In today’s feature at The College Fix, USC senior Emily Schrader details the upcoming Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) conference at U Penn:
The conference, scheduled for February 3-5, supports the national BDS movement, which according to conference organizers Matthew Berkman and Abbas Naqiv seeks to “end…the occupation, [provide] full equality for Arab citizens of Israel, and [provide] respect for the rights of refugees,” by encouraging boycotts of Israeli products and divestment from Israeli companies.
Conference organizers hope that the sessions and speakers will “build solidarity within the BDS movement and educate activists on the issues.”
Among the presenters scheduled to speak are Palestinian human rights attorney Noura Erakat, Jewish-American author Anna Baltzer, and the keynote speaker, co-founder of Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah. Abunimah in particular is highly controversial, having repeatedly condemned a two-state solution, and having gone on record with comments that sound a great deal like incitement to violence against Israelis.
As I explain at length on my blog (External Link
), the charge that Abunimah is guilty of "incitement to violence" is utterly absurd. Nothing in what is quoted is an incitement, nor even an approval of violence, which Abunimah clearly and repeatedly condemns in the interview that is quoted.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAbunimah is not controversial. The controversy his detractors impute to him is inherent in the issues he addresses. His opponents have as much to do with making that controversial as he does - or more.
It DOES, after all, take two to disagree - an attacker AND his/their target(s).
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuseimagine a top university sponsoring a conference on boycotting black people, or Hispanics, or gays. imagine speakers calling for an end to, let's say, Jordan, or Norway. of course you can't imagine it, because it would never happen.
the Jews, however, can be told they're not legitimate, and that Israel is stolen land (a lie, btw), that there was never a Jewish presence in the Middle East, and that the Israelis are performing genocide on the Palestinians (a neat trick, since the Pal population has skyrocketed in the last decade). and it's all cloaked in the guise of legitimacy because Penn is stupidly sponsoring this hate-fest.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDon't these people realize that Arab citizens of Israel are full citizens of Israel already and have always been? Some Arabs citizens of Israel have even been elected to high level offices in Israel's government.
I can also say that there are no full Jewish citizens in any Arab country, some Arab countries no longer even have any Jewish people anymore. Israel is also the only democracy in the middle east.
They are boycotting the wrong countries IMHO.
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