Israel Matzav: Israelis in Germany spearhead anti-BDS movement

Sunday, August 28, 2016

Israelis in Germany spearhead anti-BDS movement

I'm about three quarters of the way through Tuvia Tenenboim's Catch the Jew, in which, among other things, he uncovers anti-Israel activity by Europeans - especially by Germans - in Israel. Because of what I have read about the Germans, I was especially pleased to read this article by Benny Weinthal about an anti-BDS group operating in Germany.
Israelis along with Germans launched the Action Forum group, which included a protest against BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) activists targeting Jewish state products in front of a Berlin department store on Thursday.

The group’s goals are to counter “one-sided and wrong information” about Israel in the German media, as well as to combat BDS, Gaby Spronz, an Israeli engineer working in Germany and one of the founders of Action Forum, told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday The group has 1,500 members, most of whom are in Germany, Spronz said.

Action Forum (Aktionsforum Israel) jump-started its activity with 20 activists distributing flyers against BDS at Alexander Square in front of the Galeria Kaufhof department store on Thursday.

“BDS is against Israel’s right to exist and for a Jew-free Palestine from Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea,” the Action Forum flyer read.

“They are anti-Semites who are calling for a ban of Jewish products,” activist Jan Zimmermann told the Post at the demonstration.

Zimmermann was referencing a group of roughly 20 BDS supporters who circulated flyers in front of Galeria Kaufhof calling for people to boycott the Israeli carbonated drink maker SodaStream.

SodaStream has moved its plant from Mishor Adumim to the Negev, costing over 500 'Palestinians' their jobs. But that's not enough for the BDS movement. If any of you think the Action Forum is exaggerating the threat, please consider this from an editorial in the New Jersey Jewish News (New Jersey outlawed BDS last week).

Like the World Conference Against Racism in 2001, aka Durban I, from which BDS originated, rather than fulfilling its stated goal of fighting racism, the movement itself is peddling lies and racist ideology masked as the good fight. Though supporters have been led to believe that they are advocating for the peaceful coexistence of Israelis and Palestinians living side-by-side, that’s not what BDS leaders appear to have in mind. By including the “Right of Return” — an often-invoked misnomer, as the language in UN General Assembly Resolution 194, established in 1948, states that Arab refugees “should” be allowed to return to their homes, not “must” — as one of their objectives, they’ve made it clear that they envision Palestinians living by themselves. Just listen to BDS founder Omar Barghouti:

“If the refugees were to return, you would not have a two-state solution. You would have a Palestine next to a Palestine,” he once said. He also wrote, “A return for refugees would end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”

The obvious conclusion: BDS is not about human rights, and Barghouti has acknowledged as much by saying the movement would continue even if the “occupation” were to end. BDS is rather a shrewd public relations strategy designed to draw intelligent, honorable individuals into the movement’s racially motivated struggle to forcibly dissolve the Jewish state.

Meanwhile, ordinary Germans are wising up to what's really behind BDS. This is from Weinthal's article:

The Action Forum equates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. BDS is widely considered to be anti-Semitic in Germany among experts on modern anti-Semitism. The prominent German political scientist Samuel Salzborn said BDS is “an influential anti-Semitic campaign against Israel.”

The student council at Leipzig University approved an anti-BDS resolution in early August. The resolution states: BDS “connects seamlessly to the anti-Semitic boycott campaigns of decades past and explicitly to the National Socialism” and to “the Nazi slogan ‘Don’t buy from Jews.”’ The student council document noted: “In light of the Hamas, Hezbollah and Iranian regime’s open and relentlessly expressed threats to destroy not only Israel, but Jews worldwide, the BDS campaign presents an existential threat to the Jews.”

Having experienced anti-Semitism, ordinary Germans are probably better able to identify it than anyone else. Too bad their government buries its head in the sand.

Labels: BDS, Benjamin Weinthal, German anti-Semitism, Germany, New Jersey