Divest This

500 and Farewell

DivestThis — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 12:32:21 +0000

Having written close to half a million words on the subject of BDS over the last four years, it was nice to discover a graphic (actually the Google mashup Barbara pointed us towards) that so nicely sums up one of the key messages of Divest This: the utter failure of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions [...]

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BDS Lessons Learned – Paradoxes

DivestThis — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 13:00:28 +0000

The final major lesson I learned from this four-year research and writing exercise related to BDS is easily the most paradoxical one. It starts with an understanding of just how massively the deck has been stacked against the Jewish state in its struggle for survival. As Ruth Wisse has pointed out, the current war against [...]

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BDS Lessons Learned – Responding to Setbacks

DivestThis — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 12:19:13 +0000

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from covering and writing about the BDS “movement” over the years is how to deal with setbacks. And, ironically, this is a lesson that’s been taught to me by the BDSers themselves. For example, when students in Oxford overwhelmingly voted down BDS by a margin of 7:1 [...]

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BDS Lessons Learned – Who are We?

DivestThis — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 19:30:29 +0000

Some current goings on in the world of academic divestment (at Oxford University as well as the University of California system) provide insight into the next lesson I learned while studying the BDS “movement,” a lesson regarding the nature of the organizations supporting and opposing BDS propaganda programs. I’ve already talked about the sociopathic and [...]

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BDS Lessons Learned – Strategy and Tactics

DivestThis — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:34:16 +0000

The sociopathic nature of the BDS movement, which makes it impossible to work with, and challenging to confront using the normal tools of politics, also explains the nature of the tactics they use in their own political operations. Strategy and tactics have been such an important concern at this site that I made an effort [...]

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BDS Lessons Learned – Who Are We Dealing With?

DivestThis — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 20:23:45 +0000

I apologize if the Lessons Learned articles I’m writing as the run up to the 500th (and final) posting to this blog will sound familiar to long-time readers. But as I noted when this wind-up/wind-down period began, Divest This was created to extract lessons from observing, analyzing and fighting against the BDS “movement.” And since [...]

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BDS Lessons Learned – We are not Alone

DivestThis — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 17:27:59 +0000

One of the first lessons I learned when I became involved with fighting against divest-from-Israel campaigns is that, unlike other forms of anti-Israel propaganda, BDS involves more than just Israel, its foes and their mutual supporters. For a third party is always required for a BDS campaign to have any meaning. Think about it for [...]

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Good News/Bad News

DivestThis — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 17:17:31 +0000

I just realized that I’m less than a month away from publishing my 500th piece on Divest This. I know that 500 posts is small beer compared to some blogs that can turn out that many entries on a good day. But this site has always been more about using the blog format to explore [...]

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Max Brenner – Supremely Epic BDS Fail

DivestThis — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 17:01:42 +0000

Hey guys. I’m thinking of auditioning for The Onion. What do you think? A group from Northeastern University’s Self-Righteous Asshole community made their presence known last night as they marched in front of Max Brenner’s restaurant and chocolate shop in downtown Boston for close to two hours, demanding that people not buy chocolate on Valentine’s [...]

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Sweet and Sour: BDS Visits Max Brenner

DivestThis — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 19:36:52 +0000

It’s not often the forces of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) decide to put their sour souls on display on the sweetest day of the year. Apparently, someone got it into their head that it would be a brilliant idea to picket Boston’s Max Brenner restaurant and gourmet chocolate shop on Valentine’s Day (i.e., tomorrow) [...]

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Barghouti and Babb – Exploiting the Rubes

DivestThis — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 10:54:47 +0000

Now that the Barghouti-Butler whatever-it-was has left Brooklyn and New Yorkers ask themselves what all the fuss was about, my mind turns to Kroger Babb, king of the exploitation film makers. Who is Babb and why do I mention him with regard to last week’s BDS brouhaha? Well stick with me for a few moments [...]

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Barghouti Flogs Books in Brooklyn

DivestThis — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 10:47:05 +0000

I’ll admit to being of mixed mind with regard to how to respond when Omar Barghouti (or any of his clones) comes to town. On the one hand, if we just shut up about it, then he’s likely to draw a crowd no larger than the two dozen or so people who went to see [...]

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Who’s Afraid of the Big Barghouti?

DivestThis — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 12:09:00 +0000

I seem to be struggling to work up a good head of stem about this week’s BDS brouhaha in Brooklyn, partly because it’s just the latest January gathering of the Israel-hating like-minded (does anyone remember anything about last year’s PennBDS weekender? – I thought not), but mostly because of its headliner: Omar Barghouti. Why is [...]

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Omar Barghouti Comes to Brooklyn

DivestThis — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 17:38:54 +0000

You can’t really call the controversy brewing at Brooklyn College this week a BDS fight since no BDS-related institutional discussion (much less a decision) is taking place, meaning no boycott or divestment activity is even being contemplated by the college. Rather, you’ve got the start of yet another Omar Barghouti book tour (apparently he’s decided [...]

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BDS Thought Experiment – Fini

DivestThis — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 12:44:04 +0000

While the “turning the tables” strategy I’ve been describing might initially sound like fun (and justified), think for a minute what such a campaign might involve. First, we would have to find some way to get our hostile political message (that Gaza is an Apartheid state or Islam an Apartheid religion, for instance) to come [...]

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BDS Thought Experiment – 2

DivestThis — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:12:32 +0000

As the previous piece demonstrated, there is really not much skill needed to play the kind of propaganda games we’ve grown accustomed to from those that advocate for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel. Mix one part loaded language with two parts projection of motivation onto others, string a few unrelated events and decisions together [...]

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BDS Thought Experiment – 1

DivestThis — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 16:41:45 +0000

For Immediate Release The worldwide movement to isolate the Apartheid Palestinian Authority and Hamas regimes gained significant momentum over the last year, as hundreds of artists and performers visiting Israel continued to avoid performing in territories ruled by human-rights abusing Palestinian governments whose very existence violates international law. Meanwhile, a year after the murder of [...]

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Bigger Picture – Keeping Ruthlessness at Bay

DivestThis — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:32:27 +0000

When Pandora’s box was opened, allowing to escape all the ills and evils of the world, the only thing that remained behind was hope. This is an important image since, while hope itself has very little power against forces of darkness (or, more specifically, the ruthlessness I’ve been talking about the last couple of weeks) [...]

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Bigger Picture – What the Big Ugly Teaches Us

DivestThis — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 12:53:03 +0000

Having identified “The Big Ugly,” as that phenomenon in which the ruthless are driven to organize their politics (and often their lives) around opposition to the Jews and their state, the next question is what to do with this understanding? After all, this Big Ugly is our real enemy (even if it appears to us [...]

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Bigger Picture – The Big Ugly Defined

DivestThis — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 11:52:52 +0000

In my last piece, I introduced some of Ruth Wisse’s ideas that explain why so many people avert their gaze from the true nature of the Middle East conflict (the very popularity of that generic, even-handed term, vs. Wisse’s more accurate “Arab War Against the Jews” demonstrating the phenomenon she talks about). And in a [...]

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Bigger Picture – Ruth Wisse and the War Against the Jews

DivestThis — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 19:23:14 +0000

Unlike evil, ruthlessness is not some metaphysical abstraction we can ponder and dissect, but never fully understand. For ruthlessness is concrete and, in its own self-centered way, completely rational. After all, none of us would claim that we don’t want something from life (money, respect, love, authority), nor is it controversial to say that some [...]

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Bigger Picture – The Enemy Identified

DivestThis — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 15:25:58 +0000

And now we get to the age-old enemy, the first enemy not of man but of man’s ability to organize, grow, develop and live in ways that stand the chance of increasing the level of civilization in the world. This enemy was with us when humans first acted autonomously, then tribally, trying to prevent the [...]

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Bigger Picture – Civilization and Its Enemies

DivestThis — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 15:00:37 +0000

Keen-eyed readers may have noticed the reference at the very end of my last piece to Civilization and Its Enemies, the first book by one of the most important philosophers writing today: Lee Harris. In his now famous essay, Al Qaeda’s Fantasy Ideology, Harris first discussed the role fantasy plays in individuals and societies, and [...]

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Bigger Picture – What the Big Ugly is Not

DivestThis — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 11:44:21 +0000

Contempt for Israel (and, in many cases, its inhabitants and co-religionists) is at the core of what I have been referring to “The Big Ugly.” But it is the many forms of irrational belief and behavior attached to this loathing that I have been discussing (imperiousness to facts, indifference to reason, belief in one’s own [...]

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Bigger Picture – Argumentation and Facts

DivestThis — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 11:53:21 +0000

One of the things Israel’s supporters rely on to try to get our message across are arguments supported by facts. Our reliance on fact and argument is not a function of our being Israel supporters, nor does it derive from our ethnicity, religion, or nationality (any more than it derives from our race, class, age [...]

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Bigger Picture – What makes BDS tick?

DivestThis — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 21:15:09 +0000

Happy New Year to all you DivestThis readers out there! I don’t know if it’s the new blogging platform, or the fact that this site is reaching the 500 post mark, but the depth of conversation over the last several months has really shot up, especially with regard to recent analysis over what makes the [...]

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Why you should shop at Cliff’s Variety

DivestThis — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 14:41:32 +0000

Well I was hoping to post some of my own BDS Christmas carols to give our tone deaf (in every meaning of the phrase) friends in BDSland something to work with other than their own contrived and butchered rhymes. Unfortunately, everything I came up with was sung to the tune of a Gilbert and Sullivan [...]

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Merry Christmas!

DivestThis — Tue, 25 Dec 2012 18:50:03 +0000

There, I said it. Yes, I know I was supposed to have been traumatized from having to sing X-mas carols during my elementary school years. But I tend to lump that history in with the fact that I attended more Catholic masses than Jewish services during my youth (although you could add all the religious [...]

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Yoram Hazony’s Paradigm Shift

DivestThis — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 16:08:29 +0000

While the recent series on Robert Wistrich’s From Ambivalence to Betrayal focused on a conflict that’s always close to the surface in any Middle East debate (i.e., who plays what role in our Left-Right political continuum when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict), an article by Yoram Hazony (one of the most insightful political thinkers of [...]

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From Ambivalence to Betrayal – Fini

DivestThis — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 14:58:23 +0000

There are two types of problematical reaction from two different audiences when confronted with information like the history presented in Robert Wistrich’s From Ambivalence to Betrayal. The first reaction comes from those whose political disposition is liberal or otherwise left-leaning who might acknowledge this history but relegate it to the past or to a non-mainstream [...]

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From Ambivalence to Betrayal – 4

DivestThis — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 14:56:07 +0000

An obvious objection to all this talk about Karl Marx (and the Bolshevik revolutionaries who did so much damage in his name) in the context of a discussion of Left-wing anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is that it continues to allow current inheritors of this ideology to claim to speak for the Left as a whole. This [...]

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From Ambivalence to Betrayal – 3

DivestThis — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 13:42:31 +0000

Most of the kids marching against Israel on college campuses today were not even born in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed, meaning they have little to no idea how much their rhetoric and actions are built on nearly 150 years of political tactics honed during the near 150 year “Age of Ideology” that began [...]

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From Ambivalence to Betrayal – 2

DivestThis — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 11:44:19 +0000

One of the reasons why fights over the Middle East (whether they involve BDS or some other propaganda effort) tend to immediately be cast in terms of Left vs. Right is because the majority of attacks on the Jewish state these days come wrapped in Left-leaning vocabulary. This is not to say that card-carrying right [...]

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From Ambivalence to Betrayal – 1

DivestThis — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 19:39:56 +0000

Well I finished reading Robert Wistrich’s From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews, and Israel. And, as expected from a scholar of Wistrich’s impeccable talents, the book is not just masterful but is likely to represent the seminal work on the subject of Left-Right anti-Semitism for decades to come. My first instinct was to [...]

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Park Slope Boycott Revisited

DivestThis — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 11:51:34 +0000

Given my proclivity for exposing BDS hoaxes, I guess this piece should touch on the latest bit of fraudulence (in this case a sports hoax) from our friends over at BDS Europe. But since CAMERA has covered this story so well, the only thing I can add is this question: If the Boycott, Divestment and [...]

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BDS Links to Reality

DivestThis — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 19:15:39 +0000

Many thanks to Barbara for providing a set of important links which I wanted to repeat here in case anyone missed them in the comments section: 1) Stand With Us has a petition against boycotting Israel: Here is the link: http://westandforisrael.com/ I don’t put a lot of stock in internet petitions, but I would like [...]

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Man the Walls

DivestThis — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 12:15:14 +0000

Well I was kind of hoping that this would be the year when BDS either went away or again went into remission, as did between 2006 and 2009 when a series of embarrassing defeats no longer made it the tactic of choice among the Israel hating community. After all, 2012 was the year when the [...]

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BDS in California – Dream On

DivestThis — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 18:33:02 +0000

As many of you know, I tend to take a pragmatic approach to dealing with BDS related issues as they come up. Which is why it’s worth revisiting the two big divestment stories that reared their head before the latest blow-up in Gaza. First, you had the story of the University of California Student Assembly [...]

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Gaza and Fantasy Politics

DivestThis — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 19:51:21 +0000

Smarter (and certainly better paid) people than I have been writing about the impact of the recent conflict and ceasefire in Gaza from a variety of angles. Each of these analyses is based on a specific frame of reference which those of us who fight against the propaganda arm of militancy directed at Israel (a [...]

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Gaza Propaganda – Accuse, Accuse, Accuse

DivestThis — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 21:40:42 +0000

So far, the Gaza propaganda campaign paired with the current Hamas war effort has failed to gain significant traction. This might just be because a costly ground incursion has not (yet) occurred, or because Israel has succeeded so well in minimizing civilian casualties (both Israeli and Palestinian). But I suspect there are other factors at [...]

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Consistency and Gaza Propaganda

DivestThis — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 13:49:56 +0000

As human beings, we crave consistency. Or at the very least, inconsistency leaves us enormously uncomfortable. Which is why the most effective accusation you can throw at a political adversary is not that they are liars (which requires you to get into a debate over what constitutes “the truth,”) but that they are hypocrites (which [...]

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Patterns and Propaganda

DivestThis — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 11:46:33 +0000

As I mentioned yesterday, part of the reason for this new site update is to provide better access to resources for those who might encounter an acceleration of BDS-related activity in the wake of the recent flare-up along the Israeli-Gaza border. And how can I be so sure we’re going to see more calls for [...]

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The New Divest This!

DivestThis — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 17:02:05 +0000

I’ve been planning to update the site for a few months now, but was delayed due to another project that also kept me from posting that frequently over the Summer and early Fall. In addition to that project now being finished, the other reason to get this update out the door was the likelihood of [...]

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Irvine

DivestThis — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 20:08:00 +0000

Unsurprisingly, my Inbox has been filled with news of the recent divestment motion passed by the University of California at Irvine’s Student Senate. And just as unsurprisingly, events taking place in the Middle East have been of more interest and importance not just in human and geopolitically terms, but also with regard to the role they are [...]

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Gaza: Here We Go Again

DivestThis — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 11:26:00 +0000

It’s time like these, when the missiles are flying in from Gaza (virtually guaranteeing an escalation in violence), that the true nature of BDS and associated “peace movements” stands revealed. For according to every source and interpretation, one of the things holding the Israeli’s back from immediately retaliating against an enemy opening fire at its [...]

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The Peoples Poet

DivestThis — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 23:58:00 +0000

They can try to hoodwink the public with press releases declaring their latest fake victory. They can interrupt ballet performances by shouting and blowing bullhorns (and turn the entire audience into Zionists in the process). They can even show up in the comments section of this blog demanding answers to irrelevant questions and never respond when we [...]

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New Facebook Page

DivestThis — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 10:48:00 +0000

Well that project I mentioned would be eating up a lot of my time until Election Day is winding down, which means I’ll be getting back to more regular blogging over the next few weeks, as well as introducing some long-overdue updates to this site between now and the end of the year. As a [...]

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Proofiness

DivestThis — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 11:31:00 +0000

I was excited to read this headline from the Times of Israel indicating that the battle for US campuses is over, which means I can give up this blog and finally get back to the tatting project I was working on before being so rudely interrupted by the aptly-named BDS “movement.” But then I realized that this headline was [...]

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Burden of Proof

DivestThis — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 00:40:00 +0000

As some of you know, I’ve become interested in the philosophy of argumentation over the last few years, with a particular interest in the fallacies people use to try to “prove” points that can’t be demonstrated using standard techniques (such as providing accurate and relevant evidence organized into proper and logical arguments). I suppose interacting [...]

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Statements

DivestThis — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 16:06:00 +0000

Last week, I talked about what a genuine BDS victory might look like, and how we would know when it had come about. This has become an important issue since, in most instances when the BDSers sent out a press release announcing their most recent “triumph” (certainly any one that involved boycott or divestment decisions with a [...]

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Prove It!

DivestThis — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 12:10:00 +0000

Well things seem to be a bit quiet on Planet BDS land these days. The last big announcement I can see on the BDS Central web site has to do with the Quakers, and (as noted here), we have yet to hear from any of those crowing boycotters as to why – if their victory is so absolute [...]

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Ask Herzl

DivestThis — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 14:22:00 +0000

I’ve sometimes been critical of “our side” with regard to leveraging the Internet and Web 2.0 communications to get the word out. I definitely include myself in that part of “our side” that needs to do a better job communicating the truth as effectively (if not more effectively) than the BDSers spread their lies. But an excellent [...]

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Quaker Quotes

DivestThis — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 19:54:00 +0000

Sorry about the graphic (I couldn’t resist). Anyway, one of those friendly BDSers who regularly visits the comment section showed up last week to announce, yet again, a new stunning victory which I and everyone else is in complete denial over (since said victory means BDS is just inches from bringing the Zionist entity [...]

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Veolia – Ain’t the truth pretty?

DivestThis — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 10:51:00 +0000

Every now and then, someone steps up and does the legwork regarding debunking BDS claims so well that one can only stare at their work in silent admiration. But having gotten that silent moment out of the way, it’s time to praise this remarkable piece of research by the UK groups Lawyers for Israel and Christian Middle East Watch which helps [...]

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UCSA BDS OYVAY

DivestThis — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 22:06:00 +0000

I frequently find myself flabbergasted by the way the forces of BDS, while trying to seize the reputation of someone else for their own purposes, repeatedly shred their own reputation in the process. And no divestment story I’ve ever encountered illustrates this phenomena better than this week’s hijacking of the University of California Student Association (UCSA). If [...]

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UCSA UGH

DivestThis — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 20:26:00 +0000

What is it about Israel haters and the Jewish holidays? Any number of you out there can probably list the times anti-Israel events, conferences, programs and activities were scheduled to begin, oh, around sundown on Friday and continue until right around sundown Saturday. But last weekend, we seemed to have entered new territory in which [...]

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Time on Their Hands

DivestThis — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 10:48:00 +0000

My current semi-hiatus from Divest This blogging (i.e., not a leave of absence, but a temporary lowering of posting frequency during a period when I’ve been involved with a particularly engaging work project) has gotten me thinking about another advantage enjoyed by the BDSers vs. their opponents. For while I have been expending creative energy in other [...]

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A response to Mike

DivestThis — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 11:07:00 +0000

As I mentioned a couple of weeks back, some obligations in the second half of the year have left me with limited time to, among other thing, post or respond as frequently to comments as I would like. But one of our visitors (Mike who runs the excellent site Israel Thrives) was taken enough with the [...]

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What Would Normal People Do?

DivestThis — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 13:04:00 +0000

A couple of news items and some recent exchanges in the comments section got me thinking again about the vast gulf between BDS and any normal political movement. Starting out with the news of the day (actually, yesterday), an Israeli court finally exonerated the Israeli Defense Forces from charges that they deliberately ran over Rachel Corrie with [...]

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Israel Left and Right

DivestThis — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 12:02:00 +0000

There are a number of reasons why I tend to avoid trying to force-fit the whole Arab-Israeli conflict into a Left-Right continuum. First off, the terms “Left” and “Right” have become so all-encompassing, which (if you include all those who insist they represent each end of the political spectrum) means everyone from the Stalin and [...]

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Sorry about that… Sacramento

DivestThis — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 13:32:00 +0000

Figures that, just as I chose to get off the grid to commune with nature (and the family) for a few days, some Divest This postings start generating the kind of comments you’d expect from a “real” blog. It looks like most of the exchanges to the last two pieces have to do with the [...]

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The Herscovite BDS Moment

DivestThis — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 19:03:00 +0000

Just an FYI that I’ve got a couple of big projects (including an update to this site) cooking over the next several weeks, so postings may be lighter with more “newbrief” type material making an appearance for a while. But before that, I wanted to plug a hole in the narrative about BDS and community [...]

