BBC only just behind Hamas in SWC "List Of Shame"

 Video Of The Week - Dershowitz on Tutu: "A Special Place in Hell" https://tinyurl.com/ujupk4ph

For the full article go to DailyMail https://tinyurl.com/2rernn5y

The head of The Simon Wiesenthal Center said the BBC had repeatedly been guilty of anti-Semitism

Rabbi Marvin Hier highlighted reporting of an anti-Semitic attack in London

By CAROLINE GRAHAM IN LOS ANGELES and JONATHAN BUCKS FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

The BBC has been branded anti-Semitic by one of the world’s most respected Jewish organisations. 

The Simon Wiesenthal Center –named after the famed Nazi-hunter – has placed the BBC at No 3 on its annual ‘Global Antisemitism Top Ten’ list.

Last night, Rabbi Marvin Hier, head of the centre, told The Mail On Sunday: ‘People might be surprised to see the BBC on our list but the decision to place the BBC at No 3 came after months of intense debate and discussion.

‘We believe the BBC has been guilty of several incidences of anti-Semitism during the past year.

‘People might assume we would put neo-Nazi groups on our list but the BBC is there because when a globally recognised organisation allows antisemitism to creep into its reporting, it makes it all the more insidious and dangerous. 

The Simon Wiesenthal Center –named after the famed Nazi-hunter – has placed the BBC at No 3 on its annual ‘Global Antisemitism Top Ten’ list

‘People around the world trust the BBC and rely on it for truthful reporting of world events.’

The Rabbi singled out the Corporation’s reporting of an attack on a busload of Jewish teenagers by a group of men who chanted anti-Israel slogans.

The incident took place in London’s Oxford Street last month as the teens celebrated the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.

‘The BBC falsely reported that a victim on the bus used an anti-Muslim slur. But what was heard on tape was a distressed Jewish man speaking in Hebrew appealing for help,’ Rabbi Hier said.

The Mail on Sunday understands the BBC has investigated the reporting and maintains the alleged slur was included to ensure the fullest account of the incident.

The BBC issued a statement earlier this month saying the story was a ‘factual report’ that ‘overwhelmingly focused on the individuals the police want to identify; those who directed abuse at the bus’.

The Wiesenthal Center report, which will be released on Tuesday, lists Iran – whose leaders deny the Holocaust and have pledged to ‘annihilate Israel’ – at No 1 on the list and the Palestinian terror group Hamas at No 2.

The report condemned former BBC reporter Tala Halawa who posted a series of tweets including ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘Zionists can’t get enough of our blood’ in 2014. Ms Halawa no longer works for the BBC.

Rabbi Marvin Hier highlighted BBC News reporting of an anti-Semitic attack in London in his defense of the list.

It also criticised the Corporation for ‘often’ referring to Israelis as ‘settlers’ and cited a video tweeted by senior BBC producer Alaa Daraghme captioned: ‘An Israeli settler ramming a Palestinian man near the Lions’ Gate.’

Rabbi Hier said: ‘In fact, the car drove on to the pavement after an attempt by Palestinians to lynch the Jewish driver who lost control of the vehicle.’

A BBC source said the original tweet had been posted when there was ‘some confusion’ over the incident. Mr Daraghme later published another tweet clarifying what had happened. 

The US-based Simon Wiesenthal Center’s top ten also includes ‘social media giants’ (for allowing hate to spread online) and the Unilever corporation, which owns Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream. Ben & Jerry’s board boycotted East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

A BBC spokesman said last night: ‘Anti-Semitism is abhorrent. The BBC strives to serve the Jewish community, and all communities across our country, fairly with accurate and impartial reporting.’

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UN REPORT ALARMED BY GROWING ANTISEMITISM

Video Of The Week - Israeli FM addresses the UN - https://tinyurl.com/yxrq5l3j

For the full article go to J.Post - https://tinyurl.com/y6kbfcu7

The United Nations finally admitted that the virulently anti-Israel BDS movement is a significant cause of Jew-hatred worldwide.

By United With Israel Staff

On Monday, the United Nations (UN) released an interim report by Special Rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed that blasts the UN for its stance on BDS and exposes the movement’s role in promoting anti-Semitism.

The report, called “Combating Anti-Semitism to Eliminate Discrimination and Intolerance Based on Religion or Belief,” was presented to the Human Rights Council following recent addresses by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on anti-Semitism and religious freedom.

