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The Washington Post Outright Lies About BDS and Anti-Israel Boycott Movements
Anti-Israel demonstration supporting the BDS movement, Paris, France, June 8, 2024. Photo: Claire Serie / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect
The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions effort — known as BDS — singles out Israel for opprobrium. BDS portrays the Jewish State as both uniquely evil and solely responsible for the lack of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. BDS has been endorsed by Hamas and other US-designated terrorist groups, and prominent BDS supporters have called for Israel’s destruction.
These are well-established facts. And they’re entirely missing in a recent Washington Post report.
Post correspondent John Hudson’s Aug. 12, 2024, dispatch is about Coca-Cola’s efforts to fend off a boycott based on the company’s links to Israel (“How Coca-Cola Tried and Failed to Suppress a Boycott Over Gaza”). Yet the article is littered with misleading omissions and, in some cases, outright falsehoods.
Hudson writes that “sales of Coca-Coa began to plummet in parts of the Middle East and Asia this summer in response to boycotts of corporations with alleged ties to Israel.” This led to the soda company’s franchise in Bangladesh launching an advertising campaign to blunt boycott efforts. The campaign starred actor Sharaf Ahmed Jibon, known for roles in South Asian soap operas, as a shopkeeper who assured viewers that Coca-Cola was not an Israeli product, and said that “even Palestine has a coke factor.”
But “there was a problem,” Hudson tells readers. “The so-called Palestinian factory is an Israeli-owned bottling company that operates on an Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem considered illegal under international law.”
Hudson adds that there’s “widespread anger over Washington’s military and political support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza,” resulting in backlash against American companies like Coca-Cola. Hudson argues that that anger has fueled the BDS movement, which he calls merely a “nonviolent activist movement opposed to Israel’s occupation.”
For good measure, the Post reporter even uncritically quotes Omar Barghouti, a self-described “co-founder” of BDS.
But the Post’s description of BDS is completely — and verifiably — false. BDS isn’t nonviolent. And it is not simply opposed to an “occupation.” Indeed, what exactly is being “occupied” is left unsaid by Hudson. Rather, BDS is opposed to Israel’s very existence — and its founders, including Barghouti, have admitted as much.
As CAMERA has noted, terrorist organizations like Hamas, whose charter calls for the genocide of Jews and the destruction of Israel, have stated, “We salute and support the influential BDS movement.” And according to sworn US Congressional testimony, some BDS groups have links to terror groups like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Indeed, CAMERA’s Ricki Hollander painstakingly documented the true motivations, and disturbing terror ties, of the BDS movement in her 2022 backgrounder “The Intrinsic Bigotry of BDS.”
In 2022, BDS groups in Boston even launched the so-called “mapping project,” a target map of Jewish cultural, educational, and religious institutions and organizations that included high schools, teen and college groups, the Jewish Arts Collaborative, the Synagogue Council of Massachusetts, groups dedicated to helping disabled Jewish individuals, and others. All were singled out by the BDS group at a time of rising antisemitism and attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions.
The “mapping project” was so dangerous that it prompted condemnation from Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), among others, who warned that such lists “can incite violence” and “inflame the deranged among us to take the next step from contemplating to acting upon violence.” But, for a movement that is wholesale endorsed by Hamas, that is perhaps the point.
In fact, BDS activists have, on numerous occasions, openly called for violence, from chanting “shoot the Jew” at Israeli jazz musician Daniel Zamir’s performance at Johannesburg’s Wit University to threatening Justin Bieber’s Jewish manager after the pop star played in Tel Aviv, warning that “the Jew manager will die.” There are dozens of other examples. But again: this isn’t surprising for a movement that, per sworn Congressional testimony, has links to terror groups that call for Israel’s destruction and the genocide of its citizens.
The Post’s decision to parrot Barghouti’s claims that BDS is peaceful fall further apart upon closer examination of Barghouti’s own statements. As CAMERA has documented, at a BDS conference in Chicago in 2011, Barghouti declared: “The media focuses only on one form of resistance, which we’re proud of.” He added: “We’re not ashamed to have armed resistance in addition to peaceful resistance throughout our existence.”
But as Hollander has observed, Barghouti’s pride in terrorism is not at all surprising, given that members of designated terrorist organizations are part of the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) leadership. Heading the list of the 29 Palestinian NGO members that comprise the leadership committee is the Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine, which includes Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), PFLP-General Command, Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, among other designated foreign terror organizations. The US BDS wing, which calls itself the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, does not merely advocate “to stop US support for Israel” as it claims, but facilitates US donations to the terrorist-member BDS National Committee.
A Tablet investigation even documents how this branch, registered as a 501(c)3 charitable organization, enables tax-exempt fundraising in the US for the foreign terrorist-member entity.