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Jay Michaelson’s Journey – Continued

DivestThis — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 17:50:00 +0000

Looking over some responses to my last posting, I realize that I may have been a bit too harsh with regard to Jay Michaelson’s recent article on what he finds wrong with BDS. It’s easy to criticize someone who you think took too long to recognize what the rest of us have known for years, especially with regard [...]

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Jay Michaelson’s Journey

DivestThis — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 10:26:00 +0000

I am usually of mixed mind with regard to sympathizing with those who were once part of (or even continue to support) this or that BDS activity who feel they must speak their mind about what they perceive to be the “movement’s” shortcomings. On the one hand, you’ve got kooks like Norman Finkelstein who is too unpredictable [...]

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BDS Flops in Sonoma

DivestThis — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 17:22:00 +0000

Well those crazy BDSers failed again, this time in an attempt to drag the government of Sonoma County in California into their propaganda web by trying to make Veolia, the European transportation giant that does business in both the Zionist and West Coast entities, the focal point for one of their “You must do what [...]

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Jew vs. Jew II

DivestThis — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 14:46:00 +0000

The role played by Jews (and even Israelis) in the defamation of Israel through propaganda programs such as BDS has been in the news lately. Some stories talk about the visible role played by group such as Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) in various church-related divestment votes, although the big story last week featured someone entering the stiff competition [...]

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BDSFail at 12 – Continued

DivestThis — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 09:20:00 +0000

When we left our review of the BDS “movement’s” self-declaration of success, I had just gotten to the subject of ambiguity. Specifically, I was curious why a political project that can list so many large financial and investment firms as firmly in the BDS camp can’t seem to produce statements (at least ones not written in Norwegian) [...]

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BDSFail at 12 – Continued

DivestThis — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 09:20:00 +0000

It looks like the whole #BDSFail meme is starting to affect the Dear Leaders of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions “movement” who just published a piece of extended bombast even more longwinded than my usual postings entitled ”BDS at 7 – Celebrating, reflecting and further misleading mainstreaming” (damn keyboard’s sticking). Before subjecting their manifesto of alleged success to some humble critiquing, it’s [...]

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BDSFail at 12

DivestThis — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 09:51:00 +0000

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The BDS Twitocracy

DivestThis — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 19:14:00 +0000

Before giving the Presbyterians a rest for the next couple of years (wouldn’t it be great if the BDSers could ever bring themselves to say/do the same thing?), some momentary reflections on not the content of the decisions made during last week’s General Assembly, but the medium in which those decisions were communicated. As background, [...]

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PCUSA Divestment – Follow Up

DivestThis — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:51:00 +0000

I was planning to do a final follow up on the goings on at the PCUSA General Assembly last week, which would tie in a couple of more recent events (including the Episcopalians’ recent decision to join the Presbyterians and Methodists in rejecting divestment). But as luck would have it, a request came in to do [...]

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TIAA-CREF Hoax – Clarification

DivestThis — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 09:17:00 +0000

After watching the Presbyterians vote down divestment another 3-4 times on Friday (and seeing them boo someone trying to continue to drag it back on the agenda), I decided I could take a couple of days off before wrapping up the PCUSA story. But before that, it’s time to keep a promise I made before the [...]

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PCUSA Divestment – Results

DivestThis — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 13:40:00 +0000

I understand that we can’t count on anything until the final gavel sounds at the Presbyterian 2012 GA on Saturday, but assuming last night’s victory holds, there are a few important lessons to be drawn from this most-recent continuation of the BDS movement’s decade-plus-long losing streak. First off, we need to keep in mind that this [...]

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PCUSA Divestment – This Just In

DivestThis — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 02:40:00 +0000

I’m kind of stunned to be typing these words, but with regard to this year’s Presbyterian General Assembly (drum roll please): BDS Loses Again! As many of you know, I’ve been fairly resigned to the likelihood that the Presbyterians would do to themselves what they did in 2004 and drag the denomination into another two years [...]

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PCUSA Divestment – Seriousness

DivestThis — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 13:05:00 +0000

Several people have sent me the link to this piece which highlights some points I have failed to make until now, notably: * That divestment may not have historically had the economic or political impact assumed by those who advocate for it * That PCUSA is not actually making decisions regarding what to do with its own [...]

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PCUSA Divestment – Struggling to Care

DivestThis — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 10:14:00 +0000

As the PCUSA divestment debate winds to a conclusion, I’ve been surprised how difficult it’s been to gin up the emotions (anticipation, gloom, excitement) that usually come to the surface in the run-up to a big BDS vote. Perhaps I am simply suffering from a sense of false optimism, hoping that the divestment measures that have [...]

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PCUSA Divestment – Ethos

DivestThis — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 13:21:00 +0000

A major assumption surrounding this year’s PCUSA divestment vote (which can also be said for all the votes the church has taken on the subject) is that a “Yes” on divestment by the Presbyterians should be taken seriously as a moral statement. But is this a reasonable assumption? Part of the reason we think this way [...]

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PCUSA Divestment – Fallout

DivestThis — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 12:46:00 +0000

Will Spotts provides an admirable Fisking of an FAQ document provided by members of the Presbyterian Church to explain their divestment positions. The original FAQ, full of reasonable sounding language, tries to make the case for continuity between previous divestment-related General Assembly decisions and this year’s choices (although they leave out rejection of divestment in 2006, [...]

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PCUSA Divestment – Who Pays?

DivestThis — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 13:09:00 +0000

In his latest posting on the subject of this week’s US Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) General Assembly (GA), Will Spotts talks about the wall surrounding the hearts of too many people in the Church which seals them off from comprehension of the harm their activities over the years have caused, and the hatefulness their words and deeds [...]

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Reality Check – Egypt

DivestThis — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:20:00 +0000

News on both the BDS and international fronts keep delaying some of the commentary I was planning to do on the upcoming PCUSA divestment debate (which may be a good thing, given how uncharitably I’ve been feeling about the organization over the last year which will likely lead to some less-than-kindly words I may end [...]

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TIAA CREF and PCUSA: BDS Friends or Foes?

DivestThis — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 09:58:00 +0000

At first, I was annoyed that last week’s TIAA-CREF BDS hoax was going to take time away from things I wanted to say about the upcoming Presbyterian divestment vote. But then it dawned on me that these two stories were intimately connected. Before explaining how, I wanted to first highlight one important aspect of last [...]

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TIAA CREF BDS Hoax – Social Investing

DivestThis — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 11:55:00 +0000

Having gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar for the umpteenth time, the boycotters are trying to find some way to make their recent “TIAA-CREF Divestment Victory” hoax not simply seem like yet another example of them being exposed trying to deceive the media and the public. But a fraud so blatant that [...]

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TIAA CREF BDS Hoax – Motivation

DivestThis — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 15:48:00 +0000

While the world of modern finance can sometimes seem mind-bogglingly complex, the notion of divestment (as used by the BDS “movement” as their own middle name) is remarkably simple to understand. For “divestment” (as the BDSers use the term) is specifically a political act consisting of the decision by an institution (such as a school, church [...]

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TIAA CREF – Another BDS Hoax?

DivestThis — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 11:06:00 +0000

We interrupt regular broadcasting with news of yet another potential BDS-related hoax. Once more, a hoax tale seems to be centered on TIAA-CREF. If you recall, the boycotters were caught red-handed several years ago trying to pass off a generic business decision by the retirement giant as a response to their request to get the organization [...]

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PCUSA and Israel – Politics

DivestThis — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 11:27:00 +0000

The divestment debate that will be taking place later this month at the US Presbyterian Church’s (PCUSA) bi-annual General Assembly (GA) is fundamentally a political one. This seems like an obvious statement of fact, but once the debate revs up it will more and more take on the language of a morality play with sides and [...]

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The Presbyterians Await

DivestThis — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 09:23:00 +0000

There comes a time when an institution’s continued flirtation with BDS says nothing about the Middle East and nothing about the BDS “movement,” but instead reveals the ugly underside of the institution itself. And I’m afraid we may be reaching that sad end as the US Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) readies to meet in Pittsburgh next week [...]

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Rhetoric – Follow Up

DivestThis — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 14:10:00 +0000

While I finished up what I had to say (for now) on the subject of anti-Israel rhetoric, I highly recommend you read this article that analyzes the rhetoric used to erase the Jewish identity of the region with regard to the users and enablers of such political language.

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Rhetoric – Solutions

DivestThis — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 10:52:00 +0000

Israel’s friends face a rhetorical challenge. For whether our opponents embrace BDS or some other tactic, anti-Israel forces deploy rhetorical strategies specifically designed to shut down rational debate. On the one hand, they use evocative images of war (hard soldiers, frightening weapons) and its consequence (the wounded and dead) to play off the emotions of [...]

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Rhetoric – Avoidance

DivestThis — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 16:07:00 +0000

Usually, the type of analysis I’ve been doing for the last few postings is performed in order to determine how well someone has used logic, language and other devices to frame an argument designed to counter an opponent and/or persuade an audience. But another thing that sets BDS rhetoric apart from “normal” political interaction is how [...]

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Rhetoric – Association

DivestThis — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 18:38:00 +0000

Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman’s surprise best-seller Thinking Fast and Slow describes the human mind as separated into a lazy but powerful slow half that processes information deliberately, and a much-more-frequently-used fast half that spends much of its time associating one thing with another. You can read more about his arguments here, but for purposes of this discussion [...]

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Rhetoric – Outrage

DivestThis — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 11:27:00 +0000

One of the most interesting things about the rhetoric used by the BDS “movement” and similar Israel-disliking organizations is that the BDSers’ life on the psychological extreme (discussed here) means that the rhetorical tactics they employ also tend towards the extreme. When one is dealing with a “normal” political situation, even one as heated as [...]

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Rhetoric – Abnormal Politics

DivestThis — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 23:49:00 +0000

I’ve been meaning for some time to write about the rhetoric used by the BDS “movement” (which reflects the rhetoric of anti-Israel political activity generally). But before getting into the mechanics of this subject, it’s important to understand some of the psychological motivation behind why people make certain choices when engaging in political debate. More than [...]

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“Shut Up” She Explained

DivestThis — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 22:53:00 +0000

So here’s something new and different in BDSland. By now, some of you may already have heard about the University of Texas Middle East Studies Department that recently canceled a book project that would have included essays from 29 women writing about their experiences living and growing up in the Middle East. This anthology was [...]

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Law – Fini

DivestThis — Tue, 29 May 2012 09:14:00 +0000

One of the most powerful objections one could raise to the critique I’ve been making regarding Israel and international law would be that it is a “shooting the messenger” – style argument. “So what if the institutions condemning Israel as being in violation of international law are flawed or even corrupt?” the argument goes. “If [...]

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Law – 3

DivestThis — Mon, 28 May 2012 10:35:00 +0000

It’s easy to criticize and even condemn multi-national institutions, even the most successful of them. For example, today historians agree that NATO represents one of the most successful political and military alliances in human history. But during its entire history, many leaders (American and European, Right and Left) complained bitterly about the institution, decrying it as [...]

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Law – 2

DivestThis — Fri, 25 May 2012 13:24:00 +0000

Until very recently, “international law” consisted of agreements (treaties, alliances, trade deals) negotiated between individual nations to cease hostilities, form alliances, or define political and economic spheres of influence. While “nations” might refer to tiny city states of a few hundred thousand people or empires ruling millions, the treaty – a binding contract between the specific [...]

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Law – 1

DivestThis — Thu, 24 May 2012 10:44:00 +0000

In the discussion that ensued in the comments section of a recent posting, I made a pretty big blunder in the heat of debate regarding a particular aspect of international law (similar to one I made in haste in a different debate a year back). As in that previous case, being in error got me [...]

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Three Cool Guys

DivestThis — Mon, 21 May 2012 11:48:00 +0000

I was startled to realize that this is the 400th posting at Divest This. And while I’ve tried to stay focused an on topic for the last 399 entries, in honor of this self-defined and self-declared milestone, I wanted to talk about three people who have been inspirational in one way or another over the years. Not [...]

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Blame

DivestThis — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:29:00 +0000

Over the years, I’ve talked about some of the psychological factors that might explain the behavior the BDS advocates. These include a ruthlessness that drives them to drag third-parties into their battles, regardless of the cost to others, and fantasy politics which leads them to engage in activities for the sole purpose of making themselves feel more [...]

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The Beinart Effect

DivestThis — Sun, 13 May 2012 13:39:00 +0000

While this year has mostly been dark clouds for the forces of BDS, both small (failure at the Park Slope Food Coop), medium (another year of getting nowhere on college campuses) and large (the Methodist Church rejecting divestment yet again), there is a silver lining for them that we in the boycott-fighting business should take [...]

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BDS Washes Up

DivestThis — Tue, 08 May 2012 09:50:00 +0000

BDS advocates seem to have recently become obsessed with hygiene, or more specifically what they perceive to be the nefarious washing practices of their political opponents. Most of you are probably aware of the “Pinkwashing” phenomenon. This arose out of the need for anti-Israel activists, who perceive themselves as not just progressive but the focal [...]

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Methodist Fini

DivestThis — Sun, 06 May 2012 10:45:00 +0000

It’s time to wrap up with last week’s Methodist story and move onto other topics. Before doing so, however, it’s best to take a pause and reflect on exactly what the Methodists did and did not do during their most recent General Conference vis-à-vis Israel and the Middle East. At the highest level, what they [...]

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Tantrum

DivestThis — Sat, 05 May 2012 00:42:00 +0000

It’s astounding how rapidly the mask comes off the minute the divestment brigade doesn’t get what it wants. For weeks, the BDSers invested countless hours into writing, phoning and pressing the flesh with delegates to the soon-to-be-finished 2012 Methodist General Conference, quoting scripture, telling teary (and context-free) tales of Arab suffering, and generally playing their traditional [...]

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The Methodists Say No

DivestThis — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:46:00 +0000

Only if you understand the centrality of the Mainline Protestant churches to the BDS strategy can you begin to grasp why the BDSers put so much time, energy and resource into yesterday’s Methodist vote, and why they will be doing just as much (if not more) to get the Presbyterians to vote yes on divestment in [...]

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Methodist Divestment – This Just In!

DivestThis — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:00:00 +0000

Well the votes are in from the Methodist General Conference in Tampa. And (what’s that phrase I’m looking for?), oh yes… BDS loses again. At the end of the day, the votes weren’t even close. I say “votes” because there were actually a set of ballots that made up the biggest defeat for divestment this year. [...]

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What I meant to say…

DivestThis — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 11:38:00 +0000

Apologies if my last write up on the Methodist divestment debate left people feeling like the cause was lost (or if I simply left people bewildered). Realizing my mistake in referring people to 50-page documents to understand the background of what I was talking about, I’m going to try to sum up the debate so [...]

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Methodism Madness

DivestThis — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 20:04:00 +0000

I must admit to being somewhat stunned by the amount of effort Team BDS is putting into the whole Methodist vote taking place this month in Tampa and the likely equal amount of resources they plan to put into the Presbyterians during their upcoming June meeting in Pittsburgh. Anyone who has followed BDS activity for more [...]

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BDS Comings and Goings

DivestThis — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 09:55:00 +0000

Catching up on a couple of BDS-related stories that have broken since I returned from vacation last weekend: The latest BDS “victory” or another post-hoc fallacy? The latest boast regarding BDS effectiveness comes from Europe (of course) and has to do with the private security company G4S failing to win a renewal of a security [...]

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The Silent S

DivestThis — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 12:11:00 +0000

Two recent BDS stories, which have gotten categorized in the Twitosphere around the ever-popular hashtag #BDSFail, highlight a theme discussed a while back on the challenges facing those advocating for the “S” of BDS: Sanctions. Boycotts can be done by individuals, although in the case of BDS the goal is to get sellers to boycott [...]

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JVP Hagaddah – Oy!

DivestThis — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 23:56:00 +0000

Well it took some doing, but my faithful team of dumpster divers managed to unearth an early draft of Jewish Voice for Peace’s most-remarkable Hagaddah. It’s clearly a markup version, but it provides keen insight into the true soul of BDS. Enjoy!

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Hagaddah

DivestThis — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 09:15:00 +0000

One of the few good things about the Web savviness of Israel’s opponents is that you sometimes get to see all of the hypocrisy and clownishness of the BDS “movement” by simply visiting a single Web site. And nowhere is this efficiency more on display than at the site of my West Coast friends’ favorite [...]

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Bullying

DivestThis — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 09:34:00 +0000

Well, after a set of productive diversions, it’s time to get back to a subject I promised to write about a couple of weeks back: the bullying tactics that seem to be growing in prominence among BDS practitioners, especially at colleges and universities. Extra-political tactics that include threats, intimidation and even occasional violence have always [...]

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Spin

DivestThis — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 21:23:00 +0000

I promised myself to give the whole Park Slope story (and those who participated in it) a rest, but not before commenting on the spin the BDSers predictably gravitated towards in the wake of last week’s significant defeat for their “movement.” That spin is best articulated here and here (yes, I know, I’m linking to [...]

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Themes

DivestThis — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 13:30:00 +0000

Having been directly involved with or covered all of the big BDS fights over the years, the specific observations I can bring to last night’s victory in Park Slope have to do with the repetition of certain important themes. First off, there is the high drama of the lead-up to a vote with an unknown [...]

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Breaking News from Park Slope

DivestThis — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 02:04:00 +0000

BDS Loses Again! (again) Off to sleep. More tomorrow.

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Gifts

DivestThis — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 18:21:00 +0000

With that “vote for a vote” on BDS taking place at the Park Slope Food Coop tonight, I thought I’d do a little news Googling to see how this particular circus is unfolding. Given that this boycott story is happening in New York, it should come as no surprise that NY pols up to and [...]

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Abnormal

DivestThis — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 18:18:00 +0000

Every year or two, one BDS story becomes a major media three-ring circus. Back during “The Old Days,” (i.e., 5-10 years ago), it was a petition-driven divestment campaign at Harvard and MIT that drew headlines and heated debate in 2002, followed by the first big municipal divestment fight in Somerville in 2004 and finally the Presbyterian [...]

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Beinart’s Tiny World

DivestThis — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 08:54:00 +0000

I’m still planning to get something out on the subject of the bullying behavior that has become the signature feature of the BDS “movement” over the last year or so. But before getting to that, there are two BDS-related articles that have been published lately, one I want to point out and the other I [...]

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IAW Comes and Goes

DivestThis — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 13:52:00 +0000

I was going to provide some coverage of this year’s “Israel –Apartheid Week” (IAW) campus activities, until I realized that IAW had come and gone already. I was surprised that it made such a small ripple in 2012, even in the Jewish press (which – outside of BDS Web sites, is the only place that tends [...]

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War and Peace (Movement)

DivestThis — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 11:45:00 +0000

If we needed any more evidence that BDS represents the propaganda arm of a war movement (vs. it’s ridiculous self-characterization as a “peace movement,”) the last week’s escalating conflict along the Gaza/Israel border should put the true nature of BDS into proper context. First, one must realize that the battles being waged today were absolutely, [...]

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What’s a Linewaiter?

DivestThis — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 19:58:00 +0000

For those following what’s expected to be this season’s big BDS co-op fight in Park Slope New York, it’s worth taking a good look at the latest issue of the co-op’s monthly newsletter, the Linewaiter’s Gazette. The first reason to check it out is to read a piece by Joe Holtz, one of the organization’s [...]

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It’s Not Over Over There

DivestThis — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 23:42:00 +0000

One of my great disappointments is the inability to give BDS activity outside of the US the attention it deserves. People often make the assumption that while BDS has been a bust on these shores, that over in Europe it is having a better time of it. But if European investment levels in the Jewish [...]

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Strategy E-Book

DivestThis — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 21:13:00 +0000

While I still have an account at ZinePal (the site that lets you turn blogs into e-books), I created a quick-and-dirty e-book that brings together some stuff I wrote over the last couple of years having to do with strategy and tactics related to fighting against not just BDS, but the whole de-legitimization project. Given [...]

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Judgement

DivestThis — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 14:23:00 +0000

Well the verdict is in regarding the lawsuit against the Olympia FoodCo-op for their Israel boycott, and there is no sugar coating the news that the judge went against the plaintiffs as hard as he could, not just dismissing their claims but hitting them with an anti-SLAPP judgment that could lead to heavy fines. Needless [...]

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Fallout

DivestThis — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 14:28:00 +0000

Catching up on some other BDS news taking place between the PennBDS brouhaha and upcoming BDS fights within the Methodist and Presbyterian churches: While I refuse to leverage the alleged defection of Norman Finkelstein from the BDS cause, I’m happy to point out an interesting piece that appeared on Jewish Ideas Daily that analyzes part of the story I [...]

