Unmasking BDS: A new method to fight the movement has emerged, and it’s working

Barry Shaw

From Radiohead’s adamant refusal to take the heat from anti-Israel advocates to the bestseller “BDS for Idiots,” the fight against the movement is going strong.

Rod Stewart arrives in Israel ahead of his concert in Tel Aviv, June 13, 2017. (photo credit:LIOR KETER)

After decades of allowing the BDS Movement a free playing field on which to spin their allegations against Israel, a trend is discernible that is making headway into the jumble of their narrative. Slow but sure progress is being made against the radical accusations that have been fired at the Jewish state.

The old tactic of branding Israel as the Start-Up Nation had limited value. What benefit is it extolling the wonders of Waze if the other side is using negative emotional imagery of a Zionist state as child-killers and brutal occupiers? Instead, a new strategy took root. Take Israel out of the equation. Put the spotlight onto our enemies. Concentrate on the messaging and the character of our BDS adversaries. Target those who are attacking Israel and Jews, and retaliate directly at them. Expose them and expose their hypocrisy and lies.

The anti-Israel BDS advocates are caught in a trap of their own making, namely the paucity of their argument and often the deep antisemitism that drives them.

The battle has been joined and rapid progress has been made. Part of the offensive involves the naming and shaming of Israel’s BDS enemies. Often this is done via the social media as with the Canary Mission website that documents individuals and groups promoting hatred against Israel and Jews on college campuses in America. Their site catalogues people and groups listing their names, locations, which radical group they belong to, the roles they play, and detailing the negative actions or statements made by them. Their profile usually includes a headshot photo. Often the person’s profile includes their social media presence.

In the past, entertainment figures wielded influence in the cultural world. Recently, their radical bias has been exposed and they are increasingly ignored. One example is Roger Waters of “Pink Floyd” fame. Once a BDS icon, he has become a laughingstock, trashed by artists who ignored his demands for them to boycott Israel. Aerosmith was quickly followed by Radiohead, Rod Stewart and the Pet Shop Boys in performing in front of huge crowds in Israel.

After pressuring Radiohead for months, the band’s Thom Yorke clobbered Waters in a scathing Rolling Stone interview telling him, “It’s deeply disrespectful to assume that we are either so misinformed or retarded that we cannot make decisions ourselves.”

Yorke went on, “I thought it was patronizing in the extreme, really upsetting, that an artist I respect thinks we are not capable of making a moral decision ourselves after all these years.”
Radiohead’s moral decision was to come to Israel and entertain their multicultural fans.

Charles Asher Small, the founder of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) at McGill University, told attendees at the Annual IDC Herzliya Conference that his NGO is working on the documentary, “Wish You Weren’t Here,” which examines contemporary antisemitism and the BDS movement. He points to Waters’s history of anti-Jewish imagery, including having a floating balloon in the form of a pig at his earlier concerts with a Star of David and dollar signs emblazoned on its body, and his comparisons of Israel to the Nazis. A new ISGAP website calls to boycott Waters’s concerts in reprisal. The website wedontneedrogerwaters.com asks people to sign a petition urging others to avoid his concerts in protest.

A 2016 best-selling book, “BDS for Idiots,” urged anti-BDS campaigners to take Israel out of the equation when debating BDS activists and instead to concentrate on the BDs narrative. The book suggests we are engaged in an intellectual ju jitzu fight in which our anti-BDS campaigners need to find the BDS weak spots, of which there are many, and use them effectively to unbalance and ultimately defeat their arguments.

The book details with glaring facts how those who profess to be pro-Palestinian are caught out not really caring and even damaging Palestinian lives.

Evidence of this became clear when BDS protests led SodaStream to move its factory from Mishor Adumim in Judea and Samaria to the Negev, causing unemployment for hundreds of Palestinian workers. Palestinians lives were damaged, but BDS looked at this as a victory.

Recently, Sodastream and the Israeli government found a way in which Palestinian workers can be bused to the new Rahat factory to be reemployed and reunited with their Jewish and Beduin co-workers.

This case clearly illustrates who harms and who cares for Palestinian workers. It exposes the fraudulent message of BDS.

Pro-Israel groups have been surprised to discover the relative ease in setting back BDS by going on the offensive.

In Spain, Angel Mas and his pro-Israel ACOM legal organization has repealed several BDS actions taken by Spanish cities by applying law against council decisions to boycott Israel. They include La Guardia, the Rivas Vacia district of Madrid, the Olesa district of Barcelona, Campezo and Valencia.