An Israeli government report on the BDS movement’s terrorist links names some of the terror group leaders who have taken prominent roles in the the BDS movement abroad, while downplaying or concealing their affiliation with the illegal groups. Among them are senior Hamas operative Muhammad Sawalha, who heads Muslim Brotherhood front organizations and promotes BDS in the UK; PFLP terrorist Leila Khaled, notorious for her role in the hijackings of international airlines, who has worked on behalf of the South Africa BDS chapter to raise funds and advocate for BDS; and Khalida Jarrar, a senior PFLP member who has been indicted for inciting attacks on Israelis.
All of this is open-source information and is well documented, including in Congressional testimony; it is widely available for the Post’s perusal. But the newspaper is seemingly uninterested.
Indeed, singling out the Jewish State for opprobrium and economic punishment is, in and of itself, antisemitic.
Boycotts have been used against Jews for centuries. Indeed, as CAMERA has documented, boycotts were used to pressure Jews against living in their ancestral homeland as early as 1909 — nearly 40 years before Israel was recreated and more than half a century before Israel took control of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War. This begs the question: what is the “occupation” that BDS activists oppose? The answer: Jewish political and social equality in the Jewish people’s ancestral homeland.
These facts about BDS are well-established. BDS, like its terrorist supporters, wants the destruction of the Jewish State. They believe that all of Israel is an “occupation.” Barghouti, and his interlocutors at the Post, failed to mention all these relevant details. It is unsurprising then, that Hudson parrots terrorist talking points elsewhere in his report.
Hudson writes that “since Oct. 7, when Hamas-led militants killed more than 1200 people in Israel and took more than 240 hostage, the Israeli military has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and the country’s restrictions on access to humanitarian aid have created a famine in parts of Gaza.”
There is an impressive number of falsehoods in this one sentence.
Hamas are not “militants.” Rather, they are terrorists. Precision matters, both in journalism and good writing. And Hamas did not “kill” more than “1200 people in Israel.” Rather, as part of a complicated operation, they invaded the Jewish State and murdered them — many in the most barbaric ways imaginable. Women were raped en masse, before having their genitals mutilated and then executed. The elderly were set on fire in their own homes. Parents were tortured in front of their children, and vice versa. Babies were murdered in their rooms. Per capita the death toll from Oct. 7 was multitudes larger than the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that led to the Global War on Terror and the invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan.
And, as barbaric as 9/11 was, it did not include Islamists proudly filming their atrocities, including dismembering parents in front of children, or using the phones of the slain to call their family members and brag that they had been murdered. Oct. 7 was the largest massacre of Jewish civilians since the Holocaust—yet Hudson seeks to equate it with Israel’s righteous response. Worse still, he misleads Post readers.
Those “local health officials” that Hudson cites are, in fact, Hamas. The Gaza Health Ministry that puts out casualty counts is controlled by Hamas, a US-designated terrorist group. And it has a clear incentive to exaggerate casualty counts, as well as a long and documented history of doing precisely that — including during this recent war. CAMERA has highlighted the Post’s penchant for regurgitating unverified claims made by a genocidal terror organization — a penchant that has led to the newspaper receiving both considerable criticism and a loss in subscribers. Hudson’s report is emblematic of that failure.
Further, the claim about an impending famine, as well as the assertion that the so-called “settlements” are illegal under international law are also incorrect. As CAMERA has documented, there is a strong basis in international law for Israel to lay claim to Judea and Samaria, or, as it has been popularly known in more recent decades, the West Bank. David Adesnik, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, thoroughly debunked the myth of a famine in Gaza in a July 7, 2024, Washington Examiner op-ed. Indeed, as Adesnik documents, Israel actually helped prevent a famine and has been providing key humanitarian assistance. Hamas, by contrast, has been hijacking and hoarding aid and food stuffs.
“Writing is easy,” Mark Twain allegedly said. “All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.” If so, the Post’s report on BDS would be a blank page –and readers would be better off for it.
The writer is a Senior Research Analyst for CAMERA, the 65,000-member, Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis.
The post The Washington Post Outright Lies About BDS and Anti-Israel Boycott Movements first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jews Targeted in Majority of New York City Hate Crimes in 2023, New Data Shows
Pro-Hamas activists gather in Washington Square Park for a rally following a protest march held in response to an NYPD sweep of an anti-Israel encampment at New York University in Manhattan, May 3, 2024. Photo: Matthew Rodier/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Reported hate crimes in New York state spiked by a staggering 69 percent since 2019, largely fueled by sharp increases in antisemitic incidents, according to a new analysis released by New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli on Wednesday.
The report from the Office of State Comptroller found that hate crimes against Jews increased across New York by 89 percent — from 253 incidents in 2018 to 477 outrages in 2023.