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A Call to Battle

DivestThis — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:10:00 +0000

In general, it’s the battles you don’t have to fight to win that are the most productive. For example, the reason we’ve not seen any serious consideration of divestment by colleges or cities over the last ten years is that the leaders of schools and municipalities have taken a measure of BDS activists over the [...]

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Barometer

DivestThis — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:53:00 +0000

A few months back, I wrote about what an end to the BDS “movement” might look like. And one of the telltale signs I identified was the marginalization of those individuals and organizations who continue to push the BDS tactic, whatever the costs. In a way, Norman Finkelstein recent tirade (whether motivated by politics or whatever [...]

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Thanks for Nothin’ Norman

DivestThis — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 02:17:00 +0000

Boy, when you start sounding like Norman Finkelstein (or, more specifically, when Norman Finkelstein starts sounding like you), it’s clearly time to retire. By now, my regular reader will have heard that Finkelstein, the bad boy of the Israel-hating network, has lashed out against BDS, condemning it as a “cult” (more specifically, a dishonest, marginal [...]

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Presbyterians Behaving Badly (Again)

DivestThis — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:10:00 +0000

As stories about the PennBDS conference fall off headlines in the U Penn student newspaper (to be replaced by tales of student chicken-wing-eating prowess), I suspect the time has come to move onto other BDS-related stories that may have been missed over the last month. That said, I promise to return to this subject if [...]

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PennBDS – Perspective

DivestThis — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Well the PennBDS conference has come and gone and before looking at what it all adds up to, I’d like to start by congratulating the organizers for the impressive job they accomplished. I know this might seem strange coming from someone who has done so much to criticize the event, both at the PennBDS-Oy site [...]

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PennBDS – Cowardice

DivestThis — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:40:00 +0000

I had planned to give the whole PennBDS thing a rest over the weekend in order to let that group have their say. But after this story broke yesterday, it seemed negligent to let the group’s decision to ban a member of the press from their event go without commentary. As the linked piece above [...]

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Closing Remarks

DivestThis — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:58:00 +0000

Well I returned from a brief visit to the University of Pennsylvania campus and I’m happy to report that – at least as far as I can tell – the sky is not falling. Signs of the impending big-bad-BDS event were non-existent (although I did see Alan Dershowitz’s punim staring me in the face on multiple [...]

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PennBDS – Spectacle

DivestThis — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:16:00 +0000

Back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, when 3.5 inch floppy disks were considered cutting edge, I attended some of the big computing tradeshows that defined that pre-Internet era (PC Expo, Mac World and – the big one – Comdex), as both a journalist and an exhibitor. It was while acting as a journalist that [...]

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PennBDS – Palestine and the Media

DivestThis — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:24:00 +0000

There are a number of approaches one could take when dealing with media-related issues regarding Israel and the Middle East. The most obvious is an analysis of the way Israel and the Middle East conflict are treated in newspapers, television, radio and other media sources, both in the US and abroad. Such analyses can be [...]

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PennBDS: Express Yourself (Literally)

DivestThis — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:57:00 +0000

Well it’s a sprint to the finish line to have something to say for every item on the PennBDS agenda before the conference starts. Fortunately, this morning’s entry will be brief since, for the life of me, I don’t have the slightest idea what a talk on “BDS and Literacy Expression” (the next item on the [...]

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PennBDS – Sleds with Wheels

DivestThis — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:02:00 +0000

The next item on the PennBDS agenda is another discussion of academic boycotts. Given that I’ve said everything I want to say on that subject here, I thought I’d step off the agenda just this once to talk about something inspired by Nycerbarb’s thoughtslast weekend regarding community. Those thoughts came to mind last weekend during [...]

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PennBDS: BDS 2.0

DivestThis — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:41:00 +0000

As with many of the topics being covered at the upcoming PennBDS conference, I’ve written previously on the subject of BDS in the context of the Web 2.0 communications revolution. I’ve also written about some of the unintended consequences of the ability of BDS advocates to successfully leverage these new technologies to spread their message. [...]

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PennBDS – Community Coalition Building

DivestThis — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 10:28:00 +0000

Today, we’re blessed with a guest article by someone on the BDS front lines. Nycerbarb organized successful opposition to boycott efforts at her Park Slope food coop, and blogs at the site Stop BDS Park Slope. She’s also a frequent visitor and commenter at Divest This and an all around cool person. Today, she provides [...]

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PennBDS – The Academic Boycott

DivestThis — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:29:00 +0000

This is part of a series of articles based on the program of the upcoming PennBDS conference. Check out this landing page to find out more. On a couple of previous occasions, I’ve mentioned some name changes to items in the PennBDS agenda, mostly as by-the-by asides. But in this instance, it’s worth highlighting the fact [...]

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PennBDS – The Zionist Response

DivestThis — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:04:00 +0000

This is part of a series of articles based on the program of the upcoming PennBDS conference. Check out this landing page to find out more. Building momentum from small victories is a time-honored tactic for political activist groups. And BDS proponents have been more effective at this than most, anchoring two years of heavy-duty [...]

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PennBDS: BDS and Community

DivestThis — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:18:00 +0000

This is part of a series of articles based on the program of the upcoming PennBDS conference. Check out this landing page to find out more. The PennBDS talk entitled “BDS as a Community-Wide Political Campaign” originally had the word “Winning” or “Victory” in the title (I can’t remember which). I can only guess why [...]

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PennBDS: BDS Mind, Beginner’s Mind

DivestThis — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:42:00 +0000

This is part of a series of articles based on the program of the upcoming PennBDS conference. Check out this landing page to find out more. Regular readers may have picked up on my fondness for words. And while I’ve sometimes been (legitimately) teased for using more words than may be necessary to make a [...]

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PennBDS – Consumer Boycotts

DivestThis — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:56:00 +0000

I’ve written a number of times on the subject of consumer boycotts, and anyone interested in more information and case studies can read about them in the Divest This Guide. To start off, boycotts were rather slow in coming to the US where BDS campaigns focused on divestment for most of the last decade, specifically trying [...]

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PennBDS: Hamsphire Conference Planning Transcript

DivestThis — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 11:43:00 +0000

I’ve been attempting to generate all new material in this month’s series of postings paralleling the PennBDS conference agenda, rather than fall back on a “clip show” of previous postings. But the next item up on their program (entitled “BDS On Campus I: Divestment Workshop”) didn’t really provide an issue to which I could hook a [...]

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PennBDS: The TIAA-CREF Campaign

DivestThis — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 11:37:00 +0000

This is part of a series of articles based on the program of the upcoming PennBDS conference. Check out this landing page to find out more. In some language (probably Yiddish) there exists a word that combines the notions of chutzpah and clownishness. And if one needed an example to illustrate this concept, one need look no further than [...]

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PennBDS: The Cultural Boycott

DivestThis — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 04:30:00 +0000

This is part of a series of articles based on the program of the upcoming PennBDS conference. Check out this landing page to find out more. When BDS first came on the scene at the beginning of the last decade, it primarily focused on divestment (notably, on five years of failed efforts to get prominent [...]

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PennBDS and the Black Community

DivestThis — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:06:00 +0000

This is part of a series of articles based on the program of the upcoming PennBDS conference. Check out this landing page to find out more. While any discussion involving race in America can trigger some heat, debate over subject such as “BDS and the Black Community” (the next item on the PenBDS agenda), can [...]

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PennBDS – Hillel and Questions of JVP

DivestThis — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:29:00 +0000

This is part of a series of articles based on the program of the upcoming PennBDS conference. Check out this landing page to find out more. With a panel discussion entitled “BDS, Hillel and the Question of Anti-Semitism,” our old friends at Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) finally take center stage on the PennBDS agenda. As regulars [...]

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PennBDS: Faith and BDS

DivestThis — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:25:00 +0000

This is part of a series of articles based on the program of the upcoming PennBDS conference. Check out this landing page to find out more. Generally, I like posts (or series of posts) to have self-contained arguments with links providing access to referenced information and sources, and an occasional link to a longer essay or book meant just [...]

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PennBDS – Packaging BDS

DivestThis — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 12:03:00 +0000

This is part of a series of articles based on the program of the upcoming PennBDS conference. Check out this landing page to find out more. While the session at the PennBDS program entitled “Packaging the Movement – Apartheid or Jim Crow” will likely focus on the “Apartheid” and “Jim Crow” parts of that title, I’d like to [...]

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PennBDS: Pre-Occupied

DivestThis — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 12:16:00 +0000

This is part of a series of articles based on the program of the upcoming PennBDS conference. Check out this landing page to find out more. They recently added a new session to the PennBDS program on “Palestine and the Occupy Movement” (speaker still TBD). (Just as an FYI, I’m doing my best to write these responses in the [...]

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PennBDS: Economics of BDSers Preoccupation

DivestThis — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:15:00 +0000

This is part of a series of articles based on the program of the upcoming PennBDS conference. Check out this landing page to find out more. Economic discussions by BDS supporters tend to focus on just two subjects: (1) The amount of foreign aid received by Israel from the US (which, depending on which BDSers you talk to ranges [...]

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PennBDS: Palestine in International Law

DivestThis — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:38:00 +0000

This is part of a series of articles based on the program of the upcoming PennBDS conference. Check out this landing page to find out more. I’ve been trying to write something new for each session on the PennBDS agenda, but with regard to “Palestine in International Law,” I’ve pretty much already said all I need to here. The [...]

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PennBDS – Lessons from South Africa

DivestThis — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:39:00 +0000

This is part of a series of articles based on the program of the upcoming PennBDS conference. Check out this landing page to find out more. South Africa is so central to the BDS narrative that it’s warranted considerable coverage on this blog. While I’ll be consolidating themes written about elsewhere in this PennBDS-related entry, anyone interested in [...]

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PennBDS: BDS 101

DivestThis — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 10:40:00 +0000

This is part of a series of articles based on the program of the upcoming PennBDS conference. Check out this landing page to find out more. Fortunately, the next item on the PennBDS agenda is the topic BDS 101, something I’ve written about in the Divest This Manual, although not something that’s appeared as a separate piece on [...]

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PennBDS: Delegitimization

DivestThis — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 12:22:00 +0000

This is part of a series of articles based on the program of the upcoming PennBDS conference. Check out this landing page to find out more. “Deligitimization” is an ungainly word, one which even Israel’s defenders don’t much enjoy using. Descriptively, the term does the job in summing up a set of activities designed to deny to the [...]

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PennBDS: Pinkwashing

DivestThis — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 11:19:00 +0000

This is part of a series of articles based on the program of the upcoming PennBDS conference. Check out this landing page to find out more. BDS advocates, including nearly everyone who will be on stage and in the audience at the upcoming PennBDS conference, share a problem. For the overwhelming audience (and target list) for the BDS [...]

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PennBDS: Success? Challenges, Options…

DivestThis — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 14:33:00 +0000

This is part of a series of articles based on the program of the upcoming PennBDS conference. Check out this landing page to find out more. I’ve been seeing an uptick in BDS news stories, blog entries and the like (especially towards the end of the year) that seem to be going out of their way to [...]

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PennBDS: Mobilization

DivestThis — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 20:48:00 +0000

This is the first in a series of articles based on the program of the upcoming PennBDS conference. Check out this new landing page to find out more. With Palestinian workers defying boycott calls from their leaders, with those leaders investing twice as much in the Jewish state as they do their own proto-state, and [...]

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PennBDS: Well there goes January…

DivestThis — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 09:30:00 +0000

As some of you may know, the big US BDS event for the year will be taking place at the University of Pennsylvania, February 4th and 5th (mostly during Shabbat, of course). I’ve been batting around some ideas for addressing this stunning gathering of BDSholes from around the nation, but despite the occasional accusation that [...]

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Interlocutor

DivestThis — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 16:29:00 +0000

Interlocutor – Definition One who takes part in dialogue or conversation Having blogged about BDS for close to three years now, one of my greatest disappointments is the lack of BDS advocates ready to engage in a serious discussion or debate over their political project. Sites of organizations that advocate for BDS rarely allow comments, [...]

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Headlines

DivestThis — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 15:22:00 +0000

In case you haven’t visited there yet, I recommend you stop by and bookmark the new BDS Global Digest site which is doing a job this site’s never been able to do adequately: providing ongoing reports of BDS and BDS-related stories in the news. Two of their stories seem to point to the Israeli economy [...]

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Hampshire BDS Revisited

DivestThis — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:18:00 +0000

If there’s one article I’ve linked to internally more than any other since starting this blog, it would definitely be this piece on Hampshire College. Part of this is due to the fact that Divest This got started in reaction to the (false) story that Hampshire College had become “the first US college to divest [...]

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Go and Learn – Take 2

DivestThis — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:49:00 +0000

Well this is weird. While my comment was posted last week at the Jewish Voice for Peace/Young Jewish and Proud/Go and Learn web site, not much else has happened there since. So I decided to post an opening question in order to get the conversation going. But then it seemed that the ability to post [...]

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Veterans

DivestThis — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 21:44:00 +0000

One brief note to start this piece: My invitation to debate BDS published here and on Jewish Voice for Peace/Young Jewish and Proud’s new Go and Learn site was recently released from moderation. I eagerly await their first response, which will give them the chance to participate in that discussions the rest of the Go [...]

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Go and Learn

DivestThis — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:29:00 +0000

As regular (and even irregular) readers may know, I have been a harsh critic of the organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), one of the main proponents of BDS (at least in certain parts of the US). And I have been particularly harsh on them for their insistence on having access to other people’s public [...]

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Trends

DivestThis — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 18:55:00 +0000

Team BDS has developed a bit of a track record with regard to discovering or anticipating economic trends, then claiming credit for business decisions that have absolutely nothing to do with their boycott and divestment efforts (or any other political issue, for that matter). Exhibit A: In 2009, Motorola’s decided to get out of a [...]

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Fantasy Island

DivestThis — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 14:37:00 +0000

A couple of weeks back, I was sitting with some friends at work talking about the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) forces that had set up camp within about 15 minutes from our office. Apparently, the day before the OWS group had obtained a court order that would temporarily prevent their forced eviction. And, in celebration, [...]

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Post-Modern Politics

DivestThis — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 09:29:00 +0000

The BDS “movement” seems to be entering its post-modern phase. I suspect this has something to do with the fact that its participants have gotten quite good at Web 2.0 media communications, but struggle to find any news worth pushing through that pipeline. After all, the last real serious BDS victory I can think of [...]

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More Traitors!

DivestThis — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 12:48:00 +0000

By now, many of you may have already read a pair of stories that shed some interesting light on the current state of the supposedly unstoppable BDS “movement.” First off, this piece highlights that since 2010, when the Palestinian Authority passed a law (alright, a decree) barring Palestinians from working inside Jewish communities within the [...]

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Collosal! Stupendous!

DivestThis — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 22:42:00 +0000

According to the BDS news team from the Alternative Information Center, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions “movement” has moved from simply successes to COLOSSAL SUCCESSES, demonstrated by the fact that many people are going out of their way to buy Israeli goods next week. How does that work? Well according to the aforementioned Alternative (Reality) [...]

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Shouts and Pouts

DivestThis — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 12:29:00 +0000

In one sense, it’s great to be the “new kid on the block” with regard to a political “movement,” something Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) are discovering now that they have become the go-to organization with regard to anti-Israel activity on US campuses. The press automatically turns to you when they need quotes from [...]

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Apartheid Oil

DivestThis — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:17:00 +0000

There comes a time when the hypocrisy of the BDS “movement” reaches such a level that one must simply stand back and marvel at their sheer chutzpah in stupefied awe. And we recently reached such a crescendo with the advent of the latest pithy phrase in the boycotter’s vocabulary: “Apartheid Oil.” Might this refer to [...]

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Off With Their Heads!

DivestThis — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:57:00 +0000

I once carried on an exchange with the interesting thinker who went by the name of Abu Nopal at this now-defunct but still available blog (I particularly recommend the second entry on the page titled “Yes, but can he hit?”). Our conversation was about his proposition that a forum designed like a jury trial, complete [...]

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BDS is a Loser – Fini

DivestThis — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 10:39:00 +0000

It has certainly been fun taking apart the list of “victories” that seem to be made up primarily of BDS hoaxes and puffery. And a rundown of the actual track record of BDS failure helps put the “wind at its back” claims of the boycotters into proper perspective. But to get the best perspective on [...]

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World to BDS: But you are losers!

DivestThis — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 10:31:00 +0000

Continuing with our run downof why the BDSers’ claim to being non-losers may be factually challenged, it’s time to move from critiquing their claims of success to listing some BDS stories they would prefer not be discussed. While their own list of “successes” seems to break things down by B (boycott), D (divestment) and S [...]

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BDS to World: “We’re Not Losers” – Part 2

DivestThis — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 00:02:00 +0000

Continuing from where we left off; having run down items on the BDSer’s own list of “victories” that were either fake, outdated or simply descriptions of their own inconsequential activities, let’s move onto items that could be considered genuine wins for them. Major items in their win column include the Olympia Food Co-op, the British [...]

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BDS to World: “We’re Not Losers” – Part 1

DivestThis — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:53:00 +0000

I’ve recently discovered two examples of the “But we’re not losers!” BDS argument mentioned at the end of my last posting (one from Australia, one from Philadelphia).Both of these make the case that programs promoting boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel are doing marvelously well, with a recent string of victories providing “a strong wind [...]

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Building on Sand

DivestThis — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 09:40:00 +0000

Commenters to my latest posting brought up extremely good questions about how to defeat a project like BDS that (1) doesn’t stop what it’s doing no matter how many times it is rejected or loses; and (2) insists that its’ success be measured solely by its’ refusal to stop what it’s doing.The current rise of [...]

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Stalemate

DivestThis — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 08:50:00 +0000

I had the good fortune to address a group of student activists recently who were just beginning school and were trying to anticipate and prepare for whatever anti-Israel activity might take place on their campuses this year. The good news is that after years of having to run gauntlets of “Israel Apartheid Week” and “Apartheid [...]

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Ignore-ance

DivestThis — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 11:12:00 +0000

A recent posting talked about some of the technical reasons BDS seems to continue as a campaign, despite its inability to actually win any battles. And there are benefits of BDS as a tactic (its simplicity, a wealth of potential targets – including any institution that holds a single share of Caterpillar or Motorola stock, [...]

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Well that didn’t take long

DivestThis — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 23:53:00 +0000

You can almost set your watch to the time interval between when some sort of progressive political project gets off the ground and when the “Friends of the Palestinian People” decide this new entity’s only purpose is to be used. Given that the “Occupy Wall Street” etc. movement is leveraging the only word the BDSers [...]

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Tek Talk

DivestThis — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 09:29:00 +0000

One of the most frequent questions I’m asked is why a “movement” like BDS, which has proven such a bust in real life, seems to continue to capture headlines. How does a project that has found it virtually impossible to win any genuine significant victories still manage to get its self-characterization of “unstoppable momentum” into [...]

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She Waz Robbed!!!!

DivestThis — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 10:57:00 +0000

The Internet (or, at least the 4/1,000,000,000th of it controlled by the self-proclaimed “Jewish Voice for Peace”) is in a tizzy over the latest slight to their Dear Leader. Backstory: The Jewish Federations of North America recently began an online project called Jewish Community Heroes.While I was only aware of it in the context of [...]

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School’s In Session

DivestThis — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 08:11:00 +0000

It’s intriguing to listen to BDS organizers as they talk about their plans for the year, as they do here.Not because their words are amusing or threatening, although I did crack a grin when they talked about “all these BDS victories,” without mentioning any specifics (for the obvious reason that none exist), and a frown [...]

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Emotion

DivestThis — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 13:47:00 +0000

A little catch up is in order before next week’s look at what’s likely to take place on college campuses BDS-wise during the current academic year. And I’m hoping lessons learned by revisiting something that happened a month ago can inform people’s approach to the Middle East campus wars that seem doomed to repeat themselves [...]

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Back to Business

DivestThis — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 10:19:00 +0000

It’s often useful to check in with a neutral observer to gauge the impact of BDS in the broad sense of the comings and goings of Israeli and anti-Israel politics. And the neutral party I tend to turn to for such information is the business press.After all, as much as we are all political animals [...]

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Olympia Redux: Fondness

DivestThis — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 09:24:00 +0000

Someone breaking down the 300 or so posts written for this blog over the last couple of years might ask a legitimate question regarding why so much time was spent talking about food co-op boycotts in general and the Olympia Food Co-op boycott in particular. The answer to the first half of such a question [...]

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Olympia Redux – We’ve Got Mail! (well, Comments)

DivestThis — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 13:19:00 +0000

We should all use recent visits by some “Sons of Olympia” to the comments section on this recent posting as a learning moment. In one sense, it would be easy to dismiss one commenter’s throwing Rachel Corrie’s corpse in our faces and another commenter’s accusations of racism and Apartheid (coupled with an abject refusal to [...]