It discusses the “growing use of anti-Semitic tropes by white supremacists including Neo-Nazis and members of radical Islamist groups,” and slams “‘left-wing’ anti-Semitism [that] employ[s] anti-Semitic narratives or tropes” to criticize Israel.

The report concludes that “that the objectives, activities and effects of the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement are fundamentally anti-Semitic.”

Shaheed included, however, that “international law recognizes boycotts as constituting legitimate forms of political expression and that non-violent expressions of support for boycotts are, as a general matter, legitimate speech that should be protected.”

But, he stressed that “expression which draws upon anti-Semitic tropes or stereotypes, rejects the right of Israel to exist, or advocates discrimination against Jewish individuals because of their religion should be condemned.”

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Strivers, sulkers and the State of Israel

Video Of The Week - Nikki Haley interviewed by UN Watch - https://tinyurl.com/y47ocdj2

For the full 45 minute video go to- https://tinyurl.com/y47ocdj2  

From Asia Times, by David Goldman. For the full article go to - https://tinyurl.com/yx8qr6mo

Nothing succeeds like success, and the State of Israel’s success in a range of fields has created more goodwill for the Jewish people than at any time in history, and also more enmity. The world’s strivers see Israel as an example, and the world’s sulkers view Israel as a humiliating reminder of their misery.

Joseph Dana argued in a March 25 opinion article on this site that “political Zionism raises the risk of anti-Semitism.” That is true only to the extent that success breeds envy. Success also elicits admiration, though, and Israel is admired by ambitious and upwardly mobile people around the world. On balance, political Zionism has brought about far more philo-Semitism than anti-Semitism.

Half a million tourists visited Israel in December 2018, twice the number of the previous December. South Korean high-school students are adopting traditional Jewish learning techniques. Books about Jewish success are best-sellers in China. Chinese students are applying to Israeli universities; 200 now attend the University of Haifa compared with just 20 in 2013, and nearly 200 are enrolled at the Technion, Israel’s elite science university.

Retired Israeli ambassador Yoram Ettinger wrote in January that 2018 was “a banner year for Israel diplomacy,” marked by the move of America’s embassy to Jerusalem, soon to be followed by Brazil.

“Netanyahu’s breakthrough diplomatic travels in 2018 included an official visit to the Arabian Gulf Sultanate of Oman, where he held talks with Sultan Qaboos Bin Said…. Also significant was Chadian President Idriss Déby’s historic visit to Israel, with Netanyahu planning to visit the Central African country next year, at which time the two nations expected to declare a renewal of diplomatic ties.

“Other landmark meetings strengthening economic ties with leaders from China, Japan and India. Chinese Vice-President Wang Qishan visited Israel, as did Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Netanyahu met with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in Delhi, leading to a joint declaration of the ‘dawn of a new era’ in bilateral relations.”

In related developments, British Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt last week announced that the United Kingdom would vote against many anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations rather than abstaining, as in the past. And Hungary opened a trade mission in Jerusalem, the first de facto recognition of the Israeli capital by a European Community member state.

By any objective gauge of success, the State of Israel is uniquely successful.

Most remarkably, Israel is the only industrial country with a fertility rate above break-even. Israeli Jewish women have three children on average (2.5 children excluding the very religious). In practical terms, that means that Israel’s population of young people will be equal to that of Germany and Japan by the end of this present century if current fertility trends persist.

Asia’s fascination with Israel has more to do with material success than religion, to be sure, but Asians’ philo-Semitism has something in common with that of the evangelicals: Nothing succeeds like success. Asian strivers will continue to admire Israel and emulate its path to success, while sulkers in various failed states will continue to nurse their grudge against Israeli success.

As an American Jew, I see the matter differently than Joseph Dana. I am grateful that Israel enjoys the admiration of striving Asians, and am resigned to the fact that Israel will be hated by sulkers like Representative Omer and Mr Dana himself.

