SPME
Introduction The end of the academic year shows BDS on campus having made further gains in colonizing student media and student government. The significance of BDS resolutions and editorials remains not in forcing universities to boycott or divest from Israel…
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Senate Republican foreign policy leaders are demanding the Biden administration pull nearly $1 million in taxpayer funding for groups to investigate alleged human rights abuses in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip—an effort that the senators say is…
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Last week, a suspected Israeli soldier shot and killed Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh while she was reporting on an Israeli military operation in the West Bank. A few days later, Israeli police attacked mourners at her funeral. A…
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Russia’s slow and grinding invasion of Ukraine has united much of the West in moral opposition that crosses party and national lines. It has resulted, moreover, in many Western governments imposing significant sanctions on Russia, including removing it from the…
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Several years ago, after I spoke at an AIPAC conference about Israel, Zionism, and the slow rise (at the time) of anti-Zionism in the West, a couple of concerned parents approached me. “Look,” they said, “we’re here, inside the conference,…
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As the spring semester ends BDS remains at the center of campus and national politics. BDS resolutions and referendums from students, support from faculty organizations like MESA, and incitement from outside speakers, have worsened the environment for Israel, Jews, and…
read moreIntroduction The spring semester approaches its end with a variety of BDS activities on campus. In the US several student governments have passed BDS resolutions and protested pro-Israel and pro-IHRA speakers. In the UK, the National Union of Students has…
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Lawmakers from the Irish left-wing party People Before Profit spoke out against sanctions on Russia this week because they hurt ordinary people, while at the same time supporting BDS sanctions on Israel. “We must oppose any escalation in this war, such as NATO intervention…
read moreThe membership of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) has endorsed a resolution to boycott Israeli academe. The general referendum took place over nearly two months, and the final count came to 768 for a boycott, 167 against. My longtime readers won’t…
read moreIntroduction With global politics dominated by Russia’s war on Ukraine the BDS movement predictably took advantage to attack Israel. Complaints that the international community has a double standard, sanctioning Russia but not Israel, have meshed with complaints that Israel has…
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