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Olympia Redux – Conspiracy

DivestThis — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 10:51:00 +0000

While I made mention of debates I’ve had with members of the Olympia Co-op regarding the procedural violations that have since become the subject of a member lawsuit against the organization, articles produced by BDS supporters since the suit was initiated spend almost no time discussing these matters, beyond insisting (without any elaboration) that everything [...]

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Olympia Redux – Recognition

DivestThis — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 10:03:00 +0000

If a judge decides to hear the case against the Olympia Food Co-op, brought against it by members who claim the organization broke its own rules in order to push through a boycott of Israeli goods, the procedural issues noted previously probably represent the plaintiff’s strongest argument. But other bylaw language that stipulates the co-op [...]

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Olympia Redux – Process

DivestThis — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 08:58:00 +0000

Before returning to the discussion of the Olympia Co-op, the only food co-op (and possibly the only retailer) in the country that has enacted a boycott of Israeli goods: a couple of points. First, as my regular reader knows, I’m not the biggest fan of legal remedies (legislative or judicial) applied to political disputes, if [...]

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A New BDS World Record!

DivestThis — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 00:18:00 +0000

In what has to be its single greatest accomplishment in the last ten years, BDS received the boot not once, not twice but three times in a single weekend! Some of you may recall the ongoing saga at the Sacramento Food Co-op where BDS “activists” have been pushing a boycott of Israeli goods for months, [...]

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BDS-holes

DivestThis — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 09:13:00 +0000

I had neglected one possible mutation of the BDS virus in the wake of dawning realization that the original goals of the “movement” (to get major civic organizations like universities and churches to embrace their “Israel = Apartheid” propaganda message) are growing ever beyond reach. There have always been elements of threats, intimidation, and even [...]

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News, News, News

DivestThis — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 08:56:00 +0000

Boy, it’s been a busy news week in BDS-land (which must explain why Captain Israel has decided to become involved right now). First off, the latest attempt to sacrifice academic freedom for political posing has come a-cropper in Germany. About a week or so back, the organizers of an academic event in Deutschland decided they [...]

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I’ll Be There!

DivestThis — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 09:35:00 +0000

Well now they’ve gone and done it. In their excesses and their deception, in their over-reach and harassment, in their hectoring and their lies, the forces of BDS have summoned from the pages of history and the scrolls of our heritage, the one, the only… Captain Israel! May the diety have mercy on them.

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BDS – Beginning of the End?

DivestThis — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 09:37:00 +0000

As I was planning to say before last week’s interruption, it may be getting to the point where we want to think about what a “final” defeat for BDS might look like. After all, a “movement” that manages to turn the entire Australian political system and Noam Chomsky against them, a political project capable of [...]

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Dear YNet: The Sky is not Falling

DivestThis — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 14:44:00 +0000

With this the 300th entry to Divest This (can you believe there have been that many things to say about this subject?), I had planned to write a description of what the final failure of BDS might look like. But with publication of today’s “Sacrebeu! BDS is On the March! We’ve Got to Do Something!!!!!” [...]

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BDS Undone Down Under

DivestThis — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 13:50:00 +0000

Back in April, the big international BDS news story was the reversal of an anti-Israel boycott (voted in by the city government months earlier) in Marrickville, Australia. This was the first major municipal BDS fight since Somerville, MA in 2004 and since the BDSers seem to be showing some interest in focusing on more cities [...]

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False Alarm

DivestThis — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 22:00:00 +0000

I’ve gotten a couple of alerts over the last few days regarding rumors that Whole Foods, the national natural foods retailer, had begun a boycott of Israeli products. As this press release makes clear, the story is false. I have a sneaking suspicion that this one is not a traditional BDS hoax, but rather an [...]

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Do It Yourself

DivestThis — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 12:15:00 +0000

A decade of unrequited political activism (i.e., perpetual failure to get major institutions to buy into their program) has helped to create an occasionally-amusing, but often-disturbing “do-it-yourself” attitude among practitioners of BDS. Can’t get a single college or university to divest a single share of blacklisted stock that allegedly benefits the Jews? (Whoops! I mean [...]

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You Dee? Aye!

DivestThis — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 15:12:00 +0000

Boy, you vacation for a week in a place without Internet access and lo and behold your mailbox is full when you get back (imagine that)! In this case, many of my unread messages involve sending letters of protest or signing petitions against UDI. At first I was bewildered as to why so many people [...]

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When is a Boycott Not a Boycott?

DivestThis — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 12:24:00 +0000

Apologies to my reader for the uncontextualized reference to a BDS press release in my last posting, one which gave the impression that the boycotters had racked up a win with regard to International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Youth and Student Organization (a mouthful that fortunately acronyms to the simpler IGLYO) cancelling an [...]

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Stop Being So Illegal!

DivestThis — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 16:32:00 +0000

An intriguing spat opened up recently after Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon posted this video on YouTube which articulated the position that the legal status of territories in the West Bank and Gaza are “disputed,” and not “occupied,” (thus implying that a working out their final status would require a political, i.e., negotiated, rather [...]

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Norway and the Death Cult

DivestThis — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 11:43:00 +0000

I had intended to not join recent discussions regarding the murderous terrorist rampage in Norway, leaving it to others to debate the significance of that horrific event (which many have done in the context of Right-wing vs. Left-wing, vs. Islamist terror – with varying ratios of heat to light). But then it occurred to me [...]

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Comments Are Free-ky

DivestThis — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:14:00 +0000

A colleague runs a Web site called CIFwatch which monitors activity on one of those great Wild Wild West bastions of online debate: the Comment is Free forum hosted by the UK’s Guardian newspaper. As has been noted previously, Europe has not just been a test-lab for BDS activity but is also a continent where [...]

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Roger Victor!

DivestThis — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 16:31:00 +0000

In looking over reactions to Israel’s new anti-boycott legislation, I came across a two-part piece written by frequent Divest This commenter Victor Shikhman at his Stories blog. In addition to providing powerful insights and useful perspectives regarding the dynamic which led to the new law, Victor also provides one of the most thoughtful analyses I’ve [...]

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Give Peace No Chance

DivestThis — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 11:57:00 +0000

A couple of weeks back, the New York Times ran a piece on YaLa, a loose-knit virtual organization of young Israelis and Palestinians trying to bridge the ever-widening gap between their societies using social media like Facebook. I’ll admit to looking at the story a bit skeptically at first, especially given the media’s ability to [...]

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Israel’s Anti-Boycott Law

DivestThis — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 20:42:00 +0000

The big BDS news story of the week has been Israel’s passing of anti-boycott legislation which provides boycotted individuals and groups the right to sue boycotters in civil court. The law also prevents state funds from going to organizations advocating boycott or divestment from the Jewish state. Despite the civil (i.e., non-criminal) legal nature of [...]

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Flash Mob – Oy Vey!

DivestThis — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Well we defenders of Israel might as well throw in the towel now that BDS advocates have decided to triple down on their “Flash Mob” strategy of pulling 8-12 people together to break into incoherent song and dance at telephone stores or (more recently) a meeting of TIAA CREF here in Boston. After all, who [...]

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So Sue Me

DivestThis — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 10:03:00 +0000

Well the saga of BDS trying to bash its way into the food co-op community seems to have hit its inevitable endpoint as boycott fanatics in Sacramento, unable to force a vote on exiling Israeli goods from the local food co-op, have decided to try to sue their way onto a member ballot. With all [...]

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Who Pays?

DivestThis — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 19:51:00 +0000

So how ‘bout that flotilla? At a time when the staggeringly incompetent leadership of Code Pink et al has left yet another group of political tourists stranded in a foreign land, it’s easy to poke fun at one more BDSer fiasco (which thankfully didn’t get anyone killed this time). But as I’ve noted before, for [...]

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Has BDS Jumped the Shark? – 2

DivestThis — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 10:11:00 +0000

Continuing our run-down of symptoms indicating that BDS has succumbed to Jump-the-Shark syndrome, we now move onto the issue of enthusiasm. As with a post-shark TV show where you can tell the cast and writers are barely phoning it in, it’s easy to spot when political players are just going through the motions. Take, for [...]

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Has BDS Jumped the Shark? – 1

DivestThis — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 11:49:00 +0000

For the few of you who may have never heard of it before, the phrase “Jump the Shark” emerged from the early days of Internet-delivered culture commentary to describe the moment when you realize your favorite TV show had not just dipped in quality but has run out of gas and will never get better. [...]

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Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale

DivestThis — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 15:32:00 +0000

I must momentarily return to Snark mode to comment on a new video making the rounds in the BDS ether. This was created by that august Canadian film professor John Greyson who was last seen trying to gin up enthusiasm for a boycott of Tel-Aviv produced and themed films at the Toronto Film Festival (which, [...]

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Methodism Madness

DivestThis — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 09:44:00 +0000

While recent postings may have been a bit flip with regard to the pratfalls and pretentions of our friends in the BDS “movement,” it needs to be stressed that for those infected by the divestment virus, BDS is no joke. Take for example the Methodist Church. Flirtation with anti-Israel divestment by Mainline Protestant churches has [...]

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Be With Us

DivestThis — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 12:26:00 +0000

A large part of the BDS project is built around ensuring that wherever you go in life, and whatever you do, the Arab-Israeli conflict is in your face. If you walk through a busy square in Cambridge or Boston or San Francisco at rush hour, at some point you’re sure to see a group of [...]

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All BDS Was Not Created Equal

DivestThis — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 10:27:00 +0000

An Internet ally sent some interesting thoughts pointing out that during the decade when the BDS “movement” has been spending morning, noon and night trying to get boycott, divestment and sanctions targeting Israel to stick (to little effect, outside of the occasional naïve rock star or easily-manipulated food co-op), similar efforts targeting Iran have been [...]

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Wazzup BDS? – Part 2

DivestThis — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 10:01:00 +0000

If the BDS cru has anything to crow about after another year of being shown the door in North America, they can probably point to the UK to encourage the ranks. Here in the US, student councils were thought to be fertile territory for getting divestment resolutions passed (a weak substitute for convincing schools to [...]

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Wazzup BDS? – Part 2

DivestThis — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 10:01:00 +0000

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Wazzup BDS? – Part 2

DivestThis — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 10:01:00 +0000

The post Wazzup BDS? – Part 2 appeared first on Divest This.

Wazzup BDS? – Part 2

DivestThis — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 10:01:00 +0000

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TIAA-CREF 2 JVP: FU!

DivestThis — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 13:08:00 +0000

As some of you may recall, in 2009 Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and other associated usual suspects decided they would play their then-familiar divestment hoax card with the huge and well-known academic retirement fund TIAA-CREF. Fortunately, this was just the period when blogs like this one were coming online to double check the BDSers [...]

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Whazzup BDS? – Part 1

DivestThis — Tue, 31 May 2011 17:18:00 +0000

Because BDS activity tends to follow the academic calendar, I thought it might be useful to determine how the “movement” is doing as it finishes up Year 10 of its ignoble existence. First off, good news seems to be coming in from North America where BDS hoped to replicate last year’s student government “victory” at [...]

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Snark

DivestThis — Tue, 24 May 2011 19:48:00 +0000

First off, can anyone tell me what the logo for the BDS “movement” (pictured above) is supposed to represent? But seriously folks, what shall we make of a “movement” that is trumpeting about its latest success, which as far as I can see consists of their failure to get DePaul university to stop selling Sabra [...]

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Radio Daze

DivestThis — Mon, 23 May 2011 09:34:00 +0000

I’m frequently asked what will be the next “target of opportunity” for the BDS “movement.” After years of alienating decision-makers and members of colleges and universities, Mainline Protestant churches, municipalities and unions, they have been left, after all, with only “soft targets” to pursue -such as aging rock stars and food co-ops. Regarding the former, [...]

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“The Speech”

DivestThis — Fri, 20 May 2011 13:51:00 +0000

I skipped out on the chance to be a talking head (or at least a sound bite) for this Boston Globe article about local reaction to yesterday’s speech by President Obama’s regarding the Middle East. Given that the writer (who I’ve dealt with before) was able to get far better and more well-known voices (including [...]

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Targeted BDS

DivestThis — Sat, 14 May 2011 01:53:00 +0000

NOTE: I was getting set to respond to some questions/comments from earlier this week and it looks like some comments have disappeared from the last few posts. They’re not showing up in the Blogger spam filter, so I’m suspecting they may be related to a Blogger technical outage yesterday morning. If you think something was [...]

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Yurp

DivestThis — Wed, 11 May 2011 12:02:00 +0000

One of the shortcomings of this site has been its focus primarily on BDS activities in North America. Part of this is due to proximity and familiarity, but some of the reason also has to do with simple laziness. Put simply, the lack of support for boycott and divestment in the US (exemplified by the [...]

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Don’t Panic…Don’t Be Complacent

DivestThis — Sun, 08 May 2011 15:52:00 +0000

I’ve been presented with two challenging questions in the last 48 hours, one in the comments section, one via e-mail. As it turns out, these two correspondents are both friends and allies (their challenges standing in sharp contrast to the deception- and pathos-laden arguments made by BDS proponents – a subject for another time). Both [...]

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Lack of Concrete Victory is Incidental

DivestThis — Sat, 07 May 2011 12:57:00 +0000

Some stories that have appeared over the last couple of weeks highlight the fact that a lot more people seem to be chasing fewer and fewer BDS challenges this year. For example, just last week The Forward published a survey that found only 17 instances of any significant BDS activity since 2005 on college campuses, [...]

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Reaction

DivestThis — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 11:06:00 +0000

Of all the accusations made against the BDS project on this site (that they represent a militant propaganda campaign masquerading as a “peace movement,” that they manipulate and exploit civic organizations for their own gain with no regard to whom they hurt, etc.), the one that stands out as the most easily measurable is simply [...]

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Lemming(s) of the BDS?

DivestThis — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 13:44:00 +0000

This will sound weird, but after several years of dealing with the whole divestment thing, I only recently got around to Googling “BDS” on its lonesome (i.e., not using specific keywords such as “Hampshire BDS” or “BDS fail”). And lo and behold, the “Boycott, divestment and sanctions” use of the acronym only appears once (albeit [...]

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Pathos

DivestThis — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 19:51:00 +0000

Given how much more there is to learn from being wrong than right, I must send my thanks to one of our usual Anonymous commenters whose recent contribution caused me to make a major blunder. As is frequently the case with Anons, this person chose not to respond to a point I had made, but [...]

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BDS Follies – Take Number Infinity

DivestThis — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 20:20:00 +0000

Just to catch everyone up, that great BDS “victory” in Marrickville, Australia went down in flames. And thus ends the attempt to shove a set of political opinions down the throat of the citizenry by leaders taking dictation from those claiming “divestment is the only moral choice…or else!” Having cut my teeth on the whole [...]

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Cost

DivestThis — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 00:48:00 +0000

I promised to post some news on the BDS comings and goings abroad, and the two stories that have made the international press of late include boycott and divestment attempts at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa and at the municipality of Marrickville in Australia. Regarding the former, I wrote last year on the [...]

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Boycott Blues

DivestThis — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:15:00 +0000

I just had a visit with folks from Sacramento, the location of the food co-op I mentioned earlierthat has decided to severely limit the practice of boycotting products, rather than have to deal with endless calls to boycott Israel disrupting the organization (regardless of the number of times the boycotters are told no). Needless to [...]

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UN

DivestThis — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 13:21:00 +0000

I just checked out of a hotel overlooking the United Nations and I must say the building looks a lot smaller and shabbier than it did when I visited in 40 years ago. Now I know relative sizes have changed since I stopped Trick-or-Treating for UNICEF, and that the UN maintains many newer facilities well [...]

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Immunization

DivestThis — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 10:17:00 +0000

First, some housekeeping. My friend and fellow blogger Jimrecently alerted me to Blogger’s helpful spam comment catcher which apparently stopped 18 legitimate comments from being posted on this site over the last year. About a half a dozen of these were mine, which will give you an indication of the sophistication of Google’s spam algorithm, [...]

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Goldstone

DivestThis — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 13:32:00 +0000

It’s ironic that only a few days after watching the BDS smear machine enter its third year of using The Goldstone Report as the basis of endless attacks on the Jewish state, that an editorial written by Goldstone himself (in which he recants his ugliest and most actionable accusations against Israel) was rolling off the [...]

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Ethos

DivestThis — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 13:10:00 +0000

I had an iphone “moment of truth” last week while attending one of the many “Ignore the Fact that the Arab World is in Flames and Instead Listen to Us Rehash Accusations Against Israel for the Umpteenth Time” events that take place at Boston College every Spring. This one featured Tel Aviv University professor Anat [...]

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JVP’accuse

DivestThis — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 13:35:00 +0000

Given the pretention and shrillness of the self-declared Jewish Voice for Peace organization, sometimes the easiest approach to such a group is mockery and ridicule. But given their most recent pronouncementregarding escalating clashes between Israel and Gaza, paired with the group’s escalating demands that it be granted immediate and unconditional entrance to any “Big Tent” [...]

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Giving Peace a Chance

DivestThis — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 12:50:00 +0000

Outside of responding to the occasional comment, I tend to avoid talking about general political matters (domestic and international) on this site, if for no other reason than there exist an infinite number of places to fight the Arab-Israeli conflict online, but only a few places where the specific subject of BDS can be analyzed [...]

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Welcome to Jewish Voice for Peace – DT!

DivestThis — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 14:24:00 +0000

I’ve decided to start my own branch of the organization Jewish Voice for Peace here in the Boston area. The mission of my new branch, which will be called JVP-DT for the time being, will be to communicate the Divest This message that all attempts to target Israel with Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions are not [...]

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Authority

DivestThis — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 11:47:00 +0000

One of the things I really appreciated about NGO Monitor’s provocative BDS Sewer System concept is it’s illustration of how accusations against Israel are “laundered” through respected (or, at least once respectable) organizations in order to provide BDS campaigners ammunition needed for their propaganda war. I’ve spoken before about the song-and-dance BDS proponents need to [...]

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Pictures

DivestThis — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 12:40:00 +0000

Time to forgo my usual thousand words for some pictures, starting with my favorite “Israel-Apartheid Week” poster of the year: The IAW concept was already looking tattered before the indifference of IAW protestors to the corpses of thousands of Arab political protestors littering the streets of Libya and beyond exposed their hypocrisy to all. And [...]

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Wasn’t That a Time

DivestThis — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 14:01:00 +0000

With this week’s tempest in a thimble over whether or not Pete Seeger has joined the BDS “movement,” I think we can safely say that Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions has jumped the shark. Just to sum up, on Monday press releases went out on the “Israel-Sucks” portion of the Internet announcing that Pete Seeger, the [...]

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The Thug as Victim

DivestThis — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 10:08:00 +0000

Jim, the blogger behind To Find the Principles has an excellent analysis of how the BDSers who have recently moved from moral blackmail and fraud to outright thuggery are justifying their recent turn to threats and violence to silence their critics. Worth a read in its entirity. Next – Good news from the printer…

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BDS Breakdown at Carleton

DivestThis — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 12:59:00 +0000

It’s usually this time of year that a shoe drops with regard to a surprise BDS story becoming national news. Last year, it was Berkeley where a student government vote led to a BDS fight that engulfed the campus for weeks, leading inevitably to anger and needless rancor, followed by the usual defeat for the [...]

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Anti-Semitism

DivestThis — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 09:40:00 +0000

Given how often the topic is brought up in the comments section of this blog, readers might be surprised to know that in the hundreds of articles and blog entries I’ve written over the years on the subject of BDS, I have yet to accuse those involved with the so-called Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment “movement” [...]

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My Visit to Olympia

DivestThis — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 16:58:00 +0000

Well I just flew in from Olympia Washington. And boy are my arms tired! I’ve been waiting for a trip to Washington state to materialize, both to spend time at “Ground Zero” of the BDS “movement” (or “BDSM” as a friend recommended rebranding it) and to give me an opening to use the gag that [...]

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Congrats

DivestThis — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 15:33:00 +0000

First off, congratulations to my friends at CIFWatch who won our round in the Pro-Israel Blog-off that just ended. If this contest simply gets more people reading their work and the work of other bloggers putting their energy into the cause, then all I can say is Mazel Tov! Congratulations also to the state of [...]

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Stream of Consciousness

DivestThis — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 19:01:00 +0000

Well even if actual BDS battles (or even minor skirmishes) have not been in the news recently, there does seem to be a fair amount of talk on the subject of late. The highest profile of these debates took place on the pages of The Huffington Post where French philosopher Bernard-Henry Levi (or “BHL” as [...]

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Shameless Plug

DivestThis — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 11:07:00 +0000

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I’ve thrown my yarmulke into the ring at a Pro-Israel blog contest over at the Israellycool Web site and this week is my round: http://www.israellycool.com/2011/01/30/pro-israel-blog-off-round-1-match-2-2/ The competition is stiff and includes my friends over at Comment-is-Free, but given that fame, fortune and an iPad is at stake, [...]