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An Islamic Truth by Qanta A. Ahmed

Video Of The Week -futility and hypocrisy of the Israel boycotters - https://tinyurl.com/y2nda7uc

          An Islamic Truth by Qanta A. Ahmed

For the full article go to “The Times Of Israel” - https://tinyurl.com/y563z3q4

Qanta A Ahmed an honorary Professor at Glasgow Caledonian University, a British physician has visited Israel, speaking at universities and research institutes around the country

Ahmed is opposed to the boycott against Israel, saying that the boycott movement attempts to vilify Israel. Ahmed is opposed to the occupation of the Palestinian Territories, but admits that she doesn't know how Israel can relinquish control over a region hosting "a virulent Jihadist ideology" and leaders calling for Israel's destruction. In 2010, Qanta wrote, "Call me an Accidental Zionist, if you must, but Eretz Yisrael is a vital shelter, an only shelter, from lethal, genocidal anti-Semitism... If we care for wider humanity at all, we must all be 'accidental' Zionists and want for the Jews, for the Israelis, what each Muslim already has for themselves: a future, a nation and a faith, secured."

Nowhere does the Quran make mention of the Muslims’ claim to the Holy Land. Instead, God reveals in the Quran that The Holy Land is designated for the followers of Moses. Because the Promised Land is theirs according to the Quran, only the followers of Moses may determine where their capital must lie.

It is this Islamic truth that political Islamists vehemently deny.

Those who masquerade as Muslims

Fast-forward 1,300 years to the 21st^h Century and we find totalitarian Islamism – profoundly distinct from Islam – ensures a new anti-Semitism courses through the Muslim psyche.

Today’s Islamists cry ‘Islamophobia!’ when challenged on their ideology, arguing that calling it political totalitarianism amounts to anti-Muslim racism and bigotry. Indeed, the notion of Islamophobia is becoming so powerful a social construct that it is chilling public discourse even for Muslims who dare expose Islamism.

This outcry is not confined to Muslims but is spread throughout the wider world, as many glorify Islamists as a persecuted religious minority rather than the totalitarians they are.

In the process, those naïve of Islamism condemning the designation of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital (in the belief they are advocating for Palestinians), become willing instruments for an explicitly fascist ideology, an Islamism that seeks not an accommodation, or parallel statehood to Israel, but its figurative and literal annihilation.

In the Palestinian territories, as in many Muslim majority societies, Islamism is effectively ‘the other occupier’ -– confining freedom of thought, critical analysis and educated scrutiny of Islam.

It’s time Muslims examined this other occupation of Islam by Islamism. In the guise of advocating for the Palestinian cause, many conceal or find socially accepted release for rabid yet sanitized anti-Semitism.

One Muslim commentator echoed the sentiments of millions of Muslims around the world when he dismissed the Quranic declaration of Israel as the promised land for the Jews as irrelevant claiming, “The Quran is not a historical document.”

This is how far we Muslims have strayed.

This renunciation of what the Quran tells Muslims is an uncontestable truth today. Theological destiny for the Jews is at the root of the Middle East conflict; whether as Jews it is pursued, or by Muslims, it is denied.

The Holy Land which God has written for you

The Israel-Palestinian conflict is neither about politics nor Zionism, neither about borders nor land or water. It is not even about the fate of statehood for the Palestinians. It is about the central denial of an Islamic truth: the denial that the Jews have rights to the land.

Yet today, millions of Muslims, under the influence of Islamism, pursue lethal hatred of Jews, abandoning the Quran itself. 2006 Pew research confirmed anti-Jewish sentiment remains overwhelmingly centred in predominantly Muslim Majority countries.

A genocidal hatred

Lacking critical knowledge, and access to Islam free of Islamism, faith-illiterate Muslims (including the Middle East and North Africa Region and Western Europe) accept anti-Semitism as Islamic creed. All too often, the rest of the world follows suit.

Islamists use Holocaust denial to garner grassroots support for delegitimizing Israel and to recruit Islamist “foot-soldiers” who are terrorist collaborators or operators. Because the Holocaust “wasn’t real,” Islamists argue, the state of Israel was created on “false pretenses.” Seeking de-legitimization with a view to full destruction of Israel quickly gains legitimacy.

Modern day Islamism – birthed by the Muslim Brothers in 1928 Egypt — has since incorporated a new anti-Semitism, a lethal genocidal hatred for all Judaica, all Jewry and Israel as a central tenet of belief. This blinds Muslims with a religionized anti-Semitism that prevents us from seeing that Islam has mandated Israel and its capital for the Jews.

As Muslims, we can be blind no more. Islam demands, we must see what is written.

