A potentially discriminatory anti-Israel boycott motion was passed at Clackmannanshire Council in Scotland on Thursday 14^th March 2013. The motion, introduced by Councillor Archie Drummond, an Independent Socialist and Member of the UNISON trade union, was passed without opposition by a meeting of the full council, with only three abstentions (one Labour, one SNP, and one Conservative). The motion stated:

“Clackmannanshire Council condemns the Government of Israel for its continuing illegal occupation of Palestine’s East Jerusalem and the West Bank and for its continuing illegal blockade of Gaza.

Clackmannanshire Council welcomes the decision of the United Nations on 29 November 2012 to grant “non member observer State” to Palestine.

However, for the people of Palestine, the suffering of the last 64 years continues as the Government of Israel continues to ignore and breach international law.

Just as individual sanctions against apartheid in South Africa led ultimately to its demise there, so individual and collection sanctions against the state of Israel will end apartheid and suffering in Palestine.

Clackmannanshire Council therefore resolves to resist, insofar as legislative considerations permit, any action that gives political or economic support to the State of Israel.”

A Fair Play Campaign Group Spokesperson responded to the  passing of the motion saying  “The idea of Clackmannanshire Council having its own foreign policy is ridiculous. This misguided and offensive motion will have no impact on the real world, a fact acknowledged by the motion itself when it stresses that it will only act “insofar as legislative considerations permit“. We urge the Council to grow up and abandon this biased stunt of a motion.”

Much was made this week of a petition signed by 62 professional footballers, including several English Premier League players, protesting UEFA’s decision to hold next summer’s European under-21 Championships in Israel.

The petition, reportedly initiated by the ex-Tottenham Frederic Kanoute, also featured the former Chelsea striker Didier Drogba and Newcastle midfielder Yohann Cabaye.

Or did it?

News emerged today that in fact neither of these players actually added their name to the petition. Drogba took to twitter to deny that he was involved and Yohann Cabaye posted a message to his website stating that he had never agreed to his name being attributed.

Admittedly the campaign to prevent Israel hosting the tournament next summer has been a bit of a damp squib but did the organisers really have to stoop this low? To borrow a football cliché, it’s a real head in the hands moment.

But there’s an even more serious edge to this tale.

How many of the other footballers had their names added to the petition without consent? And how much of the BDS strategy in general relies on inflation, exaggeration and, dare we say, outright falsehood?

Suddenly a petition which appeared to have finally given some exposure to a failing campaign has become a laughing stock, its credibility shot to pieces.

Culture and sport should unite rather than divide. It should form bridges between people so that difficult issues such as the Middle East Peace Process can be tackled in a constructive way.

This sort of petition can only ever be destructive, and even more so when it is full of lies and half-truths like the ones uncovered today.

This is a cross post from The Times of Israel by Jeremy Newmark

Israel demonstrated patience and restraint in the face of regular rocket fire for months, but the enormous increase was too much to bear. For the past week, Israel conducted operation Pillar of Defence, a biblical reference to the pillar of cloud that guided the Children of Israel through the desert when they left Egypt and protected them from the Egyptians’ arrows and slings.

These rockets are aimed at Israeli towns, houses and schools. They are weapons used almost exclusively to hurt civilians. Using them against Israel is a breach of International Humanitarian Law – in other words, a War Crime. Officially, at least, the major Human Rights NGOs recognise this. In 2008, Human Rights Watch said

Hamas rocket attacks targeting Israeli civilians are unlawful and unjustifiable and amount to war crimes.

This Monday, a report from Amnesty International said that rocket fire by Hamas and other groups against Israeli towns

violates international humanitarian law.

Others have pointed out that launching such attacks from civilian areas (thus creating human shields) constitutes a double war crime. You’d never know it to watch the behaviour of some of these selfsame NGOs, with their staff taking to Twitter and the traditional airwaves to strongly attack Israel with only a cursory mention of Hamas (and in one case making arguably antisemitic jokes at the expense of Jewish Members of Parliament).

UNITE, one of the UK’s largest trade unions and the biggest funder of the Labour Party, released a 500-word screed, which condemned the

illegal Israeli assassination

of Hamas terrorist leaders but didn’t once mention Hamas rockets or Israeli victims, even dismissively. The failure of institutions like UNITE to even acknowledge Hamas war crimes is shameful, and demolishes any pretense that they are interested in international law, justice or a lasting peace.

This time, though, these groups are the more marginal. The British Government demonstrated balance and understanding from the outset. Both Prime Minister David Cameron and Foreign Secretary William Hague backed Israel’s right to self-defence and are absolutely explicit that the primary responsibility for the escalation lies with Hamas itself.