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The Palestinian Papers

DivestThis — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 12:48:00 +0000

I suppose I should come up with something to say about the Palestine Papers that are the news of the day. Others have already pointed out the peculiarity of these documents, which claim that Palestinian Authority leaders had accepted every compromise necessary for a peace settlement (despite having publically rejected these very terms for decades). [...]

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Manufacturing Dissent

DivestThis — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 15:07:00 +0000

I tend to see a difference between the controversies that arise whenever a major event (such as the recent Gaza or Lebanon Wars) break out in the Middle East, and ones that are more typically triggered by a BDS initiative, such as a campus divestment or retail boycott conflict. While both types of protests usually [...]

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Giving BDS the Boot

DivestThis — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 21:25:00 +0000

Never mind Hudson Bay or John Lewis (two major retailers recently caught up in boycott hoaxes). If these BDS clowns can’t even manage to bully a local shoestore to stop selling Israeli-made footware, I think the word for “the movement” might just be “toast.” But then again, I hear there’s a lemonade stand somewhere on [...]

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Winter BDS Rerun

DivestThis — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 22:47:00 +0000

BDS seems to have kicked off its 11th season by going into repeats. In this case, a repeat of the hoax strategy that seems to have taken over their project for the last 2-3 years. I’m talking, of course, about recent claims that two major retailers: Hudson Bay Company in Canada and John Lewis in [...]

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Not by Might

DivestThis — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 13:53:00 +0000

I was recently reminded about what an unfair fight we face when battling against BDS and the other manifestations of the propaganda attack on Israel when my temple held a service in celebration of Scouting (Boy and Girl) and alumni of Jewish summer camps. At a mock campfire after the service (complete with s’mores), a [...]

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Topics of Interest

DivestThis — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 14:10:00 +0000

An interesting review by Joel Fishman of the book Divestment, Sanctions; BDS against Apartheid and the Occupation of Palestine by our old friend Omar Barghouti appears over at the Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) site. If you’re not familiar with SPME, this group does yeoman’s work trying to provide a sensible voice [...]

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Flash Dance

DivestThis — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 16:33:00 +0000

One upside of being stuck in a hotel in South Carolina while the airlines sorted themselves out last week was some unexpected family time, part of which included joining together in a king-size bed to watch Sound of Music. The pleasure of seeing that film for the umpteenth time reminded me of this video (originally [...]

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The World’s Conscience or Reflection?

DivestThis — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 18:29:00 +0000

I was planning to write something on flash-mobs and bus ads next, but then again I had also planned to have been on a plane back home two days ago before 12-18 inches of snow decided to intervene. With the latter problem solved, I’m going to postpone mobs and busses for one more entry in [...]

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Something Must be Done

DivestThis — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 13:06:00 +0000

A few months back, I talked about numbers, pointing out that in campus debates regarding the Middle East members of the “pro- and anti-Israel camps at most universities never tops more than 5-10% of the student population, with the other 90%+ viewing activists on both sides as mostly engaged with talking to themselves or shouting [...]

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Tactics – Metaphors

DivestThis — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 15:00:00 +0000

For the first time, I’m stacked up with two promised essays. This one closes off the discussion of tactics from last week. And Sandy – I promise some thoughts before the holidays on your situation regarding what to do when you feel you must do something about problems in the Middle East. So wrapping up [...]

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Tactics – Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

DivestThis — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 17:42:00 +0000

One of the things that continually surprised me about BDS battles within a university or other institution is how unsurprising they are. BDS itself generally has but one tactic: to find a progressive institution and (often working behind the scenes) to convince them that their principles leave them no choice other than the embrace the [...]

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The Fight Against BDS

DivestThis — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 19:46:00 +0000

I just had a few words on the subject published. You can check them out at: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=199028 Jon

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Tactics – Language

DivestThis — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 16:43:00 +0000

Continuing on the topic of tactics (hey! alliteration!), one of the main elements of the “even-when-we-lose-we-win” tactic of the BDS “movement” is their declaration that even when they lose (which is always), they have actually “won” because the subject of their choice (Israel’s guilt) has become a topic of conversation within the community or organization [...]

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Tactics – Doing Stuff

DivestThis — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 12:43:00 +0000

I had meant to post a couple of entries on the subject of tactics last week, but the Great Hummus Wars and a couple of other side projects delayed that a bit. So let’s kick things off today with some tactical considerations drawn from BDS and anti-BDS activities that have been taking place since school [...]

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Princeton [hearts] Israel

DivestThis — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 11:41:00 +0000

This week at Princeton University, history – no History – was made when students overwhelmingly demonstrated their undying support for Israel, a campus-wide devotion to Zion that can be traced back to the founding of the university by Thurston and Lovey Princeton in the 1420s, a passion that is likely to continue until the stars [...]

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Food Fight

DivestThis — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 12:14:00 +0000

BDSers never seem to have much luck when they take their fights to the food aisles. Perhaps it is the necessity of food coupled with the pleasure it brings that highlights the fact that boycotters are threatening the former and completely lacking in the latter whenever they wave their fists at a package of Israeli [...]

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Buy Israeli Goods (BIG) Day – Nov. 30

DivestThis — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 21:40:00 +0000

A dual alert has woken me from my turkey-and-headcold-induced stupor to help spread the word about Buy Israeli Goods (BIG) Day, this Tuesday November 30. The brainchild of the ever-creative StandWithUs organization and the American-Israel Chamber of Commerce, BIG Day is designed to bring the successful Canadian Buycott concept to counter the umpteenth attempted boycott [...]

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Flotilla Redux

DivestThis — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 12:59:00 +0000

Was it only a few months ago that “flotillas” were the Alpha and Omega of the 24-hour news cycle? Having managed to grab headlines at the cost of getting some of their allies killed, the “Israel Dislikers” spent the summer in hyperdrive, trying to gin up the same level of (self) righteous fury they’ve only [...]

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Going Dutch on Divestment Fraud

DivestThis — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 20:05:00 +0000

Hats off to Ben Cohen of AJC who rapidly exposed the latest BDS hoax which claimed that PGGM, one of the Netherland’s largest retirement funds, had divested from Israel. As with the Harvard hoax earlier this year, the perpetual BDS fraudsters at Electronic Intifada took an ordinary business transaction and tried to imbue it with [...]

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Icke Likes Them

DivestThis — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 02:51:00 +0000

Like many bloggers, I occasionally engage in “Ego-Searching,” especially after writing about a relatively obscure topic that stands a chance of winning a slot on the first page of Google. Given that the ultimate audience (both pro- and anti-) interested in “Young, Jewish and Proud,” (the latest and most peculiar campaign by the BDS-worshiping organization [...]

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Young, Jewish and Proud – Oy!

DivestThis — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 12:45:00 +0000

My good friends at Jewish Voice for Peace have unleashed their most fearsome campaign yet: Young Jewish and Proud, the declaration of young Jews that they are mad dag-nabbit, and they don’t plan to take it anymore. Fortunately, an intrepid dumpster diver who is also a Divest This fan stumbled across an earlier version of [...]

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Mass Update

DivestThis — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 11:42:00 +0000

Catching up to BDS-related stories closer to home, here’s another bit of information that can help put the whole divestment phenom into perspective. According to a new study released recently, relations between Massachusetts and Israeli companies generates $2.4 billion in direct revenue and a total of $7.8 direct and indirect revenue for the Commonwealth, making [...]

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Nobels Oblige

DivestThis — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 12:17:00 +0000

Continuing to catch up on some of the issues that arose while I was finishing up the Divest This Guide (thanks to everyone who has downloaded and distributed hundreds of copies to date, and special thanks to those who have donated to get the darned thing printed). Getting back to BDS news, one of the [...]

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Relentlessness vs. Stalking

DivestThis — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:55:00 +0000

I’m frequently asked how BDS sustains itself after a defeat or series of defeats and, as with so many things, there is no simple (or single) answer to that question. Historically, the BDS virus has actually gone into remission (as it did between 2006-2009) so the image of boycotters relentlessly moving forward is incorrect even [...]

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Red Lines

DivestThis — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 15:50:00 +0000

I’m studying with some of the world’s foremost experts on the subject of subliminal messaging to convince the world to download the Divest This Guide and pass it on to those who need it (and maybe kick in a few bucks to get it printed for good measure). But time does not stand still as [...]

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Coming up for air

DivestThis — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 18:55:00 +0000

Now that there’s a lull in the Divest This book-signing tour (and the liquor cabinet is dry), I wanted to do some shoutouts to people who made the new Divest This Guide possible. First off, many thanks to Rachel, the brilliant designer who can be credited with the entire look and feel of the manual. [...]

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New Resource for Fighting BDS

DivestThis — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 10:01:00 +0000

Having dropped a fair amount of hints over the summer about a project I’ve been working on, it’s time now to spill the beans. Announcing the first Divest This publication – Divest This: How to Stop the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions ‘movement’s’ attack on Israel and ensure its second decade of defeat available now [...]

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I Owe it all to Ron – 3

DivestThis — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 21:15:00 +0000

“Who is Ron?” at least one reader asked, regarding the title of this series on the rise, fall and ongoing self-indulgence of the Once-Called (but now named something else) Somerville Divestment Project (SDP). Actually, Ron Francis was the name of the guy who headed the Somerville BDS group during their oh-for-three season between 2004-2006. Interestingly, [...]

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I Owe It All to Ron – Part 2

DivestThis — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:52:00 +0000

In the last episode, I talked about the de-evolution of the Somerville Divestment Project (SDP) from an organization that in 2004 came “this-close” to tricking a city government into passing their divestment resolution, only to end up in 2008 flogging an incomprehensible bait-and-switch pseudo-human-rights ballot initiative as some kind of booby prize to their own [...]

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I Owe It All to Ron – Part 1

DivestThis — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 10:19:00 +0000

Well this week is flying by. Sorry for the infrequent updates, but that project I’ve been hinting at over the summer is getting close to completion so stay tune for some exciting Divest This news which should be ready to announce next week. In the meantime, I guess I should mention something about the remnants [...]

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Christmas Carroll

DivestThis — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 10:56:00 +0000

I’ve been trying to figure out how to address a series of articles written by James Carroll in the Boston Globe over the last few months on the Arab-Israeli conflict. This five-parter was given a lot of prominence and seemed worth responding to, even if it’s a bit “out of scope” for a blog such [...]

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Love, Labor, Loss?

DivestThis — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 12:34:00 +0000

As I begin to segue into some international issues over the coming weeks, where better to start than with the international labor movement? I’ve already pointed out the challenges BDS advocates have with regard to getting American unions to support their cause, given that (after Jews and Evangelical Christians), American labor is the most pro-Zionist [...]

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No news.. Good news?

DivestThis — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 15:39:00 +0000

I told a person in another forum that I’d post something on the Rachel Corrie affair, about which they were interested in continuing a debate. But truth be told, most everything I’ve wanted to say on the subject I said many years ago in a piece that can be found here. So I’m going to [...]

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New Player

DivestThis — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:53:00 +0000

It looks like there’s a new player in the world of battling BDS. Someone sent me a note about The BDS Cookbook which looks packed with good information and even a link to this humble site. I haven’t had the chance to check it out yet, but the more the merrier! Now back to the [...]

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Startup Nation

DivestThis — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 09:31:00 +0000

I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I’ve only recently read Startup Nation, Dan Senor and Saul Singer’s bestseller speculating on the origins of Israel’s startling economic success over the last decade. I’ve written about this phenomenon in the context of pointing out that Israel’s economy doubled in size during the very decade BDS was [...]

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Seattle Invests in Israel

DivestThis — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 12:51:00 +0000

Now here’s an interesting little press release that came past the Divest This desk over the last 24 hours: The board of directors of Bikur Cholim-Machzikay Hadath (“BCMH”) Congregation in Seattle Washington, which is celebrating its 120th year as a congregation in Seattle, voted Tuesday evening, October 5, 2010, to require that a minimum of [...]

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The Co-op Wars: Two More Wins!

DivestThis — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 10:00:00 +0000

After writing about South Africa for the last week or so, I can feel the tug of international pulling on my interests (especially with regard to the role BDS is playing as a counter to peace efforts in the region itself). But before jumping into the rest of the world, an update on two more [...]

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BDS and South Africa – 3

DivestThis — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 09:59:00 +0000

A BDS debate involving South Africa usually follows certain predictable patterns. BDS advocates claim that those involved in the struggle to topple Apartheid in SA see the Arab-Israeli conflict in the same terms with Israelis serving as stand-ins for the Boers. Various names are dropped, but since most Americans are unfamiliar with the cast of [...]

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BDS and South Africa – 2

DivestThis — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 10:30:00 +0000

I’ve always been curious whether certain words create their own power or simply draw upon the power of that which they describe. The term “Holocaust,” which starts with soft vowels implying vastness and ends with knife-sharp consonants, seems like it would be evocative regardless of what it describes. Yet once this term came into general [...]

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BDS and South Africa – 1

DivestThis — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 11:54:00 +0000

In a way, yesterday’s vote by the University of Johannesburg (UJ) to reject a boycott of their Israeli counterparts at Ben –Gurion University is pure BDS: a high-profile boycott call at a prominent institution followed by rancorous debate followed by a “No” vote with enough posing built around the final decision to allow BDS advocates [...]

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More good news: South Africa Rejects BDS

DivestThis — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:36:00 +0000

Since this story is getting a fair amount of play, readers may have already heard the news from the University of Johannesberg where professors rejected calls to take part in an academic boycott which would have severed ties between the South African campus and Ben-Gurion University in Israel. Here’s a link to the tale (and [...]

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To Cover or to Be Covered? That is the Question

DivestThis — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 13:53:00 +0000

A quick observation on the general phenomena of blogging. As a “niche” blog representing a highly specialized area, Divest This is a subset of Israel-related activist blogs which is itself a subset of broader Jewish-themed blogs which is itself just a corner of the extremely vast blogging universe. So stats I generate (even using some [...]

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Port Townsend – What Went Right

DivestThis — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 15:56:00 +0000

I must admit to having been out of the loop while the whole Port Townsend Co-op story was unfolding (for reason I hope to let you in on shortly). The fact that Port Townsend continues the trend of co-ops rejecting boycotts of Israeli goods (a trend interrupted only briefly by the strange goings-on at the [...]

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The Straight Coop

DivestThis — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 12:10:00 +0000

And so it begins (or, should I say, continues). Adding to the long list of food co-ops that have rejected a boycott of Israeli goods (Davis, Seattle, etc.), the Port Townsend Food Co-op last night rejected a boycott proposal with the board voting 4-2 to give BDS the heave ho. It wasn’t supposed to be [...]

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Sydney and Omar’s BDS Journey – Part 3

DivestThis — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 12:48:00 +0000

OK, here goes nothing…If you’re wondering what the hell I’m talking about below, check out Part 1 and Part 2 before reading on. Sydney and Omar’s BDS Journey – Part 3 Scene 6: The room outside of the office of Roger Ferguson, President and CEO of TIAA-CREF. Abigail Nelson, Ferguson’s secretary, is sitting at her [...]

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Welcome Monitor Readers

DivestThis — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 21:01:00 +0000

A piece I wrote on you-know-what was just published in the Christian Science Monitor. Partly to alert my reader, and partly to make sure new visitor’s first impression of Divest This! is not the tale of Sydney and Omar’s journey (starting in the middle), I thought I’d provide a link to the CMS piece and [...]

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Sydney and Omar’s BDS Journey – Part 2

DivestThis — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 16:10:00 +0000

Part 1 can be found here. When we last left Sydney S Levy and Omar Barghouti, Esquire, they had just met Alder, a traveler from the future who offered them his time machine to take them on a most epic BDS journey to gather famous boycotters from the past. But they must act quickly! For [...]

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Financial Interruption

DivestThis — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 19:54:00 +0000

While I search for the corkscrew that will allow me to continue the next chapter of Sydney and Omar’s BDS Journey, this story from Bloomberg came across the Divest This console which should be of interest to those who are still curious about the bizarre Harvard BDS hoax that briefly flashed up at the end [...]

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Sydney and Omar’s BDS Journey – Part 1

DivestThis — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:28:00 +0000

A month or two back, I was reading about the latest TIAA-CREF divestment campaign by my old friends at Jewish Voice for Peace right around the same time I was introducing my kids to Bill and Ted (both their Excellent Adventure and equally awesome Bogus Journey). Somehow those two events became conflated and, after a [...]

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Autumn Updates

DivestThis — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 14:46:00 +0000

Time to catch up on a couple of stories from earlier this year. Starting with the forever-coming, but never-arriving “cultural boycott,” I’ve already pointed out that the spillover effect of Elvis Costello’s decision to ditch his Israeli fans didn’t seem to extend to his own bedroom (Costello’s wife Diana Krall played Israel over the summer). [...]

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Courage

DivestThis — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:31:00 +0000

Now and then (usually in response to comments) I’ve posed the question: what if the world is NOT as the BDSers perceive it? What if there’s even a one-percent chance that the suffering in the region is NOT fueled entirely by Israeli villainy directed at pristinely innocent Palestinians (with no role played by the rest [...]

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The Accidental BDSer

DivestThis — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 09:58:00 +0000

I recently had the unsettling experience of accidentally falling into the shoes of a practitioner of BDS. Allow me to explain. I joined a synagogue for the first time when I moved into my new hometown and, after a few years of getting to know the place, I took part in and now co-chair the [...]

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A Tale of Two Co-ops

DivestThis — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:51:00 +0000

Below is a piece I’ve developed for another project (more details as they become available). If anyone is involved with or aware of boycott projects going on at co-ops other than the ones mentioned in this story, please pass this onto them as a resource. Unlike large commercial retailers, locally owned food cooperatives are highly [...]

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We’re Pretty Lame, Activists Say

DivestThis — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 10:54:00 +0000

In re-reading the Globe piece on BDS last night, it occurred to me that a bit more research would have shown the weakness of the three examples (Elvis Costello, the SF Dockworkers refusing to unload an Israeli ship, and the Olympia Co-op boycott) being held up to demonstrate that boycott and divestment advocates have the [...]

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Boston Globe as the First (not Last) Word

DivestThis — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 13:42:00 +0000

For anyone stopping by having read about this blog in today’s Boston Globe, welcome. To you and to regular Divest This readers, I thought I’d provide some thoughts on today’s Globe feature. First, I won’t pretend I wasn’t disappointed that a 45-minute discussion with the Globe writer only yielded a single sentence in the final [...]

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Harvard BDS Hoax Update

DivestThis — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 23:29:00 +0000

Well great, big, fat surprise: the latest divestment “victory” celebrated across the BDS ether, the Great Harvard Divestment “triumph,” turns out to be yet another hoax (the biggest one so far this year). I was beginning to think that the divestnistas had put hoaxes behind them after spending so much time last year shredding their [...]

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Another BDS Hoax?

DivestThis — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 10:08:00 +0000

Rumor has it that another BDS press release is floating around claiming that Harvard University has divested millions in Israeli equities from an emerging market fund. Before anyone panics, I’m guessing this was part of an anticipated move of Israeli firms out of emerging market programs in the wake of Israel’s joining the OECD (which [...]

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Unity

DivestThis — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:40:00 +0000

I’m still waiting to hear what happened at last night’s Olympia Co-op meeting. Apparently, in order to facilitate an orderly program the Co-op leadership decided to bring in a professional dispute-resolution professional to moderate the event, and set out some pretty strict ground rules for how people were to behave. No doubt this led to [...]

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Olympia Co-op Boycott Update

DivestThis — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:16:00 +0000

Just two days to go before people gather at Olympia Center in Washington to debate the Olympia Co-op’s boycott of Israeli products, the first forum open to the community since the boycott decision was made several weeks ago. Since I can’t fly out to the other side of the country for the event (and would [...]

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War and Peace

DivestThis — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 14:20:00 +0000

It once seemed obvious that the significance of BDS and related battles always take a back seat to events on the ground in the Middle East. After all, whenever violence breaks out in the region (whether in Lebanon, Gaza, or in boats off the Gaza coast), that tends to drive the agendas of Israel’s detractors [...]

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DivestThis — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 23:33:00 +0000

With a schedule that involves two kids, summer camps, deadlines and a wife out of town, I didn’t have time to look at the video I posted about a few days back or find out about its origins. As it turns out, the video was produced by StandWithUs (as a courtesy to my friends at [...]

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Olympia BDS: Inside Out

DivestThis — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 14:43:00 +0000

In the face of condemnations of their boycott pouring in from more and more members, and even the local press questioning a boycott decision that seems to have had so little input from the community, Olympia BDS champion have taken lately to feigning mock outrage over comments that their boycott project involved “outside agitators.” In [...]