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Abbas's Responsibility for Murder

Video Of The Week - Abbas Makes Anti-Semitic Comments - https://tinyurl.com/yc2d9est

                            

Gatestone, by Bassam Tawil – 17-09-2018

For the full article go to: https://tinyurl.com/ya4dunde

According to Palestinian terrorist groups, the terrorist, Khalil Jabarin, decided to murder a Jew in response to Israeli "crimes" against the Al-Aqsa Mosque in particular and Islamic holy sites in general. Needless to say, there is no Israeli plan to allow Jews to pray inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The statements made by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad confirm that there is a direct link between Abbas's false charge against Israel and the murder of the Israeli-American citizen.

Abbas's latest fabrication is directly responsible for the murder of Ari Fuld, stabbed to death by a terrorist who actually believed Abbas's lies about a purported Israeli scheme to split the Al-Aqsa Mosque between Muslims and Jews.

In a speech before the PLO Executive Committee in Ramallah on September 15, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas repeated the old libel that Israel was planning to establish special Jewish prayer zones inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Abbas claimed that Israel was seeking to copy the example of the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, where Jews and Muslims pray in different sections.

Abbas did not say what his lie was based on. He also did not provide any evidence of Israel's ostensible plot against the Al-Aqsa Mosque. He said, nevertheless, that the Palestinians, together with Jordan, were planning to bring this issue before the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.

Needless to say, there is no Israeli plan to allow Jews to pray inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque. However, in the past few years Jews, like all other non-Muslims, have been allowed to resume their perfectly legal visits to the Temple Mount.

Why is Abbas's false accusation significant and dangerous? Hours after reports were published of Abbas's allegation, a 17-year-old Palestinian from the town of Yatta in the southern West Bank fatally stabbed Ari Fuld, a 45-year-old Israeli-American citizen and father of four, in a shopping center in Gush Etzion, south of Bethlehem.

According to Palestinian terrorist groups, the terrorist, Khalil Jabarin, decided to murder a Jew in response to Israeli "crimes" against the Al-Aqsa Mosque in particular and Islamic holy sites in general.

In other words, the terrorist was influenced by Abbas's incitement, and this is why he decided to set out on his deadly mission. There is no doubt that the terrorist saw the reports quoting Abbas's claim that Israel was planning to allow Jews to pray inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Hamas, for its part, said that the terrorist attack came in response to Israeli "violations" against the Al-Aqsa Mosque. "We welcome this heroic attack and affirm that harming Al-Aqsa Mosque is a red line," said Hamas senior official Husam Badran in a statement. "This operation is in response to what Israel is planning to do in Al-Aqsa Mosque."

It is time to remind those who may have forgotten that it was Abbas who sparked the 2015 "knife intifada" with his accusation that Jews "with their filthy feet were defiling the Al-Aqsa Mosque." Abbas's statement came in response to the Israeli government's decision to lift a temporary ban on Jewish visits to the Temple Mount. Here is what Abbas had to say then:

"The Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is ours, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is ours, and they have no right to defile them with their filthy feet. We will not allow them to, and we will do everything in our power to protect Jerusalem."

"We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem. This is pure blood, clean blood, blood on its way to Allah. With the help of Allah, every shaheed (martyr) will be in heaven, and every wounded will get his reward."

Shortly after Abbas's remarks, Palestinians launched a wave of stabbing and vehicular attacks as part of what they called the "Jerusalem Intifada," or the "Knife Intifada," in which hundreds of Israelis have been murdered and injured.

This claim, of course, is also false because the Jews touring the Temple Mount have never set foot inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Jews and Christians are not even allowed to pray anywhere on the Temple Mount. In fact, Jews who are spotted praying, singing, bowing down, closing their eyes or crying during the tours are often arrested by the Israel Police.

Abbas, however, will not allow anyone to confuse him with the facts. He lives in his own dreamed-up world where he continues to spread lies and incite against Israel. Abbas's latest fabrication is directly responsible for the murder of Ari Fuld, stabbed to death by a terrorist who actually believed Abbas's lies about a purported Israeli scheme to split the Al-Aqsa Mosque between Muslims and Jews.

It is high time for the international community to see that Abbas's anti-Israel incitement is what is driving Palestinians to grab a knife and set out to stab the first Jew they meet. The blood of Ari Fuld, among many others, is all over Abbas's hands.

Bassam Tawil is an Arab Muslim based in the Middle East.