Of course, the Government was also very clear that it feared a ground offensive – something that Israel’s Government was also clearly trying to avoid. This combination is a mature and developed approach which Israel’s leaders are much more likely to heed than the immediate condemnation that we’ve sometimes seen in the past.

This approach was echoed in Parliament, with many MPs rising to speak in support of Israel and condemn Hamas. The perennial knee-jerk critics like Sir Gerald Kaufman were in a clear minority. Reasonable and constructive comments came from all sides of the house with supporters of Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel ensuring their voices were heard in both the Commons and the Lords.

One reason for this support is that Israel’s story is being told better than it has been for many years. During previous conflicts, Hamas and Hezbollah got their messages out more effectively and faster than Israel. Supporters of Israel in the UK were left without the information we needed to respond. Things seem to have changed dramatically. Finally Israel has mastered social media. The IDF’s Facebook graphics, rapid responses and YouTube videos mocking Hamas’s almost-comical boasts meant that lies have been debunked before they can spread. In the UK, we are especially lucky to have Daniel Taub. As Israel’s Ambassador to Britain he is a powerful advocate and effective communicator who has also helped get Israel’s message across in the media and to politicians. The quality of analysis and output from BICOM was also world class.

The UK Jewish Community is united in its support for Israel’s right – Israel’s need – to stop the rocket fire. Leaders from across the community wrote to Ambassador Taub to express this support and to ask him to convey it to Israel’s leaders. This support also exists at the grassroots level. Members of the Jewish community have been actively organising and joining protests outside the Palestinian mission against rocket fire and counter-protests at the Israeli Embassy to ensure that anti-Israel protests are answered. They have used Facebook and Twitter to show their support and spread the message that the rockets must stop. They’ve made sure that the Batsheva Dance Troupe, an Israeli group touring the UK, was welcomed with Israeli flags and smiles in sharp contrast to the boycotters who greeted them with hate.

Israel worked hard to avoid sending ground troops into Gaza, with Israeli leaders doing everything they could to reach a ceasefire agreement that will stop the rockets through negotiation. The ceasefire deal announced by US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohmed Kamel Amr will be tested immediately. Will Hamas and the other groups keep to the agreement? How should Israel respond if they don’t? Will Hamas attempt to re-arm? Will Israel be forced into ground action anyway?

We pray and hope for peace for Israel – especially Southern Israel, which hasn’t been free from rockets day-to-day for years. We hope that the model of positive activism seen in the UK will be an enduring example for the future. The region needs a lasting solution to this conflict. The only viable solution remains a two state solution. A safe and secure Israel alongside a Palestinian state. And we also hope that the positive model of communication and activism seen in Israel and the UK can be a model and inspiration for the future.

This is a cross post from The Jewish Chronicle by Luke Akehurst

The eight city tour by the Batsheva Ensemble is a a major target for the PSC and other BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) campaigners.

The Batsheva tour plays to some of the PSC’s strengths. They have a national network of semi-autonomous groups, and this gives them the chance to vent their spleen against Israel in their own regions.

Some of the venues are in hotspots of BDS activity, notably Edinburgh, Brighton and Bradford. Where the PSC itself is weak it is able to plug into far left groups to provide “rent-a-Trot” demonstrators.

These groups’ habit of infiltrating multiple organisations means that credibility can be given to demnstrations by bringing along local trade union branch banners etc.

Venues, police, performers and pro-Israel campaigners have learned how to react flexibly to unpredictable protests through bitter experience. Hence in the initial Batsheva tour dates last week audiences clapped and cheered for the performers, drowning out the protesters.

Gary Sakol of the Zionist Federation deserves huge thanks for co-ordinating leafleting outside venues.

The cultural boycott is a flawed weapon for the PSC to use. It is a rip-off of the anti-apartheid protests against South African sports teams. Those teams were all-white when South Africa was majority black.

In contrast, performers like Batsheva personify liberal, multicultural Israel. When many people have a mental image of Palestinian boys throwing stones at Merkava tanks, drawing attention to the Israel of avant-garde dance troupes is a BDS own goal.

Luke Akehurst is director of We Believe In Israel

This is a cross post from The Times of Israel by Miriam Shaviv

Severe anti-Israel bias ‘makes Jews feel uncomfortable and unwelcome,’ lecturer charges in landmark tribunal

The UK’s trade union for academics, the University and College Union, is “institutionally anti-Semitic,” a London employment tribunal heard Monday.

The claim was made on the opening day of a potentially landmark case, which partially revolves around UCU’s resolutions concerning an academic boycott of Israel.

The claimant, freelance mathematics lecturer Ronnie Fraser, is alleging that the union harassed him by creating a hostile environment for him as a Jew, which “derives from a culture and attitude which is informed by contemporary anti-Zionism. Complaints about anti-Semitism are met with either bald denials or accusations that the complainant is attempting to stifle legitimate debate. As a result of the role which the State of Israel plays in contemporary Jewish identity, the hostile environment necessarily has an adverse impact on Jewish members of the union, making them feel uncomfortable and unwelcome.”