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Olympia Co-op: Responsibility

DivestThis — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 13:20:00 +0000

While not a member of a food co-op here in Massachusetts, I do take part in a farm share. But when I picked up last week’s supply of tatsoi et al, I couldn’t help but notice a distinct lack of protestors lining the street on my way to the farm. Curious, I checked the Web [...]

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BDS Video

DivestThis — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 10:03:00 +0000

I guess I’m a late-comer to pointing out this video (thanks to everyone who sent me a link): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnpilMYsR0I

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Rotten Luck

DivestThis — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:57:00 +0000

I’m still trying to find some time to do a little historical unreality fiction at the expense of my old friends at JVP, but in the meantime here’s one missed news story and one observation on the Olympia boycott (something I threw out on the Co-op’s message board that I thought my reader might enjoy). [...]

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Playing Catchup

DivestThis — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 15:37:00 +0000

Having inflicted a month of Presbyterian politics on my reader recently, I’m committed to not overdoing the whole Olympia Co-op thing (even though I suspect this will be one of those seemingly trivial cases that turn into a nationwide lesson on the perils of allowing the BDS virus into an organization). So what have we [...]

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Olympia Co-op – Consensus

DivestThis — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:45:00 +0000

I must admit to a feeling of bewilderment. As those of you who have been following the Olympia Co-op boycott story on this blog know, I have taken for granted that the Co-op followed its own rules when deciding whether to take part in the latest BDS project to get food co-ops to shun Israeli [...]

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Olympia Boycott – Worse Than You Think

DivestThis — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 08:23:00 +0000

At first, I assumed the Olympia Co-op boycott was just another case of a well-meaning, but naïve organization giving a boycott group a friendly hearing and ending up becoming their hand-puppet. But the more I learn about what’s been going on at Olympia, the more this begins to look like one of the most appalling [...]

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Olympian Folly – In Whose Name?

DivestThis — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:25:00 +0000

As noted (and accepted) yesterday, decisions regarding who and what the Olympia Co-op boycotts apparently rests solely with the co-op’s board. I say “apparently” because my only source for this information is co-op members defending that decision online. But the Principle of Charity described yesterday means one should treat such sources of factual information as [...]

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The Principle of Charity

DivestThis — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 13:02:00 +0000

I had forgotten about the “Action Alert” effect whereby activists on both sides of a BDS debate call on their bases to write to decision makers at organizations like the Olympia Co-op, as well as to flood the comments section of news stories covering a boycott story like the one unfolding in Washington. So my [...]

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BDS’s Latest Victim

DivestThis — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:49:00 +0000

OK – Another institution has decided to take the plunge into the BDS waters. So let’s all set our watches for what is going to happen next. The Olympia Co-op story is similar to Somerville and Berkeley in that the decision to join the world-wide boycott movement against Israel was made by a group of [...]

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Olympia Snowed – Washington Co-op Boycott

DivestThis — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:25:00 +0000

BDS projects tend to come in waves or fads. In the early 90s, campus petitions were all the rage, then Mainline Protestant churches were targeted followed by student governments and – most recently – aging rockers and food co-ops. Part of the reason behind this ever-changing list is the fact that BDS is a relatively [...]

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Israel is Just Great

DivestThis — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 10:18:00 +0000

Well “Israel is Just Great Day” came and went yesterday and everywhere I went I saw person after person showing their support for the Jewish state by wearing clothing. Thanks to the six-billion plus people who participated, and anyone who wants to take part in a similar “BDS is a Joke Week” scheduled for the [...]

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BDS and Celebrity

DivestThis — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 12:40:00 +0000

I seem to have gotten through the last US election without paying attention to how Bruce Willis or Whoopi Goldberg wanted me to vote. In fact, the whole notion of celebrity political endorsement has always struck me as somewhat silly. After all, actors and actresses (even the most well-paid among them) are craftsmen, just like [...]

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New Holidays!

DivestThis — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:22:00 +0000

Apologies to my reader for the month-long obsession with the comings and goings of the Presbyterian Church. While it’s interesting to document the BDS virus (and various attempted treatments) running their course through a relatively large organization, a weeks-long focus on the subject means I missed out on both BDS Media Day on July 5th [...]

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PCUSA – Victory and Nausea

DivestThis — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 20:06:00 +0000

I suppose I should be happy with the final outcome of last week’s Presbyterian General Assembly. Divestment was voted down (for the third GA in a row), the Middle East Study Committee’s ridiculously lopsided report was gutted (removing its most egregious sections and curbing the group’s excesses), and ugliness such as accusations of Apartheid were [...]

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PCUSA – Moving in the Right Direction?

DivestThis — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 15:59:00 +0000

Because a number of US political leaders and Israel’s Prime Minister were attending last April’s AIPAC Policy Conference final dinner, security was tight which meant most of us had to wait in line over an hour to get through the metal detectors (an appliance commonly found at pro-Israel political events, although strangely enough, not at [...]

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PCUSA – Selfless or Selfish?

DivestThis — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 09:25:00 +0000

There is an interesting construct that has taken hold within the Presbyterian Church (and not just there) that allows Israel’s most vocal critics to identify themselves as being above concerns such as nationalism and other forms of particularism which they identify as the source of war and other misery. They are citizens of the world [...]

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PCUSA – Process vs. Spirit

DivestThis — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 18:04:00 +0000

I was going to write something on the social aspects of Israel bashing within the Presbyterian Church, but Dexter Van Zile beat me to the punch with his insightful comments on the subject which can be read here. We’re a day away from when matters before the various PCUSA committees get forwarded to the plenary [...]

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PCUSA vs. J Street

DivestThis — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 13:03:00 +0000

I’ve talked before about the intriguing position J Street, the controversial Jewish lobbying organization that emerged in 2008, has staked out with regard to BDS. And recently the organization has chosen to openly condemn the PCUSA’s controversial Middle East Study Committee Report entitled Breaking Down the Walls. As noted when I discussed J Street’s similar [...]

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PCUSA: And so it begins

DivestThis — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 15:35:00 +0000

Well PCUSA delegates are gathering in Minneapolis to begin their week-long debate on the Middle East, with (I assume) some time left over to discuss the future and fate of the Presbyterian Church in the US. I don’t know about other writers who have spent time commenting on the upcoming PCUSA debates, but I am [...]

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PCUSA – Motivations

DivestThis — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 11:00:00 +0000

“I was thrown out of [college] during my freshman year, for cheating on my metaphysics final. You know, I looked within the soul of the boy sitting next to me.” — Woody Allen There are two often-discussed potential motivations for the kind of mendacious behavior of many PCUSA activists with regard to Israel that I [...]

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BDS Follies

DivestThis — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 13:37:00 +0000

In penning earnest analysis of the comings and goings of an obscure and disappearing religious sect, I seem to have shirked my duties of late regarding other BDS news. And so to remedy that: Story #1 – Elton John Plays in Israel Elton (or, should I say, Sir Elton) decided to tell those demanding he [...]

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PCUSA – In Whose Name?

DivestThis — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 10:38:00 +0000

Will Spotts highlights the series of negative consequences likely to come out of the passing of any anti-Israel resolutions or support for anti-Israel reports at next month’s Presbyterian General Assembly (PCUSA GA). As he and others have highlighted in the past, anti-Israel measures are different than other controversial matters that church bodies such as the [...]

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PCUSA and the Power of Reason

DivestThis — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 10:39:00 +0000

Will Spotts, my partner at the Bearing Witness site dedicated to fighting anti-Israel animus within the Presbyterian Church, have a little contest going to see who can take the longest to get to the point. There is a philosophical message regarding this little bit of self-deprication at the expense of our somewhat-longish prose. For you [...]

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This and That

DivestThis — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 10:33:00 +0000

Just a few links in today’s update. First off, I wrote a feature that appeared in today’s Jerusalem Post that updates the BDS story for the last 1-2 years. Most regular readers will be familiar with the themes and stories which this piece gathers into a single location. Will Spotts, my partner on the Bearing [...]

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TIAA CREF – Just Kidding Last Year

DivestThis — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 14:27:00 +0000

Now this is strange. According to Divest This! moles buried deep within every BDS organization in the country, Jewish Voice for Peace (an organization I enjoy taking apart in my other blogger/hobby) has decided to make TIAA CREF their target for divestment over the coming months and years. But didn’t TIAA CREF already divest from [...]

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Winners and Losers

DivestThis — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 11:36:00 +0000

My friend CitizenWald sent me a couple of interesting pieces which, between them, debate who is winning and losing in the effort to de-legitimize Israel (a broad campaign, of which BDS is just one component). In this JTA Op Ed, Gary Wexler is emphatic about who is losing: Israel. In fact, as a marketing professional, [...]

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PCUSA – Stacking the Deck?

DivestThis — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:25:00 +0000

In 2004, the Presbyterian Church in the US (PCUSA) voted to begin a process of “phased, selective divestment” in companies doing business with Israel. Putting aside the fact that this vote was taken towards the end of the General Assembly (with even its proponents unaware of the significance it would have in energizing the global [...]

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The PCUSA Agenda

DivestThis — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 10:23:00 +0000

Will Spotts, my friend and partner over at Bearing Witness 2010 recently wrote up a list of the issues that will be coming before the PCUSA General Assembly relating to the Middle East. In brief, they include resolutions and reports that ask the church to officially: “· divest from Caterpillar “· strongly denounce Caterpillar “· [...]

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PCUSA – Decline and Fall?

DivestThis — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 09:55:00 +0000

The Presbyterian Church represents an interesting case study on the degenerative impact of the embrace of BDS and similar strategies by institutions. In one respect, the church has clearly not developed the anti-bodies needed to defend against those who want nothing more than to leverage the reputation of the centuries-old church, to get their Israel=Apartheid [...]

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Seeing Red at Evergreen

DivestThis — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 14:52:00 +0000

As interested parties digest material related to the Presbyterian Church debate coming up in July, word came across the Divest This Communications Command Center (OK, my AOL account – the last in the nation I believe) that students at Evergreen State College in Washington State had voted to demand their institution divest from Israel. “But [...]

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Bearing Witness 2010

DivestThis — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 12:56:00 +0000

Well the Presbyterian Church’s (PCUSA) 2010 General Assembly is just a month away, so it’s time to turn our attention to the many Middle East related resolutions and reports that will be presented at that meeting. Given how this week’s Flotilla of Peace/Hate story continues to dominate the news, now might seem a strange time [...]

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Flotilla

DivestThis — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 18:10:00 +0000

On paper, yesterday’s utterly inevitable loss of life off the Gaza coast is not per se a BDS story. But remember that BDS is simply a tactic in service to a wider strategy of de-legitimization of the Jewish state. And this de-legitimization applies not just to Israel itself (via attempts to subject all aspects of [...]

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Deutsche Bank Hoax Confirmed…

DivestThis — Mon, 31 May 2010 23:00:00 +0000

It looks like one of the pieces I linked to yesterday actually confirmed that the Deutsche Bank divestment story was another hoax, a la TIAA CREF and Blackrock from last year. With this many data points, I do hope that news outlets (especially Jewish and Israeli ones) can start treating future press releases about alleged [...]

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Catching Up: Madison Market/Deutsche Bank

DivestThis — Sun, 30 May 2010 13:57:00 +0000

I’ve been a little tardy reporting on a couple of BDS stories that have been in the news over the last week. Part of this delay has to do with a project I’m working on regarding the upcoming Presbyterian Church General Assembly (GA) in July (a subject that will be a focus for the next [...]

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Soft Targets

DivestThis — Tue, 25 May 2010 18:56:00 +0000

Like many of you, I’ve received a fair share of alerts that Elvis Costello has joined the ranks of entertainers planning to boycott Israel until the boycott “movement” gives them the all clear. A number of these alarms have been accompanied by condemnations of Costello as a hack, a has-been and a hypocrite, coupled with [...]

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Strategy and Tactics: Let’s Talk About Us

DivestThis — Sat, 22 May 2010 11:09:00 +0000

Over the last week, I’ve tried to lay out some observations about the size, scope and nature of the two sides of the BDS debate. A previous discussion of tactics focused on the other side’s traditional framework for advancing its cause. In this final installment, I’d like to switch to a discussion of our choices. [...]

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Strategy and Tactics: Offense and Defense

DivestThis — Fri, 21 May 2010 10:38:00 +0000

Whenever I hang out with fellow activists, either officially or socially, a subject that inevitably comes up is offense and defense. “Why are we always on the defensive?” “We can’t win if we just play defense!” “It’s time to go on the attack!” “Even if we win a particular fight, we can’t win long-term if [...]

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Strategy and Tactics: Tactic(s)

DivestThis — Thu, 20 May 2010 10:25:00 +0000

With the sides in the BDS conflict outlined in terms of numbers and organization, I’d like to turn the conversation over to the tactics used by those seeking Boycott, Divestment and Sanction against Israel. Even through “tactics” appears in the plural, in fact the entire BDS project seems to be built around a single tactic [...]

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Strategy and Tactics: Organization

DivestThis — Wed, 19 May 2010 08:44:00 +0000

What do the French, Russian and Iranian revolutions have in common? Among other things, they each involved world historical changes that came about due to the activities of small but highly organized, highly disciplined minorities of motivated individuals. One doesn’t need to pick such charged examples to see that strength of organization has much more [...]

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Strategy and Tactics: Numbers

DivestThis — Tue, 18 May 2010 10:48:00 +0000

When dealing with a “movement” like BDS which thrives on anecdotes, numbers are a great way to pierce the fog and get to the real truth. After all, what tells us more about the success vs. failure of boycott and divestment: the story of a Danish retirement fund selling a few thousand dollars worth of [...]

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Strategy and Tactics: Language

DivestThis — Mon, 17 May 2010 12:31:00 +0000

Before the academic year comes to a close, I thought it might be useful to discuss topics regarding strategy and tactics in the fight against BDS. I’m kicking off a week-long series on the subject with some thoughts on language. When talking about a political clash between two opposing sides, it’s inevitable that language gets [...]

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Barghouti

DivestThis — Fri, 14 May 2010 10:31:00 +0000

If you’ve been on either side of the BDS debates over the last couple of years, you can’t help stumbling over Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). I’ve discussed PACBI before, and despite a name which implies that the organization’s focus is on academic and [...]

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Oh Say Can UC

DivestThis — Wed, 12 May 2010 16:05:00 +0000

And now for some updates on the shenanigans still showing up on my radar as the various University of California divestment resolutions finish off their death scenes as the academic year winds to a close. To begin, at Stanford (and please forgive me for being repetitiously redundant): Divestment Loses Again! No news there, although one [...]

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Reality Check

DivestThis — Tue, 11 May 2010 13:35:00 +0000

As noted in the last entry, the BDSer (Jew or Gentile) is first and foremost a fantasist. In addition to creating a fantasy world which they share with fellow Israel-haters, one in which they are an intrepid, glorious vanguard with unique insight as to how the world really works, they also hope to bring their [...]

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Jew vs. Jew

DivestThis — Sun, 09 May 2010 13:39:00 +0000

One of the more challenging aspects of dealing with BDS is the number of Jews (including Israelis) who seem to be highly involved on both sides of the issue. “Another Jew/Israeli for Divestment” read stickers worn by several BDSers who crammed the Senate meetings at Berkeley (and elsewhere), reflecting that many divestment groups not only [...]

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Comments and Boycotts

DivestThis — Fri, 07 May 2010 16:10:00 +0000

A commenter at the end of this piece asked if I’d ever participated in a boycott. And someone responding to this one talked about an experience he had making a personal boycott choice in reaction to the BDS phenomenon. Regarding the first question, looking back I don’t think that I ever have practiced or participated [...]

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UC Divestment: Enough Already!

DivestThis — Thu, 06 May 2010 18:39:00 +0000

It will come as no surprise (at least to those of us who follow BDS’s constant noise and trouncing) to hear that attempts to resurrect the dead dog of divestment flopped again at UC San Diego last night. Efforts to modify the original divestment bill to make it actually be about human rights unsurprisingly failed, [...]

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Friends and Allies

DivestThis — Wed, 05 May 2010 10:31:00 +0000

A couple of the more laughable moments during the recent divestment follies in California involved attempts to lump the Berkeley “victory” with a similar “win” at Hampshire College last year. The fact that both the Berkeley and Hampshire BDS attempts were epic failures (the latter having the after-effect of putting every college administrator on guard [...]

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Water Water Everywhere

DivestThis — Tue, 04 May 2010 04:40:00 +0000

Well the water main for Boston and half its suburbs blew this weekend, which means my family has been subsisting on chocolate milk and scotch since Saturday. Fortunately, I had gotten word from the Boy Scout troop my son recently joined about the crisis and passed the message onto someone at my synagogue, who told [...]

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BDS Twofer Takedown in California

DivestThis — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 13:00:00 +0000

Apologies to my reader for not getting out the latest news from California yesterday. With the wife out of town, I’m managing the schedule of two elementary-school kids which, in America today, involves the same level of logistic effort once required to move a Roman legion from The Rhine to Macedonia. (I also have to [...]

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Fear Not: Goldberg is in the House

DivestThis — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 21:34:00 +0000

Tonight students at UC Berkeley and UC San Diego (UCSD) will be each taking a stand on the divestment resolutions that have plagued both campuses this semester. I hope to report on any results tomorrow, but in the meantime I was trying to think of what might inspire students at both universities, as well as [...]

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Rock of Ages

DivestThis — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:01:00 +0000

BDS activity in the UK tends to careen between worrying (such as the recent anti-Israel agitation in the British trade union movement) and ridiculous (such as moronic attempts to protest all things Israeli, including violinists and oranges, the political equivalent of a loud, unexpected, public belch). The latest example from the ridiculous category includes pleadings [...]

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BDS and Human Sacrifice

DivestThis — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 18:50:00 +0000

I promised myself to give the whole Berkeley thing a rest, which I plan to do although not before using the last few week’s experience to illustrate a theme I’ve written about in the past (although not much on this blog): the sacrifice BDS demands of those institutions it tries to bring into the fold. [...]

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BDSers: Please Don’t Listen to Hussein Ibish

DivestThis — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 09:46:00 +0000

Hussein Ibish is back again with his take on the recent defeat of BDS at Berkeley. I’ve written on the interesting politics of Mr. Ibish a few months back and, once again, he seems determined to play the iconoclast within Palestinian partisan politics, asking the obvious question of why, if BDS is truly on the [...]

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Missed these BDS Fiascos

DivestThis — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 10:06:00 +0000

I’ve been so busy covering BDS getting kicked down the stairs at Berkeley over the last couple of weeks, I’ve neglected a few additional divestment defeats during that period, including: * The Swedish Cooperative Union has ruled out boycotts of Israeli goods at Swedish cooperative stores. (Perhaps they are following the Rochdale Principles on political [...]

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Berkeley BDS and Democracy

DivestThis — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 10:56:00 +0000

Most of the “by losing, we really won” arguments from the BDSers defeated in last week’s Berkeley divestment battle are like this piece by Jewish Voice for Peace/Muzzlewatch Queen Cecilie Surasky, who substitutes the excitement of getting hundreds of people in a room to bash Israel for ten hours for actual political success. If such [...]

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Berkeley BDS: Untangling the Final Vote

DivestThis — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:07:00 +0000

Well it took a little doing, but I was finally able to figure out the Byzantine nature of decision-making at UC Berkeley to determine that yesterday’s “tabling” of the final divestment vote was just a way to ensure that headlines the next day read “No Final Decision” vs. “Divestment Loses at Berkeley.” While this has [...]

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BDS Loses Big at Berkeley

DivestThis — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:14:00 +0000

Update: In the time it took to write this, it looks like the divestors, knowing the vote was going down for them, decided to table the motion until their next meeting, extending Berkeley’s pain for at least another week. (Was it just me, or did anyone else following the meeting via the UCBDIVEST Twitter feed [...]

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Berkeley Nu?

DivestThis — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 10:20:00 +0000

While I’d hoped to have some news vis-a-vis Berkeley by this morning, it sounds like the debate which started last night at 7 PM is still going on…at 3 AM West Coast time! Perhaps this wasn’t just a simple little generic human rights resolution (with Israel just used as an example, of course) after all…

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Think Globally Act Locally

DivestThis — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:58:00 +0000

Given how the Berkeley divestment vote is playing out almost day-by-day like one that first introduced me to the BDS issue in Somerville, MA, I thought I’d re-release something I wrote on the eve of that vote. It’s a bit more political than usual (and some references may seem dated), but it does represent my [...]

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Irish Labor and the High Cost of BDS

DivestThis — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 13:28:00 +0000

I’ve written before about the difference between the American labor movement (one of the most pro-Israel institutions in America) and labor organizations in Europe which are a bit more fickle about where they place their labor solidarity. Last year, for example, the UK’s Trade Union Congress (TUC), decided to willfully expose themselves to the BDS [...]