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Jewish Power at 70 Years

 New York Times, by Bret Stephens - https://tinyurl.com/y99w9pc3

Video Of The Week – Israel at 70 - https://tinyurl.com/y9p33qwy

Adam Armoush is a 21-year-old Israeli Arab who, on a recent outing in Berlin, donned a yarmulke to test a friend’s contention that it was unsafe to do so in Germany. On Tuesday he was assaulted in broad daylight by a Syrian asylum-seeker who whipped him with a belt for being “yahudi” — Arabic for Jew.

The episode was caught on video and has caused a national uproar. Heiko Maas, the foreign minister, tweeted, “Jews shall never again feel threatened here.”

It’s a vow not likely to be fulfilled. There were nearly 1,000 reported anti-Semitic incidents in Berlin alone last year. A neo-fascist party, Alternative for Germany, has 94 seats in the Bundestag. Last Thursday, a pair of German rappers won a prestigious music award, given largely on the basis of sales, for an album in which they boast of having bodies “more defined than Auschwitz prisoners.” The award ceremony coincided with Holocaust Remembrance Day.

To be Jewish — at least visibly Jewish — in Europe is to live on borrowed time. That’s not to doubt the sincerity and good will of Maas or other European leaders who recommit to combating anti-Semitism every time a European Jew is murdered or a Jewish institution attacked. It’s only to doubt their capacity.

There’s a limit to how many armed guards can be deployed indefinitely to protect synagogues or stop Holocaust memorials from being vandalized. There’s a limit, also, to trying to cure bigotry with earnest appeals to tolerance. The German government is mulling a proposal to require recent arrivals in the country to tour Nazi concentration camps as a way of engendering a feeling of empathy for Jews. It doesn’t seem to occur to anyone that, to the virulent anti-Semite, Buchenwald is a source of inspiration, not shame.

All this comes to mind as Israel this week marks (in the Hebrew calendar) the 70th anniversary of its independence. There are many reasons to celebrate the date, many of them lofty: a renaissance for Jewish civilization; the creation of a feisty liberal democracy in a despotic neighborhood; the ecological rescue of a once-barren land; the end of 1,878 years of exile.

But there’s a more basic reason. Jews cannot rely for their safety on the kindness of strangers, least of all French or German politicians. Theodor Herzl saw this with the Dreyfus Affair and founded modern Zionism. Post-Hitler Europe still has far to fall when it comes to its attitudes toward Jews, but the trend is clear. The question is the pace.

Hence Israel: its army, bomb, and robust willingness to use force to defend itself. Israel did not come into existence to serve as another showcase of the victimization of Jews. It exists to end the victimization of Jews.

That’s a point that Israel’s restless critics could stand to learn. On Friday, Palestinians in Gaza returned for the fourth time to the border fence with Israel, in protests promoted by Hamas. The explicit purpose of Hamas leaders is to breach the fence and march on Jerusalem. Israel cannot possibly allow this — doing so would create a precedent that would encourage similar protests, and more death, along all of Israel’s borders — and has repeatedly used deadly force to counter it.

The armchair corporals of Western punditry think this is excessive. It would be helpful if they could suggest alternative military tactics to an Israeli government dealing with an urgent crisis against an adversary sworn to its destruction. They don’t.

It would also be helpful if they could explain how they can insist on Israel’s retreat to the 1967 borders and then scold Israel when it defends those borders. They can’t. If the armchair corporals want to persist in demands for withdrawals that for 25 years have led to more Palestinian violence, not less, the least they can do is be ferocious in defense of Israel’s inarguable sovereignty. Somehow they almost never are.

Israel’s 70th anniversary has occasioned a fresh round of anxious, if not exactly new, commentary about the rifts between Israeli and Diaspora Jewry. Some Diaspora complaints, especially with respect to religion and refugees, are valid and should be heeded by Jerusalem.

But to the extent that the Diaspora’s objections are prompted by the nonchalance of the supposedly non-vulnerable when it comes to Israel’s security choices, then the complaints are worse than feckless. They provide moral sustenance for Hamas in its efforts to win sympathy for its strategy of wanton aggression and reckless endangerment. And they foster the illusion that there’s some easy and morally stainless way by which Jews can exercise the responsibilities of political power.