He says that this contravenes the 2010 Equality Act, which prevents discrimination on grounds of race or religion.

Unusually for an employment tribunal, the case will take four weeks to be heard. Over 30 witnesses for the claimant include the Booker Prize winning novelist Howard Jacobson — who has submitted a witness statement but will not be cross-examined — as well as Jewish community officials and numerous academics, both Jewish and non-Jewish. The seven witnesses for the respondent are all UCU officials.

Two of the three witnesses who testified during the opening session Monday discussed UCU’s decision to allow the international relations spokesperson for the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), Bongani Masuku, to speak at a UK conference promoting boycott and divestment of Israel in December 2009. Just two days earlier, the South African Human Rights Commission had publicized its finding that Masuku was guilty of hate speech against the Jewish community of South Africa. The statements, which were made at a student rally at the University of Witwatersrand the previous March, included threats to South African families with children in the IDF, as well as a promise to make the lives of Zionists in South Africa “hell.”

Wendy Kahn, national director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, a representative body, argued that UCU leaders were informed of the ruling the day after it was made public (and the day before the conference) and had ample time to ensure Masuku did not have a platform in the UK. She rejected the suggestion by UCU’s lawyer, Antony White QC, that since Masuku had announced his intention to make further representations to the SAHRC, there was at the time “the possibility of a range of views about what Masuku had done”.

“That range of views was brought to the Human Rights Commission, they had a finding that was communicated to the Union and to the people who had invited over Masuku,” she said.

She was repeatedly questioned about when criticism of Israel crosses the line into anti-Semitism and whether comparisons between Israel and apartheid South Africa were anti-Semitic.

“Whether Israel is or is not an apartheid state is academic discourse; it’s often discussed in the South African media,” she said. “When comments are made, ‘I came to the conclusion that Jews are arrogant’ or ‘Jews control the US’ — these comments are unacceptable, that’s when you go to the Human Rights Commission. When Jews are talked about as having blood dripping from their hands, that they should leave the country — that’s when you go to the Human Rights Commission.”

Political debate is “valid, to be admired,” Kahn later added. However, she said, “I have a problem with using the Israeli situation as an excuse for hate speech and making comments on fellow South Africans. Some of the comments drew on classic and modern anti-Semitic discourse.”

A second witness, retired University of Oxford biochemistry professor Michael Yudkin, had helped draft a motion in his local UCU branch disassociating members from “Masuku’s repugnant views,” which was passed 14:1. In May 2010, he proposed the motion at the UCU Annual Congress, but lost by “an overwhelming majority”. Yudkin subsequently resigned his UCU membership.

By the time Masuku was invited to the London conference, Yudkin  stated, “it was a matter of public record that he had made remarks at a public meeting several months earlier that were, to put it no more strongly, prima facie anti-Semitic. The most cursory search of Google in October or November 2009 would have revealed both that such remarks had been made by Masuku, and also that there had been official complaints about them. The fact that UCU nonetheless invited Masuku to the conference in London suggests either that the union was reckless in failing to scrutinise the background of its invitees or that it knew of Masuku’s anti-Semitic remarks and didn’t consider them a reason for rescinding the invitation.”

His motion, Yudkin said, “centered on the expression of anti-Semitic views by someone who had been invited by the union to the UK. It recited incontrovertible facts and it invited the union to dissociate itself from remarks that had been found by an authoritative body (the South African Human Rights Commission) to amount to hate speech. That the union was unwilling to do so indicates, in my opinion, that it regards the expression of anti-Semitic views as acceptable.”

When White suggested that some UCU members felt it was inappropriate to support the motion as COSATU had said it was going to make further representations on Masuku’s behalf and legal proceedings were still ongoing, Yudkin responded, “I’m struck by the overwhelming opposition to the motion, 10:1 [against]. I don’t think these niceties about whether COSATU supported the appeal can be used as an excuse for that degree of opposition — all the motion asked [members] to do was to disassociate themselves from Masuku’s racist remarks, and that they refused to do. The context was the last several years of anti-Israel resolutions. All added together made it clear that the union was run by those committed to disregarding the feelings of its Jewish members and thinking that the kind of behaviour in which it was indulging did not need an explanation. It was institutional antisemitism.”

Told that several of the speakers opposing the motion were Jewish, Yudkin responded, “The fact that they are Jews by birth or upbringing is not a sufficient reason to think people may not be guilty of disregarding what is important to the majority of Jews.”

The panel of three judges, led by AM Snelson, will spend Tuesday listening to audio recordings of the UCU debates on an Israel boycott and the claimant, Ronnie Fraser, will take the stand on Wednesday