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Blast from the Past: Power

DivestThis — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 08:59:00 +0000

As we await what comes next at UC Berkeley, I thought I’d dredge out some real old stuff, things I wrote years ago when divestment came-a-calling at Somerville, Massachusetts. It’s interesting to note that now that BDS is attempting to use the paddles of life to resurrect itself, how little their arguments (or required rebuttals) [...]

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Ruthlessness

DivestThis — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 12:58:00 +0000

In previous versions of this piece published during past divestment campaigns, I have described the tactics of those who advocate divestment the hardest, those that push organizations to put the divestment agenda ahead of all other considerations, as “ruthless.” Yet what does this term mean, beyond highlighting the aggressive, “by-any-means-necessary” nature of these people’s behavior? [...]

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Berkeley Divestment and AIPAC

DivestThis — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 12:07:00 +0000

Just when I thought I could take a little break from Berkeley, Muzzlewatch drags me back…

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The Presbyterians Teach Us a Lesson

DivestThis — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:31:00 +0000

As promised, I’m laying off the Berkeley subject for a bit in order to focus on another upcoming matter: July’s gathering of representative voting members of the Presbyterian Church of the US at this year’s bi-annual PCUSA General Assembly (or GA). Long-term readers may recall a number of references I’ve made to a 2004 vote [...]

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Berkeley BDS: De-Klein and Fall

DivestThis — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 16:03:00 +0000

I was going to give the Berkeley divestment issue a rest for a little while, but the arrival of Naomi Klein into the Berkeley story warrants a quick response. I’ve written on Klein’s contribution to the BDS debate in the past, so I won’t repeat my question about why Klein – allegedly the intellectual hyperpower [...]

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Berkeley Divestment – Everyone Loves a Circus!

DivestThis — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 12:24:00 +0000

Word on the streets is that an override vote on the UC Berkeley divestment veto may not take place tonight. If that’s the case, I may move onto other topics between now and whenever that vote happens. But not before alerting the friends I’ve been making at Berkeley about the fun they can expect when [...]

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Berkeley Divestment: Comments

DivestThis — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:21:00 +0000

Rumor has it that student Senators at Berkeley are receiving e-mails from around the world regarding how they should vote on the divestment veto override at a rate of 50 an hour. Now only they are privy to the contents of these suggestions, but if this debate is playing out similarly to the one I [...]

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Berkeley Divestment and “Loose Change”

DivestThis — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 14:00:00 +0000

Loose Change. That’s the term fringe political movements use to describe people who join their organizations or show up to their events, not because such people believe in what the group stands for, but because such people want to be doing something, anything, to demonstrate they care about an issue. For example, in the last [...]

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Courage

DivestThis — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 14:48:00 +0000

Apologies for anyone who finds the next few days looking like a clip-show of previous writings, but the Berkeley story is playing out with such freakish familiarity that I thought I’d repurpose some things I’ve written during previous divestment conflicts for this site. It’s hard not to notice that despite ongoing troubles in the Middle [...]

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BDS: Is Berkeley “in the bag”?

DivestThis — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:41:00 +0000

Apologies if I gave the impression that the Berkeley divestment story was over. According to some West Coast friends, the student government constitution still provides a mechanism whereby a two-thirds vote of the Student Senate (or 14 votes) can override yesterday’s veto. And as one West Coast Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) supporter put [...]

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BDS at Berkeley: Reversal of Fortune

DivestThis — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:53:00 +0000

Well Berkeley’s divestment “policy” barely lasted a week before it was undone via veto by student government President Will Smelko last night. No doubt a number of Berkeleyans are shaking their heads as these events unfold on their campus. But as someone who has followed divestment activities for years, I can attest that the Berkeley [...]

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The Bigger Picture

DivestThis — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:52:00 +0000

I’m attending my first AIPAC Policy Conference this week and, seeing the organization in action, I can understand why it’s the subject of so much demonology by Israel’s enemies. While I’ll have more to say about the experience in the coming days, suffice to say that this is one American Jewish organization that has its [...]

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California Scheming: BDS at Berkeley

DivestThis — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:43:00 +0000

At the start of the 21st century, the year of butterfly ballots and hurricanes, some people speculated whether Florida was the new California, i.e., the one US state whose daily news triggers smirks and eyebrow-raising in the other 49. Well all I can say is that in the last week California has come roaring back, [...]

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BDS Flames Out in Davis

DivestThis — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 12:53:00 +0000

On Monday evening, the forces of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) were handed a major defeat when the Davis Food Co-op, located in Davis California, turned down demands by BDS activists to put a boycott of Israeli goods to a Co-op wide vote. While this story may not be big enough to hit the national [...]

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Are BDSers being played for fools?

DivestThis — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:18:00 +0000

BDS is on the verge of scoring yet another spectacular failure, this time at the Davis Food Co-op where Co-op members and the Jewish community have worked together to help the Co-op’s leadership understand the true agenda behind a group of boycott partisans trying to put the decision of who can buy what at the [...]

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BDS Party Crashers

DivestThis — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:19:00 +0000

As with previous pieces I’ve written on what BDS does to civil society, it’ll take a couple of paragraphs to get to a recognizable point. So bear with me if you can stand it… For the fourth year in a row, I attended the variety show at my kid’s elementary school. Neither boy performed (although [...]

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Running the Numbers

DivestThis — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:51:00 +0000

Given that the theme of this year’s increasingly fraying “Israel Apartheid Week” is Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), I thought it might be useful to summarize the progress of the BDS movement since it began a decade ago. Because so much of the BDS project is based on words, including competing claims of success and [...]

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Now They’ve Done It: JCPA/JCRC vs. BDS

DivestThis — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:13:00 +0000

Some interesting news out of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) last week. By a unanimous vote, the organization decided to confront the issue of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), and urged the constituency of the organization (which includes Jewish Community Relations Councils across the country) to make thoughtful but forceful confrontation with the [...]

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Speaking of Apartheid

DivestThis — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:37:00 +0000

Given that the organizers of this week’s so-called “Israel Apartheid Week” (actually two weeks – they can’t even tell the truth when saying the word “week”) has dedicated itself to my obsession, BDS, I thought I’d cross-post something from my pal Sol’s site here. So, without further ado… Speaking of Apartheid Students who will be [...]

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Giving BDS the Fingers

DivestThis — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:54:00 +0000

A recent commenter left a note which struggled with a central question many of us deal with in our activist lives, namely: how do we contend with a movement like BDS which is perfectly comfortable bending the truth and shredding the rules of propriety to get its way? Should we become like them and try [...]

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Descend Tutu

DivestThis — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 11:40:00 +0000

My son started taking ballet lessons about a year ago. I suspect he might not continue it forever, but I can attest to the fact that all of his physical activities (most recently his skiing ability) have improved markedly since he first donned the leotard, and he’s really enjoyed the professional ballet performances he’s gone [...]

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Results

DivestThis — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 02:29:00 +0000

Apologies to my reader for the quiet around here the last week. In addition to vacation, I’ve been working on a little project that should be of interest to the anti-BDS community which I’ll be writing about sometime next week. In the meantime, some quick thoughts about a topic I’ve mentioned here before: how to [...]

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Film Boycott Update

DivestThis — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 08:30:00 +0000

For this blog’s 100th post, I wanted to provide updates on the James Cameron-Israeli film boycott flap. The latest news come from The King of the World himself who basically tells the boycotters in no uncertain terms to fuck off (I’m paraphrasing). Check out the latest here and here. Oh and I just noticed that [...]

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BDS and the One State Fantasy

DivestThis — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 08:10:00 +0000

I’ve been meaning to write about an intriguing interview with Hussein Ibish that appeared in The Atlantic Monthly a few months ago. Now Ibish is a highly controversial character, going back to his days at U Mass where, as both a student and teacher, he was notorious for bullying his allies and baiting (including Jew-baiting) [...]

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Cameron BDS-Hoaxers: We’re a Joke!

DivestThis — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:03:00 +0000

Well, it looks like the James Cameron – Boycott story has hit the papers. And, surprisingly, the people responsible for circulating this letter (who never fail to pipe up whenever one of their beloved film boycotts is the subject of media coverage) have chosen to go mum (at least with regard to answering reporter’s inquiries). [...]

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A Hampshire Hoaxy Anniversary Special

DivestThis — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:34:00 +0000

It almost escaped my notice that Feb 7 was the anniversary of the great Hampshire Divestment Hoax, that is until I discovered this stunningly self-aggrandizing announcement by the jesters who started it all: Hampshire’s Students for Justice in Palestine (HSJP). So I said to myself:”Self, how best to mark this important date?” Should I Fiske [...]

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What’s Behind BDS?

DivestThis — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:31:00 +0000

I’m still waiting for more news on the latest apparent BDS hoax coming out of Canada, but in the meantime a commenter’s point about previous hoaxes involving, among other organizations the Red Cross, alerted me that it might be worth mentioning one of the main theses of this site (especially to the many new readers [...]

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BDS Avatar?

DivestThis — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 12:29:00 +0000

The best BDS hoax story yet has just arrived from Canada, causing one of those truly “you can’t make this stuff up!” moments. I spent much of last year chronicling the tendency of boycott and divestment activists to make fraudulent claims of victory, from the academic hoax at Hampshire, to false claims that the financial [...]

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BDS State of the Union

DivestThis — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:09:00 +0000

An interesting comprehensive write up of what the BDSers themselves think about the state of their movement was published recently by Australians for Palestine. I’ll likely have more to say about their self analysis in the weeks that follow, although allow a few initial observations: * Interestingly, outside of the US the BDSers seem to [...]

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Don’t Mess with Julie Burchill

DivestThis — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:13:00 +0000

My world-favorite, acid-tongued, philo-Semite Julie Burchill has managed to find something to say about the Israel divestment antics currently playing havoc with what remains of the British union movement and political Left. Julie won my heart with one of her parting columns for the Guardian in the UK, an all-guns-blazing broadside against Judeophobia masquerading as [...]

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Blame Canada

DivestThis — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:33:00 +0000

I’m hoping to get to the hundred-post mark sometime in February (which is why you may see some shorter pieces here than usual over the next couple of weeks ). Word has it that Carleton University is the next target for the BDS “juggernaut.” “For the past four and a half years, BDS has spread [...]

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Sanction What?

DivestThis — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:21:00 +0000

While this site has been pretty busy tracking the failures of Divestment and the success of counter-Boycott, the S of BDS (“sanctions”) seems to have gotten short shrift. Partly, this is because no institution that could apply sanctions (economic or otherwise) against Israel is even remotely considering doing so. But it’s also because an analysis [...]

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It’s All About Me!

DivestThis — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 16:38:00 +0000

A commenter at this site pointed the latest giggle-inducing “action” of our old friends Code Pink who struggled through most of 2009 trying to get anyone to notice them and their campaign against skin products from the Israeli firm Ahava. They recently claimed a new “success” in getting a Seattle Cosco to remove an Ahava [...]

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Life is Complicated

DivestThis — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:24:00 +0000

A short-lived hoax made the rounds in the UK after the Gaza Freedom Marcher’s disastrous experiences in Egypt. It claimed that a newly created Jewish organization, Jews for Boycotting Egyptian Goods (or J-BEG) was being formed to serve up some BDS on Egypt’s behind in response to the Egyptian government’s decision to reign in the [...]

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Out and About

DivestThis — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:31:00 +0000

Well, I’ve been blogging lately, although doing so at other sites. Since the topics are loosely related to divestment, I thought it best to link to them, rather than repost them here. Apparently, our old friends at Muzzlewatch have decided that they are ready to take their message to the people! Given that a large [...]

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Thank you Mr. Galloway! May I have another?!

DivestThis — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:29:00 +0000

Apparently, a link I provided to an account of the Gaza Freedom March (GFM) fiasco in Cairo was edited once the author discovered that his post “was being used by an idiotically raving Zionist blog in order to discredit the movement to free Palestine.” Who moi? The author goes on to state: “It was my [...]

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The Gaza Freedom March Witches Brew

DivestThis — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 15:48:00 +0000

Boy, you miss a couple of days of action with the “Free Gaza” peace caravan and – lo and behold – they’ve finally managed to kill someone! Given that the riot George Galloway and his Gaza Freedom Marchers triggered only did in an Egyptian policeman, don’t expect Alan Rickman to produce a play featuring this [...]

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GFM/BDS – Screwing Your Allies

DivestThis — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:46:00 +0000

In Boston, the Gaza Freedom Marchers came, they annoyed some New Year’s celebrants, they gathered under a banner asking “AMERICA STOP FIGHTING FOR THE JEW” (later, slightly modified with the addition of “ish STATE” – possibly written using a large red crayon). In San Francisco, they donned foam-rubber puppet heads and frightened children walking by [...]

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BDS: The Last Refuge of a Loser

DivestThis — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:31:00 +0000

If AIPAC, Alan Dershowitz and the Mossad were make a wish for what they hoped Israel’s opponents would kick off the year with, they would be hard pressed to come up with anything better than last week’s Gaza Freedom March fiasco. From across the Atlantic, leadership for the scheme was provided by none other than [...]

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Why do this?

DivestThis — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 20:39:00 +0000

Now that this site has finally reached critical mass (which, in blog-speak, means family members have started asking why I’m spending so much time focusing on this particular issue), I thought it might be worth republishing something I wrote five years ago at the end of my first divestment battle. It was when I was [...]

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Have they no shame? – The Latest Divestment Hoax

DivestThis — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 19:29:00 +0000

Given the disasters BDSers have had over the last few years in schools, municipalities and churches, one would think the limited success they’ve had infiltrating international unions might give them a starting point to rebuild their “movement” which has otherwise been only going backwards over the last several years. Which makes you wonder why they [...]

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Hampshire and The Brain – Part 3

DivestThis — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:31:00 +0000

For those who need to catch up: Part 1 Part 2 When we last left our heroes, Brain had just activated the Hypno-Hat which had begun to work its will on the Hampshire Board of Trustees… Pinky wanders to the top of Brain’s robot suit where the Hypno-hat now encloses Brain like a command center. [...]

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Hampshire and The Brain – Part 2

DivestThis — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:05:00 +0000

Continuing from Part 1 of Hampshire and The Brain… I guess I lost track of Pinky and the Brain before they won an Emmy and ended up with a Facebook group with over 300,000 members. If you’re looking for one episode that sums up the series (and includes the Robot suit mentioned below), I recommend [...]

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Hampshire and The Brain – Part 1

DivestThis — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:55:00 +0000

This latest piece was done on a dare from my reader. In one of the final pieces I wrote on the Hampshire BDS conference, I made reference to the Hampshire Students for Justice in Palestine’s “Pinky-and-the-Brain” type schemes to get Hampshire on board the BDS “bandwagon.” This is a reference to a 10+ year old [...]

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Invest

DivestThis — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:36:00 +0000

Whenever divestment hits a college or other institution, a frequent response of divestment opponents is to propose positive investment in companies and organizations that support both Arabs and Jews in Israel as a counter to the wholly negative program of divestment. While investment is a logical response to BDS, one that reflects the commendable desire [...]

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Clip Show 6: A New Generation of Gnats

DivestThis — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:14:00 +0000

Now this one may represent my desire to unnecessarily “get the boot in” one more time, but the bombast associated with the self-evaluation of the event really left me no choice. After all, a group of kids getting together to plan how to effectively lie to the public while simultaneoulsy lying to themselves hardly seems [...]

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Clip Show 5: Et tu J-Street

DivestThis — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:03:00 +0000

With Hampshire’s BDS conference fading into insignificance, I wanted to wrap up the clip-show consolidation of information on that event with my last two entries on the subject. This one appeared the day before the Hampshire meeting when J-Street came out condemning BDS in general, and the Hampshire event in particular. Now there’s a lot [...]

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Divestment Article in Jerusalem Post

DivestThis — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:32:00 +0000

I just had something published on this subject at the Jerusalem Post. Enjoy: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1259243065278&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

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England, France, Underpants!

DivestThis — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:48:00 +0000

A brief break from Hampshire to talk about the latest activity from our friends up North: Riddle me this, readers! What might cause underwear sales to skyrocket in our French and English speaking neighbor to the north? The answer is three simple letters: B – Doh! – S. Perhaps I should explain. And don’t worry, [...]

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Clip Show 4: Bonding with BDS

DivestThis — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:37:00 +0000

This piece grew out of my curiousity as to how the Hampshire BDS kids planned to create a feeling of momentum around a program (divestment) that has all but ground to a halt in terms of actual institutions making actual divestment decisions (as opposed to the trivial and/or fake “victories” the divestment crowd has been [...]

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Clip Show 3: On My Honor

DivestThis — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:56:00 +0000

Unfortunately, this piece (which was published the week before the Hampshire BDS conference) triggered a pretty familiar right-left debate over attacks on Scouting as an institution over the last couple of decades. Not that this isn’t a debate worth having, it’s just that the Boy Scouts seems to transcend the issues of the day, which [...]

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Clip Show 2: Hampshire SJP Planning Transcript

DivestThis — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 01:50:00 +0000

Continuing the Hampshire Divestment “clip show,” here’s a piece that seems to have gotten up a couple of Happy Valley noses. While I originally knocked this off as a half-hour lark, it apparently comes up as most of the links on the first page of a Google search of “Hampshire BDS” (testament to how little [...]

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Clip Show – Buycott, Invest, Celebrate!

DivestThis — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 01:21:00 +0000

I decided to take my response to last weekend’s Hampshire BDS yak-fest to a friend’s blog, which is why there’s been less about that event here at Divest This! Just so all of the info I’ve been gathering or creating on BDS is in one place, I’ve decided to re-post those messages here over the [...]

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BDS: Taking Down “Giants”

DivestThis — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:54:00 +0000

I had the chance to swing by the Five College area last weekend when the Hampshire BDS conference was taking place. In addition to a quick run through the sleepy Hampshire campus (home of not just Hampshire Students for Justice in Palestine, but also the Eric Carle Museum), I had the chance to meet with [...]

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Muzzlewatch Gets Miffed

DivestThis — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:52:00 +0000

Sorry, but I’m going to have to take a day off from exposing the Hampshire divestniks for what they are in order to respond to this hilarious posting from my old friends at Muzzlwatch. Given that Muzzlewatch, a blog ostensibly created to remove barriers to conversation about the Middle East, no longer tolerates two-way dialog [...]

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Punishing Your Friends

DivestThis — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:24:00 +0000

I had planned to write on an incident that happened earlier this year when a Palestinian cultural event taking place in Jerusalem chose to un-invite invited Israel guests when the BDS campaign set up a “No Israelis Allowed” separation barrier around the program. Apparently, the program featured over 100 events around the city featuring artists [...]

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Hampshire BDS Conference Transcript

DivestThis — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 16:09:00 +0000

I’ve been having a little fun over at my friend Sol’s blog (www.solomonia.com) regard next weekend’s divestment conference at Hampshire. I’ll try to post thoughts on that event here, but in the meantime you can find stuff on a blog which, unlike this one, has the advantage of actually being read by thousands… http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2009/11/hampshire-bds-planning-meeting—exclusi/index.shtml http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2009/11/hampshire-sjp-planning-meeting—continu/index.shtml [...]

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UTLA – Take 2

DivestThis — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:36:00 +0000

Before analyzing the significance of the UTLA’s success in avoiding the BDS infection, I hope you’ll indulge a quick personal observation. Like most bloggers, I blog about an issue I’m passionate about: the fight against divest-from-Israel campaigns. And that passion is no less (possibly greater – ask my wife) than that of BDS advocates. Yet [...]

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LA Teachers FIght Off BDS Infection

DivestThis — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:08:00 +0000

If any single incident can be used to capture the essence of BDS, the recent flare up at the United Teachers, Los Angeles (UTLA) union is the best case study I’ve yet encountered. As backdrop, this 48,000 person teacher’s union is responsible for educating more students than do many countries, and the range of communities [...]

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Palestinians say NO to BDS!

DivestThis — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:05:00 +0000

While the British union movement contorts itself over the issue of BDS, an interesting item just came by my desk written by the organization TULIP (Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine) which indicates that Palestinian workers and unions do not support the boycott campaign. Now admittedly, this revelation came from a brief fact-finding mission by [...]

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Google will never divest…

DivestThis — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:41:00 +0000

Jeff Goldberg has been on a roll this week, following up the interview I mentioned last posting with this one in which he talks with authors Dan Senor and Saul Singer and their new book Start Up Nation which documents the phenomenal economic success of the entrepreneurial Israeli economy. While I could quibble about some [...]