Antisemitism, Conspiracy Theories & Hopes Of Violence

Dr. Gil Yaron

Israel, Turkey invoke Ottoman Empire in spat over Jerusalem

RAPHAEL AHREN

Bilateral ties tested by persistent Temple Mount standoff, though experts doubt crisis will unravel 2016 reconciliation deal

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech at a Justice and Development Party (AKP) meeting at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in Ankara on May 30, 2017. (AFP Photo/Adem Altan)

Further stoking bilateral tensions, Turkey on Wednesday slammed Israel for criticizing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s harsh denunciation of the Jewish state’s recent actions on the Temple Mount, drawing a fresh Israeli retort, as a bitter war of words between the former allies entered a second day.

In remarks Wednesday, Turkey also took issue with Israel for implying that religious tolerance was lacking during Ottoman rule in Jerusalem.

“At the Ottoman era, communities belonging to different religions and sects lived in peaceful coexistence and enjoyed freedom of worship for centuries. In this context, Jews would be expected to know best and appreciate the unique tolerance during the Ottoman era,” Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It was responding to a statement a day earlier by Israel’s Foreign Ministry that rebuffed Ankara’s criticism of Israeli security measure on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem.

In Tuesday’s statement, Israel implied that Turkey had no right to preach to Israel, since it restricted access to the holy site during its 400-year control over the city in the previous millennium.

The area of today’s Israel was ruled by the Ottoman Empire between 1517 and 1917.

Shortly after Turkey’s statement Wednesday, Israel shot back with a fresh salvo, citing Turkey’s occupation of north Cyprus and repression of Kurds and journalists.

“It’s absurd that the Turkish government, which occupies northern Cyprus, brutally represses the Kurdish minority and jails journalists, lectures Israel, the only true democracy in the region. The days of the Ottoman Empire have passed,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement, echoing Tuesday’s retort.

The spat began Tuesday when Erdogan called on Muslims to come to Israel to “protect” the Al-Aqsa Mosque after Israel installed metal detectors there in the wake of a terror attack on July 14 that saw three Arab Israelis kill two Israeli police officers using guns that had been smuggled into the site.

“If today Israeli soldiers are heedlessly able to soil the compound of Al-Aqsa Mosque with their boots citing trivial incidents as a pretext, and if Muslims’ blood is being easily shed there, then the reason for it is our failure to defend al-Quds [Jerusalem] strongly enough,” he told members of his AK Party in a meeting in the parliament in Ankara.

“Since Mecca is one half of our heart and Medina the other half, with al-Quds draping over them like a thin gauze, we should defend al-Quds together. Let’s defend it as if we are defending Mecca and Medina,” he urged.

In his speech, Erdogan stressed that the Ottoman Empire ruled over the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site, for four centuries. “Our ancestors had acted with such great delicacy and sensitivity that it is impossible not to remember them with gratitude and longing given today’s cruelty.”

Jaffa Gate, one of seven gates in the Old City’s walls, was restored by Jerusalem’s Ottoman rulers in 1538. (Shmuel Bar-Am)

read more: Israel, Turkey invoke Ottoman Empire in spat over Jerusalem

US ‘applauds’ Israel for removing metal detectors from Temple Mount

ERIC CORTELLESSA

White House press secretary lauds Jerusalem’s efforts to ‘maintain security while reducing tensions in the region’

Border policeman stand guard outside the Lions Gate of the Old City in Jerusalem, July 25, 2017. (Raoul Wootliff/Times of Israel)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration praised Israel Tuesday night for removing metal detectors from the entrances to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City, a security measure that has sparked violent protests and a diplomatic crisis with Jordan.

“The United States applauds the efforts of Israel to maintain security while reducing tensions in the region,” departing White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement.

Israel’s security cabinet decided Tuesday that the newly installed metal detectors — which set up in the wake of a terror attack at the holy site in which two Israeli police officers were killed — would be removed, and replaced with security measures based on “advanced technologies.”

Israel will instead use high-resolution cameras capable of detecting hidden objects as the alternative.

The White House hailed the decision “despite the demonstrated need to enhance security at the Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif in the wake of the murder of two Israeli police officers at the site on July 14.”