“In 2023, nearly 44 percent of all recorded hate crime incidents and 88 percent of religious-based hate crimes targeted Jewish victims, the largest share of all such crimes,” the report stated.
As for New York City specifically, antisemitic incidents accounted for a striking 65 percent of all felony hate crime incidents last year.
One such outrage that made headlines this week was a man in New York City allegedly spitting in a 65-year-old Jewish man’s face late last month after proclaiming “Hitler was right” in what is being investigated as an antisemitic hate crime.
On Tuesday, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) released a video of the alleged perpetrator of the crime, who has still not been found or arrested.
The NYPD said its Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the incident.
The perpetrator also allegedly said “Should I slap you or punch you,” prior to pulling down his mask and spitting on the man in broad daylight.
New York defines a hate crime as “an offense that is motivated by a perception or belief about the victim’s race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity or expression, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, or another protected characteristic. Hate crimes can be committed against a person or property.”
New York state’s total of 1,089 reported hate crimes last year marked the highest number “since data collection and annual reporting were mandated by New York’s Hates Crimes Act of 2000,” according to a press release accompanying the report.
“Fighting hatred and bigotry demands that we communicate with, respect, and accept our neighbors,” DiNapoli said in a statement. “It requires our spiritual, political, community, and business leaders to take active roles in denouncing hate, investing in prevention and protection efforts, and increasing education that celebrates the value of New York’s diversity.”
The surge in antisemitism in New York was also seen nationwide across the US. Earlier this year, the Anti-Defamation League released a report showing antisemitic incidents in the US rose 140 percent last year, reaching a record high. Most of the outrages occurred after the Hamas terror group’s Oct. 7 across southern Israel, during the ensuing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
In December, the FBI said there had been a 60 percent spike in antisemitic hate crime investigations since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war. Then, in April, FBI Director Christopher Wray said the probes into antisemitic crimes tripled in the months following Oct. 7.
“Between Oct. 7 and Jan. 30 of this year, we opened over three times more anti-Jewish hate crime investigations than in the four months before Oct. 7,” he explained.
In 2023, the FBI found that 63 percent of all religiously motivated hate crimes in the US were directed against Jews.
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We Defeated Pro-Hamas Protestors By Proving They Support Rape and Terror
Hamas terrorists kidnapping Israeli women at the Nahal Oz base near the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: Screenshot
I recently witnessed something I haven’t seen in a long time. On Friday, August 16, 2024, a group of pro-Hamas activists packed up their signs and went home in the face of spirited and non-violent opposition from a coalition of pro-American Iranians and American Jews.
The last time I saw anything like that happen was in 2006 or 2007, when I led a crowd of Israel supporters in chants in order to silence a heckler standing on the sidewalk near the town common in Amherst, Massachusetts. The ridicule was enough to prompt he and his fellow anti-Israel activists to walk away, as we cheered their departure. It was glorious.
On August 16, 2024, the pro-Hamas activists conducted their retreat from Lexington in two stages.
First, they walked away from the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Pleasant Street, where they have been protesting on an intermittent basis since October 7. Then, after they retreated a couple of hundred feet down Mass. Ave. (while tenacious, but peaceful, pro-Israel protesters followed them), the Hamas supporters packed up their signs and withdrew altogether, leaving an Iranian-born American citizen to conduct a solitary rear-guard action. Once the pro-Israel protesters took pity on the police officers charged with keeping the peace and got ready to leave, the pro-Hamas supporter also left — clearly a little bit worse for wear.
The pro-Hamas folks did not abandon the site of their weekly standout because they were outnumbered. The two groups were evenly matched. In fact, the pro-Hamasniks may have even enjoyed a slight numerical advantage over the pro-Israel folks who challenged them. Nevertheless, it was the anti-Israel folks who retreated.
The pro-Israel activists, who had coalesced around a core of Iranian human rights activists associated with From Boston to Iran, used a very simple message to break the resolve of the pro-Hamas activists: “You are on the side of rapists and murderers.”
The pro-Hamas protesters tried countering with the lie that Israel is committing a “genocide” in Gaza, but it didn’t work on the pro-Israel folks who just kept repeating their message: If you’re pro-Hamas, you’re siding with rapists and murderers. They offered this message in chants and individual conversations.
The pro-Israel folks didn’t bother reminding their opponents that Hamas attacks civilians while hiding behind civilians, thereby making civilian casualties inevitable. They didn’t waste their breath reminding the pro-Hamas folks that Arab and Muslim leaders have killed millions of Arab and Muslim civilians without much comment from the progressive left in the United States. The pro-Israel folks knew these facts– but didn’t waste their time repeating them on the streets of Lexington. They just kept repeating the central truth of the conflict in Gaza: Hamas is a bunch of rapists and murderers, and many leftists and anti-democratic radicals in the US have taken their side.