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BDS and One State Fantasies

DivestThis — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:30:00 +0000

I’ve talked in the past (here and here) about the role fantasy plays in a number of BDS strategies and alleged “victories.” In a recent Atlantic blog entry, Jeffrey Goldberg features and interesting interview with Hussein Ibish, author of the book What’s Wrong with the One-State Agenda which talks about fantasy elements as they relate [...]

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Product Boycotts

DivestThis — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:48:00 +0000

I’ve not talked a lot about consumer product boycotts directed against Israel, perhaps because those have not been a major component of BDS in the US. Up in Canada, however, consumer boycotts seem to be more popular. I suspect that some of reason behind the phenomena is geographical. The concentration of population and media in [...]

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National Lawyer’s Guild – Take 2

DivestThis — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:57:00 +0000

A commenter (and National Lawyer’s Guild member) posted an excerpt from one of the many long-winded NLG resolutions condemning the Jewish state for every crime ever conceived (including a re-affirmation of the UN’s infamous and odious Zionism=Racism resolution). I’ll leave it to readers to determine how much this and other trillion-word tirades written by the [...]

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A Fool for a Client – The National Lawyer’s Guild’s BDS Advice

DivestThis — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:23:00 +0000

The National Lawyer’s Guild (NLG) has published a helpful guide to the happy-go-lucky boycott, divestment and sanction brigade which purports to help them avoid BDS activity that might land someone in court. Like many “alternative” unions (NLG is basically a left-leaning “answer” to the more established and establishment American Bar Association), the Lawyer’s Guild has [...]

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Unpacking the PACBI Excuse

DivestThis — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:10:00 +0000

In my last entry, I pointed out the various excuses the boycott-Israel crowd uses when forced to confront their clear double-standard on human rights stances (i.e., Israel deserves to be boycotted for building a separate fence to keep suicide bombers from its cities, but Syria and China should not be boycotted since they merely killed [...]

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The BDS Double Standard

DivestThis — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:02:00 +0000

One of the most common challenges to the Divest-nista crowd is why they don’t call and march for divestment against Sudan, China, Libya or any of the totalitarian dictatorships whose daily human rights abuses dwarf anything Israel could have possibly done over the course of 60 years. Generally, their first response is to ignore the [...]

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Quick Takes II

DivestThis — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:31:00 +0000

Still a little quiet on the BDS front (although I expect that to change soon enough)… In the meantime, here’s an enjoyable piece about the Israeli distributor of Ken Loach’s films who plans to donate all of profits they earn from his latest picture, Waiting for Eric, to the promotion of Israeli cinema around the [...]

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Quick Takes

DivestThis — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:02:00 +0000

I got something in the Forward today, a response to a particularly wrong-headed “Divestment’s got the wind at it’s back” piece a few weeks back by one of only a handful of writers (thankfully) who fell for the whole TIAA-CREF hoax. Meanwhile, an interesting development among our friends in the Great White North who have [...]

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Stopping the BDS Rot

DivestThis — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:50:00 +0000

The Forward published a piece recently highlighting the divestment “movement’s” hypocrisy in demanding the world boycott Israeli universities while simultaneously demanding that boycotters who teach or attend these schools continue to enjoy the privileges of a subsidized education or tenure. Ha’aretz had an equally entertaining piece on the BDS crowd’s willingness to latch onto and [...]

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The TUC Boycott or Oy Britainia!

DivestThis — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:24:00 +0000

About two lifetimes ago, when I was a journalist covering Margaret Thatcher’s third election victory in Great Britain, I remember tuning into the annual conference of the Trade Union Council (or TUC), the umbrella group which encompasses most of the British union movement (an even bigger tent than America’s AFL-CIO). A vote was cast and [...]

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Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

DivestThis — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:41:00 +0000

A commenter correctly corrected me with regard to the Africa-Israel Group (which I have been inadvertently calling Israel-Africa). She also pointed me to one of those “divestment-is-on-the-march, wind-at-its-back” stories which noted that protests against the company (which I’ll now call A-I) have actually been taking place for several years. This, I suppose, was meant to [...]

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The divestment virus

DivestThis — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:17:00 +0000

Having spent quite a bit of time over the last five years tracking and, in some cases, battling those trying to mainstream boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, it’s interesting to note changes in divestment’s target list over the last several years. When I first got into this game, divestment seemed like a genuine threat. [...]

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TIAA-CREF Divestment Hoax: Case Closed

DivestThis — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:27:00 +0000

Just to confirm the fraudulence of the “TIAA-CREF divested from Israel” storyline still making its way around the Internet, TIAA-CREF has issued a second press release clarifying that the sale of Israel-Africa shares was done months before the organization received any communication from divestment activists as part of a “routine part of the indexing investment [...]

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TIAA CREF Divestment Hoax – Are you seeing a pattern?

DivestThis — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:01:00 +0000

I don’t know how I missed it (the August doldrums I suppose), but the TIAA CREF divestment hoax turns out to have been the second time (at least) that BDSers have pulled the same stunt of trying to dress up normal, financial business decisions regarding the struggling Israel-Africa company into a story of major financial [...]

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The Latest BDS Hoax: TIAA-CREF

DivestThis — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 13:23:00 +0000

To give you an idea of how powerful and effective the divestment project has become, they now have the ability to get companies to act on their demands four months before those demands are even made! The latest 2009 divestment hoax (I’m starting to lose count) has to do with TIAA-CREF, the academic retirement fund, [...]

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Neve Us Alone

DivestThis — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:46:00 +0000

I must have missed the teacup tempest that erupted back while I was on vacation when the Los Angeles Times (are they still publishing a print edition?) decided to give editorial space to Neve Gordon, a professor of politics at Ben-Gurion University in Israel which urged the world to boycott his country. I will admit [...]

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Yurp and the “Big Mo”

DivestThis — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:35:00 +0000

I’m occasionally asked about divestment activities that take place in Europe, such as the Norwegian government’s recent decision to divest a state pension fund from a specific Israeli company. I must admit that the focus of my work has been primary North America (with an occasional foray into Great Britain), although I have noted in [...]

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BDS Countdown! – Be Still My Heart

DivestThis — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:39:00 +0000

According to their countdown clock, the 8th Annual Organizer’s Conference will be taking place in downtown Chicago in ten days, three hours and 43 minutes (whoops! make that 42 minutes). While the innocuous title is likely to have been chosen in the hope that the group won’t get thrown out of their venue before this [...]

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More good news!

DivestThis — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:09:00 +0000

In another important move within the Mainline Protestant community, the Lutheran Church (more specifically, the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America or ELCA) voted to reject a series of resolutions that singled out Israel for criticism and instead voted in favor of a “balanced and fair-minded” resolution that took into account the [...]

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Thoughts on the UCC Rejection of Divestment

DivestThis — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 11:59:00 +0000

I’ve been reading coverage of the United Church of Canada’s decisive vote to pull the plug on proposals for church-wide divestment and boycott of Israel, as well as church rejection of some of the wild, conspiratorial materials anti-Israel activists within the church were using in their campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state. I have to [...]

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Another Victory for Justice

DivestThis — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 10:42:00 +0000

Yet another church has come to its senses vis-à-vis refusing to make anti-Israel boycotts official policy for their religious institution. The United Church of Canada has been roiled by debate on the Middle East for over 30 years. Like the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches in the United States, a small but vocal minority within the [...]

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What damage does divestment cause?

DivestThis — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 20:24:00 +0000

FAQ#11: What kind of damage is caused by divestment programs? At its heart, divestment is an attempt to import the bitterness of the Arab-Israeli conflict into a civic institution such as a college, church, city or union in order to leverage that organization’s reputation for the narrow partisan gain of divestment advocates. Historically, attempts to [...]

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Is Divestment a Threat?

DivestThis — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:20:00 +0000

FAQ#10: If divestment has been so unsuccessful, is it really a threat? Despite divestment’s losing streak, calls for divestment have gained considerable momentum based on a single victory, such as the temporary support divestment had with the Presbyterian Church which was used to inspire hundreds of divestment projects between 2004-2006. Divestment programs also tend to [...]

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So where has divestment been successful?

DivestThis — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 09:08:00 +0000

FAQ#9: If divestment has failed at colleges and universities, has it been successful anywhere else? In 2004, a number of Mainline Protestant churches (notably the Presbyterians and Methodists) passed resolutions calling for divestment of their retirement portfolios from stocks identified by BDS activists as supporting the Jewish state. In fact, the success divestment had in [...]

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Countering divestment fraud like at Hampshire

DivestThis — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:46:00 +0000

FAQ #8: Is there some way to counter divestment-realted frauds or hoaxes like what went on at Hampshire earlier this year? Remember that political divestment cannot be said to have taken place unless the institution doing the divestment makes it unambiguously clear why they are divesting. In the case of Hampshire, it was reasonable to [...]

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Is Hampshire Typical of BDS?

DivestThis — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:55:00 +0000

FAQ #7: Is what happened in Hampshire typical of the behavior of the BDS “movement?” Because divestment has proven so unpopular with students, educators and college administrators, BDS activists often have to go to great lengths to obtain anything they can portray as some kind of victory. While outright fraud (as in Hampshire) has yet [...]

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The truth about Hampshire

DivestThis — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:25:00 +0000

FAQ #6: I heard that Hampshire College was the first school to divest from Israel. Is that true? Hampshire demonstrates the lengths anti-Israel activists will go to obtain a “victory” in their perpetually losing divestment struggle. In the case of Hampshire, student petitions calling for divestment continued for several years after they had ended on [...]

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Have any campus divestment campaigns been successful?

DivestThis — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:48:00 +0000

FAQ #5: Have any campus divestment campaigns been successful? To date, no college or university has divested a single share of stock identified by BDS activists as targets for divestment. In addition, at schools where divestment has been driven by online petitions (such as Harvard and MIT), counter-petitions denouncing divestment have received more than ten [...]

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How does divestment manifest itself on college campuses?

DivestThis — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:43:00 +0000

FAQ 4: How does divestment manifest itself on college campuses? While new tactics are always being attempted, divestment tends to appear on campuses in one of three ways: · Petition drives (often online petitions signed by students, faculty and alumni) calling for a school to review its endowment and retirement investment portfolios in order to [...]

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What are the goals of divest-from-Israel campaigns?

DivestThis — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:14:00 +0000

FAQ #3: What are the goals of divest-from-Israel campaigns?Because divestment activists represent such a small minority of student opinion (and an even tinier minority of US public opinion overall), their goal is to attach their message (that Israel is an “Apartheid state” worth of economic punishment) to a well known institutions such as a university, [...]

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What is the origin of divest-from-Israel campaigns?

DivestThis — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:36:00 +0000

I forgot to mention that this information is focused on campus divestment, although other divestment activities (like church divestment) is mentioned. FAQ #2: What is the origina of divest-from-Israel campaigns? Calls to divest from Israel are part of a broader program of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (or BDS) pushed by anti-Israel groups to try to [...]

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Campus Divestment FAQ

DivestThis — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:10:00 +0000

I’ve been putting some time over the last week into putting together a list of frequently asked questions regarding divestment that I thought could be of interest to readers. I’ll post them one at a time over the next week or so. Starting out with FAQ #1: What is Divestment? Divestment is simply the selling [...]

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Where to put your finger?

DivestThis — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:42:00 +0000

Sorry for the hiatus (I’m still coming down from a couscous high, with my last box being eaten tonight, accompanying a veal and spinach dish I’ve yet to figure out, but I digress…). Way back when, I promised to respond to questions left on the comments section of the site, and during the whole Trader [...]

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Enjoying ourselves

DivestThis — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:54:00 +0000

While the couscous-vandal-wannabees are howling “you’ve not seen the last of us!,” it turns out that Trader Joe’s has not seen the last of Israeli supporters either. Apparently Hillel’s Angels, a group of Jewish Harley riders are planning to take a motorcycle caravan through New Jersey this weekend to continue our support for Trader Joe’s [...]

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Wrestling with Cows

DivestThis — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:09:00 +0000

My ten-year-old decided he wanted to raise chickens. (Hang in there for a paragraph or two when relevance to the subject of BDS will start to increase.) With my wife and I in firm agreement that said chickens should not live in our backyard, we found a local 4H for our boy to join and [...]

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Trader Joe’s Value

DivestThis — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:15:00 +0000

An interesting piece by Leslie Unger at Electronic Impulse Communications about Trader Joe’s decisions last week (from a business perspective) appears here. Let’s hope the example the company set by not being hoodwinked or bullied (and thus living up to its core values) create lessons that will be spread throughout the business community and beyond.

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Cooking the Boycott Goose

DivestThis — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:04:00 +0000

Well, not as many recipe suggestions were posted as I’d hoped, but given the amount of Israeli couscous that’s entered the economy over the weekend, every little bit helps. So for all you fellow Trader Joes fans: I Buy Lots of Israeli Products offers this simple recipe: slice an onion & brown in some olive [...]

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The Battle of Couscous

DivestThis — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 20:18:00 +0000

Well results are still coming in, but as far as I can tell the 600 protestors and 30+ anti-Israel organizations who signed up for the “Battle of Couscous” this weekend managed to hold one minor protest OUTSIDE a Trader Joes in Northern California. No in-store vandalism has been reported, but even if it had been [...]

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What to do with all that Couscous?

DivestThis — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:32:00 +0000

I know what you’re thinking. Perhaps the entire Trader Joe’s boycott project is secretly designed to get us to buy up all of the Israel products this weekend and leave us with more couscous than we know what to do with, thus making us sick of the stuff and (at least according to the boycotters [...]

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Jilted Lovers…

DivestThis — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:39:00 +0000

The most hilarious divestment story yet just came across my desk yesterday. Apparently, the BDS crew is bragging about their latest fantastic, unbelievably, way-cool “victory” during Caterpillar Tractor’s most recent shareholder meeting. Just as an FYI, before the divest-niks decided, rooster-like, to take credit for the sunrise with Motorola, their primary corporate target was Caterpillar [...]

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When all else fails, trash a supermarket

DivestThis — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:28:00 +0000

I’ve reported in the past how divest-from-Israel advocates have been attempting to import some of the excesses of their European equivalents into the US, including both an academic boycott movement and campus building takeovers started in the UK. The fact that both imports have flopped has not seemed to discourage boycotters from bringing to our [...]

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Shlock Doctrine

DivestThis — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:30:00 +0000

A good friend just published a terrific piece in In These Times on Naomi Klein’s recent championing of divestment against Israel. While I’ve never been that interested in the whole Left-Right battle over the Israeli-Palestinian “narrative” (noticing, as I’ve done over the years, that the conflict often ends up a surrogate for domestic US or [...]

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Those Crazy Brits

DivestThis — Thu, 28 May 2009 12:08:00 +0000

One of the themes I’ve written about (notably here) is the corrupting effects divestment has on any institution that decides to take up this issue. I dubbed this phenomenon “The Vampire’s Kiss” after the legend which says that a vampire can only enter your house if invited, but once invited in you are doomed. As [...]

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Belly of the Bust

DivestThis — Mon, 25 May 2009 02:05:00 +0000

Well I attended last week’s Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) support group last Thursday. While the notion of sitting in a room full of people on “the other side” disagrees with me more than it does activists with more of a taste for conflict, I must admit to looking forward to being with a group [...]

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Thus Sayeth the Lord!

DivestThis — Tue, 19 May 2009 13:20:00 +0000

Divestment debates are ongoing matters at many “Mainline” Protestant churches. I’ve talked before about how anti-Israel divestment resolutions, begun by local churches, find their way to national forums (notably the Presbyterians and Methodists who meet every few years within quasi-democratic frameworks to vote on resolutions submitted from “the field”). While these resolutions get routinely voted [...]

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Short Takes

DivestThis — Sat, 09 May 2009 15:42:00 +0000

A short post this time (if only because I had the chance to do my usual longer rambling this week at my friend’s blog: a piece on that endless source of comedy: Muzzlewatch). A couple of other quick notes: Those wacky divestment-nistas at NYU got their hand caught in the cookie jar (again), this time [...]

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The Union Label

DivestThis — Mon, 04 May 2009 10:37:00 +0000

When divestment began to get its hooks into UK labor unions 5-6 years ago, local BDSers crowed that it would only be a matter of time before American labor took up their anti-Israel calls. “Good luck with that,” I recall thinking at the time, remembering my visit to AFL-CIO headquarters back in college where I [...]

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Church Divestment

DivestThis — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:49:00 +0000

Wow – Well last week got away from me! Time to catch up on another divestment-related issue that I’ve not talked about yet: the churches. A number of people have seen talk of Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) breaking out on many campuses, Web sites and other forums (including the upcoming Durban II, which promises [...]

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Which Came First, the Rooster or the Sunrise?

DivestThis — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:48:00 +0000

Makers of low-budget movies have a simple trick to create a crowd scene without having to pay for extras. First, you find a parade taking place in a town near where you’re shooting. Second, you run to the front of the parade with your own signs and roll cameras. Thus did legendary schlock filmmeister Ray [...]

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“Academic Terrorism”

DivestThis — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 13:47:00 +0000

In appreciate for the response I’ve been getting to this subject, both online and off, I’m making it a habit to answer any question posed to me in the comments section. And the most recent entry (Thuggery) threw the question I asked at the end (“What are we going to about it?”) right back at [...]

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Thuggery

DivestThis — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 12:03:00 +0000

In the short time this blog has been up, I’ve tried to document the struggles those calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) directed against Israel face in trying in reaching their goal. And that goal is to get large, respected institutions to publically support their program (allowing them to position BDS as the official [...]

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Academic Boycott Reaches These Shores (sort of…)

DivestThis — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:22:00 +0000

I have to admit a grudging fondness for Great Britain, having lived there for quite some time after college, even if London is one of the two cities (Portland Oregon being the other) where I had the displeasure to hear two anti-Semitic cracks in a single day. Continuing on that dark note, for a variety [...]

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Fantasyland

DivestThis — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:13:00 +0000

I’ve been thinking a bit more about the notion of “fantasy” that I began to discuss in the last posting. As some friends know, I’m a big fan of the writer Lee Harris whose masterpiece, Al Queda’s Fantasy Ideology, is considered to be one of the most insightful things ever written about 9/11. In it, [...]

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Street Theater

DivestThis — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:42:00 +0000

A buddy took some video of the Boston chapter of “Israel is Wrong About Everything Always Forever” brigade as they “took to the streets” to picket a Motorola retail store in Harvard Square (an action somehow related to the fact that Motorola is one of the companies that commonly comes up as targets for Boycott, [...]

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By Way of Deception

DivestThis — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:31:00 +0000

Some readers may recognize the title of this piece from the 1990 book of the same name by Victor Ostrovsky (someone with whom I had one of my first online debates on UseNet lo those many years ago – a story for another time). Ostrovsky’s book purported to be about the nefarious activities of the [...]

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Parody

DivestThis — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 01:53:00 +0000

Last month’s divestment fiaso at Hampshire College inspired this parody. (It appeared on a few sites in the area. Needless to say, certain members of the “Israel is wrong about everything always” crowd were not amused.): In a further complication to the divestment controversy that continues to roil Hampshire College, today a new student group: [...]

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Muzzlewatch Gets Into the Act

DivestThis — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:20:00 +0000

About four years ago, controversial reporting over the creation of a mosque in Boston caused the leadership of the mosque to sue various newspapers and individuals responsible for bringing controversy related to mosque to the public’s attention. Details of that story can be found here. Jewish groups, and individuals and organizations committed to freedom of [...]

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Is Divestment Legal?

DivestThis — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:03:00 +0000

My first commenter (thanks Brandon!) brought up an important point about whether or not divestment activities directed at Israel might be prosecutable under federal anti-boycott law.Just as background, the Arab League (which boycotted Jewish businesses in what is now Israel starting in the 1920s) created a formal boycott office (created and still located in Damascus) [...]

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Hampshire

DivestThis — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:08:00 +0000

Divestment has always been more about symbolism than economics. After all, boycotting a company or country can have a direct impact on the top (and thus the bottom) line. But you can only divest in a company by selling your shares of its stock, which requires someone to buy them. And unless the world knows [...]

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Academic Divestment Campaigns

DivestThis — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 01:40:00 +0000

As described in this (admittedly longish) backgrounder, the divest-from-Israel crowd got its first major ink in 2003-2004 when a petition signed by 1400+ students and professors at Harvard and MIT was picked up by the media as the beginning of a major anti-Israel divestment “movement” on college campuses. Given our current interactive-media age (which tends [...]

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Academic Divestment Campaigns

DivestThis — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:40:00 +0000

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Getting Started

DivestThis — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:36:00 +0000

Word has it that the odd crowd of Israel-dislikers who tend to perpetually form groups that contain the words “Peace” and “Justice” in their titles has decided to strap electrodes onto the neck bolts of divestment one more time, not realizing that even Frankenstein’s Monster has a shelf life. To date, these efforts have amounted [...]

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