Though not Jewish, Adam Armoush was once one of the nonchalant when it came to what it means to be Jewish in the 21st century. Presumably no longer. For Jews, it’s a painful, useful reminder that Israel is not their vanity. It’s their safeguard.

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THE BDS MOVEMENT'S VERY BAD MONTH

By Evelyn Gordon 15-09-2015

Full article in Commentary: http://tinyurl.com/o3x7znu

The one saving grace about anti-Semites is that, contrary to Barack Obama’s famous claim, they generally are irrational and, therefore, they often overreach. The anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement has been doing exactly that recently. In the past month alone, it has suffered three resounding and damaging failures.

The first, of course, was its “success” in pressuring a Spanish reggae festival to disinvite American Jewish singer Matisyahu unless he issued a statement backing a Palestinian state. Matisyahu, to his credit, didn’t merely refuse; he also made sure the world knew why he wouldn’t be appearing as scheduled. The subsequent public outcry not only made the festival hurriedly backtrack and reinstate Matisyahu in his original slot, but also exposed the truth of the BDS movement’s anti-Semitism, which it has long tried to hide. After all, Matisyahu isn’t Israeli; he was asked to issue that statement, alone of all the artists at the festival, simply because he was Jewish.

Next came last week’s decision to boycott Israel by the mighty municipality of Reykjavik (population about 120,000). Having naively expected applause for this display of moral indignation, the municipality was stunned to be met instead by an outpouring of condemnation, including from Iceland’s own prime minister, and quickly reversed course. But the damage, as Haaretz journalist Asher Schechter lamented, was already done: Reykjavik had provided further proof that the BDS movement, contrary to the widespread belief that it merely targets “the occupation,” is simply anti-Israel.

Then there’s my personal favorite, which occurred this week: the BDS protest against a Pharrell Williams concert in South Africa. When I first read about the planned protest, I couldn’t believe BDS was serious. A black American singer goes to South Africa to perform for black South Africans, and BDS wants to ruin the audience’s fun? Just because Williams’ corporate sponsor is a Jewish-owned retailer (Woolworths) that already boycotts produce from “the occupied territories”? But BDS evidently couldn’t see how bad this looked. It rashly promised some 40,000 demonstrators, “the largest protest event in South African history against any musician or artist.” And it wound up with a measly 500, as many South Africans suddenly discovered that BDS might not be their best guide to international morality.

Finally, as icing on the cake, the lawfare crowd also suffered an embarrassing defeat this month: After it painstakingly gathered the 100,000 signatures needed to force a debate in the British parliament on a motion to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, parliament unceremoniously refused to debate it anyway on the grounds that the motion itself flagrantly violated both British and international law with regard to diplomatic immunity.

But all of the above are merely the tip of the iceberg of what could be done against BDS. As Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, has repeatedly stressed, one of the most important steps is pressuring Europe to stop funding anti-Israel hate groups by showing decision makers what their money is really being used for. This may seem like mission impossible, but as Steinberg wrote last week, the past year actually brought some significant progress:

Under the “Partnership for Peace Program”, the European Union did not renew grants for NGOs that promote BDS and lawfare, including for violent activities, marking the most significant change in over 15 years. A number of European embassies in Israel also reduced or ended grants for anti-peace NGOs. While there are still tens of millions of Euros and Pounds and Krona going to BDS, the trend is down, for the first time.

Legal action is another promising and underutilized tool. As I wrote last year, BDS has already suffered major setbacks in European courts. But the real legal game-changer, as professors Eugene Kontorovich and Avi Bell of the Kohelet Policy Forum argued recently, could be an Israeli challenge in the World Trade Organization against EU sanctions on settlement products. The EU plans to finalize a directive on labeling Israeli settlement produce next month, the latest in a series of directives targeting such produce. But as Kontorovich and Bell noted, the EU hasn’t imposed similar measures on other territories it deems occupied, such as Western Sahara or Kashmir, and WTO rules explicitly prohibit discriminatory trading policies.

The movement to Besmirch, Demonize and Slander the Jewish state is so hydra-headed and so venomous that it can often seem overwhelming. But in reality, it is big and strong enough to win only if nobody else is in the ring: As the past month’s events amply demonstrate, pushback works. Now it’s time to accelerate the pushback and put BDS where it belongs – on the defensive.

Video of the week "Silent Exodus - The Jewish Nakbah"; http://tinyurl.com/qabfw83

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