The metal detectors were set up by Israel following the July 14 attack in which three Arab Israeli assailants killed two Israeli Druze officers just outside the Temple Mount.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer speaks to members of the media in the Brady Briefing room of the White House in Washington, Monday, July 17, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Israel shut the site that day and July 15, and re-opened it with new security arrangements in place. The implementation of the measures set off daily unrest and clashes between Palestinian rioters and Israeli police in and around East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The violence came to a head Friday after midday prayers as three Palestinian protesters were killed in violent riots against security forces and another two died in clashes on Saturday.

Late on Friday, a Palestinian terrorist stabbed to death three members of the Salomon family at their Shabbat table in the West Bank settlement of Halamish, as others, including children, rushed to hide. He was shot and wounded by an off-duty soldier who lives nearby.

Yosef Salomon, 70, and his daughter Chaya Salomon, 46, seen at a recent family celebration. They were stabbed to death on July 21, 2017 in a terrorist attack at Halamish (courtesy)

After two days of silence, US President Donald Trump dispatched one of his top envoys to the region to try and reduce tensions.

Special envoy Jason Greenblatt arrived in Israel Monday afternoon, had meetings with US Ambassador to the United States David Friedman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and then left for Amman for more meetings.

Despite the overnight removal of the metal detectors and security cameras from entrances to the Temple Mount, worshipers continued their protests Tuesday, saying they would not end a boycott of the site until security measures returned to how they were before the attack.

REMEMBERING THE INDIAN SOLDIERS WHO HELPED LIBERATE JERUSALEM 100 YEARS AGO

LENNY BEN-DAVID

Allenby’s respect for the Indian soldiers can be seen in his receiving their salute as they marched past him outside of Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem on December 11, 1917, when Allenby entered the city.

Indian Lancers guarding Turkish prisoners in Jerusalem in December 1917. (photo credit:LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

Welcome Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and thank you for the sacrifices made by your country’s soldiers who saved the Jews of the Land of Israel 100 years ago and eventually led to the Jewish state’s creation.

An idyllic fenced park in the middle of the Talpiot neighborhood in Jerusalem, just a four-minute Waze-directed detour from Hebron Road. This cemetery, which I visited for the first time last week, is the burial site for 79 Indian soldiers who died here fighting for the liberation of Jerusalem in 1917. Another cemetery for the Indian soldiers is in Haifa.

Cemetery in the Talpiot neighborhood of Jerusalem for fallen Indian soldiers (photo credit: Lenny Ben-David)

More than a million Indian troops fought with the British Army in WWI, at the Western front in Europe, in Africa, Mesopotamia and the Middle East. On the Sinai-Palestine front, 95,000 Indian combatants served; approximately 10% were killed. In 1914-1918 period, they fought the Turkish-German armies at Gallipoli, the Suez Canal, through the Sinai and Palestine and finally Damascus, with crucial battles in Gaza, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Nablus and Megiddo.

The Indian soldiers joined other troops in the Sinai-Palestine campaign from Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies, as well as the Jewish Legion. These auxiliary forces relieved British troops badly needed on the Western front in Europe.

The Indian troops served in the cavalry, camel corps, infantry and logistics units. A large number were Muslims, and the Turks attempted to weaken their resolve with religious appeals. Except for a few cases, the Turkish propaganda failed. The importance of Muslim soldiers was understood by the British commander Edmund Allenby. After capturing Jerusalem, he cabled to London, “The Mosque of Omar and the area round it has been placed under Moslem control, and a Military cordon, composed of Indian Mahomedan officers and soldiers, has been established round the Mosque. Guards have been established at Bethlehem and on Rachel’s Tomb. The Tomb of Hebron has been placed under exclusive Moslem control.”

Allenby’s respect for the Indian soldiers can be seen in his receiving their salute as they marched past him outside of Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem on December 11, 1917, when Allenby entered the city.

General Allenby on his horse saluting the Indian troops outside of Jerusalem’s Jaffa Gate on December 11, 1917 (photo credit: Library of Congress)

The war ended in 1918, but British and Indian troops remained to police the British Mandate and put down Arab disturbances. Their photographs can be found in the Library of Congress’ American Colony collection, the British Imperial War Museum and other archives.

Later this year, a large Australian delegation will visit Israel to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the gallant ANZAC capture of Beersheba, which opened the way for the liberation of Jerusalem weeks later.

The author is director of publications at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. A former Israeli diplomat, he is author of American Interests in the Holy Land Viewed in Early Photographs and the forthcoming World War I in the Holy Land Viewed in Early Photographs.