews are somehow to blame for the rage of the maniacs who repeatedly rise to murder them, and those who defile history and morality by comparing Israel to Apartheid-era South Africa or to Nazi Germany, to explain their hateful positions, and then explain why anyone so disdainful of reason and so devoid of empathy, decency, and common sense should have a place in any American institution of higher learning. 
(Tablet)


The Evil of BDS - Adrian Hilton

To single out the democratic Jewish state for "special treatment" when so many other nations of the world are far worse is shameless anti-Semitism. The evil of the delegitimization of Israel is that it isolates the only democracy and persecutes the only free people in the Middle East. If the past century has taught us anything at all, it is that our failure to confront anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism has tragic consequences.
(Archbishop Cranmer-UK)

UPDATES:

Congress Passes Landmark Anti-BDS Law - Rebecca Shimoni Stoil
 
Congress passed a trade bill containing provisions opposing the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. The bill requires U.S. negotiators to make rejection of BDS a principal trade objective in negotiations with the EU in order to discourage European governments from participating in BDS activities.
    
"The recent wave of boycotts originating in Europe...demands a robust response from the United States. This is that response," said Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.). "If you want free trade with the United States, you can't boycott Israel."  
(Times of Israel)
*

A Yellow Star for the Jewish State? - Bernard-Henri Levy
 
Foundations in Qatar (together with Saudi think tanks) provide most of the financing for the BDS movement. In that country, 95% of the labor force consists of Asian non-citizens working in slave-like conditions under the kafala system, which is a close cousin to apartheid.
(Kyiv Post-Ukraine)
*