Most importantly, our strategy worked.
By repeating the simple truth of what’s happening in the Middle East, a gathering of pro-Israel Jews and Iranians stripped a gathering of pro-Hamas protesters of the moral superiority in which they have wrapped themselves since October 7. By sticking to the “Hamas is a bunch of rapists and murderers” message, pro-Israel activists reminded any self-proclaimed progressives who joined the Hamas supporters, that the October 7 massacre was not performed to “liberate” the Palestinians — but to build a social order in the Middle East in which terror and violence is the dominant culture, as opposed to peace, tolerance, and full rights for all religions, genders, and minorities.
It is no accident that Iranians who oppose the theocratic leadership in Tehran have become a powerful force of anti-Hamas activism in the United States. Having to deal with the rapists and murderers who oppress their friends and relatives, Iranian human rights activists understand that the violence against moderate Muslims, non-Muslims, and women in Iran has a common root with the violence of October 7 massacre. They know that the violence perpetrated against Iranian and Israeli women is justified by radical Islamism, a supremacist ideology that privileges the rights of Muslim men over non-Muslims and women.
Although leftists should know this as well — many don’t, and they need to be reminded repeatedly, and publicly, of the true nature of the radical Islamist movement they help support. One day, they will be the target of the Islamist oppression endured by Iranians and Israelis and when it happens, they won’t be allowed to say no one told them.
Dexter Van Zile, the Middle East Forum’s Violin Family Research Fellow, serves as managing editor of Focus on Western Islamism.
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Over 300 Filmmakers Condemn Inclusion of Israeli Films in Venice Festival, ‘Artwashing of Gaza Genocide’
Actor Sveva Alviti, who hosted the opening ceremony of the 81st Venice Film Festival, and director Alberto Barbera react, in Venice, Italy, on August 27, 2024. Photo: Reuters/Yara Nardi
Nearly 350 filmmakers, actors, and other members of the film industry signed an open letter on Wednesday, the same day as the opening of the Venice Film Festival, criticizing the prestigious festival for featuring two Israeli films.
At the center of the controversy is Dani Rosenberg’s Hebrew-language film “Al Klavim Veanashim” (“Of Dogs and Men”), which is about the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel, and “Why War” by director and screenwriter Amos Gitai, which will be making its world premiere on Aug. 31 out of competition. The latter film was inspired by a correspondence between Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud about avoiding war and “embarks on a search for an explanation of the savagery of wars that inhabit our world,” according to a synopsis provided by the Venice Film Festival.
In the open letter, published by Artists for Palestine Italia, members of the film industry claim “Of Dogs and Men” and “Why War” were “created by Israeli production companies that are complicit in whitewashing Israel’s oppression against Palestinians.” They claimed it was “unacceptable” for the Venice Film Festival to showcase both films and said they “reject complicity with the Israeli regime of apartheid and oppose the artwashing of its Gaza genocide against Palestinians at the 81st Film Festival in Venice.”
“‘Of Dogs and Men,’ shot in the midst of Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza, whitewashes the genocide,” the letter continued. “Like ‘Of Dogs and Men,’ ‘Why War’ was created by complicit Israeli production companies that contribute to apartheid, occupation, and now genocide through their silence or active participation in artwashing. Palestinian society, including the absolute majority of filmmakers, has called for refusing to screen such productions.”
Among the signatories were a number of Palestinian filmmakers and actors — including two-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad, Rosalind Nashashibi, Raed Andoni, and Saleh Bakri — as well as more than 80 Italian film industry figures such as screenwriter and David di Donatello nominee Davide Serino; filmmakers Enrico Parenti and Alessandra Ferrini; and actors Niccolò Senni, Simona Cavallari, Chiara Baschetti, and Paola Michelini. Others who signed the open letter included Tony Award nominee Kathleen Chalfant, César-winning actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, composer Nitin Sawhney, and Israeli filmmakers Oreet Ashery and Eyal Sivan.
The film industry figures also took issue with the Venice Film Festival for staying silent “about Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinian people.”
“This silence outrages us deeply,” they explained, before urging film festival organizers to take “effective and ethical measures to hold apartheid Israel to account for its crimes and system of colonial oppression against Palestinians.”
“The film festival should not program productions complicit in apartheid crimes, ethnic cleansing, and genocide, regardless who perpetrates them, and should refrain from doing so in the future,” the open letter stated in conclusion. “Artwashing Israel’s genocide in Gaza on the international cultural stage, including film festivals, is profoundly immoral.”
The Venice Film Festival last year hosted the world premiere of “Tatami,” the first feature film co-directed by an Israeli and an Iranian filmmaker, as well as the world premiere of “Letters from Drancy,” a virtual reality film about the life of a Holocaust survivor.
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