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Thursday, December 1, 2016

Jewish Voice For Peace Backing BDS Movement Against Caterpillar

Nadene Goldfoot                                          

First of all, BDS is an anti-Semitic movement that has come into the office of Portland, Oregon's City Hall.  It's led by a group called the Jewish Voice For Peace which is a play on words, being it's not promoting peace but instead anti Semitism.  First, I'll explain why is is doing this, and then tell more about the group.Many of the group deny or are naive about its repercussions to the point of thinking that it is "good" for Israel and is "helping" them.                            
                                                                         
BDS (Boycotting, Divesting, Sanctions)  is Antisemitic in Intent: BDS campaigns are coordinated internationally by groups committed to the elimination of the Jewish state, including terrorist organizations such as Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, that engage in and promote the murder of Jews worldwide. (DENYING JEWS SELF-DETERMINATION; CONDONING TERRORISM)
                                                      

BDS is Antisemitic in Expression: BDS campaigns routinely employ hate-filled rhetoric and imagery intended to demonize and delegitimize Israel, and which hold Israel to an unfair double standard, behavior recognized as antisemitic by the U.S. and European governments. (DEMONIZATION; DELEGITIMIZATION; DOUBLE STANDARD, etc.).
                                                  

BDS is Antisemitic in Effect: Pro-BDS groups routinely target all Jewish students, regardless of their feelings on Israel. They attempt to shut down Jewish student events, accuse Jewish students of being unfit to hold office and urge their members to avoid interacting with students in all Jewish organizations such as Hillel, Chabad or AEPi. Jewish students regularly report a significant increase in swastikas and antisemitic postings immediately following a BDS campaign on campus. (TARGETING JEWISH STUDENTS).                                 


The Jewish Voice For Peace is behind the movement of BDS in Portland, Oregon.
                                                                                 
  This organization is a hate group and not for peace but for destruction of Israel.  The organizers are brain-washed by Noam Chomsky and his followers-and they aren’t friendly at all towards Israel.  I’ve had on-line discussions with the man.  I’ve argued with him.  Chomsky’s followers are 3 ladies possibly from the Oakland, California area, Julia Caplan, Julie Ing and Rachel Eisner who had over a million dollars to spend on their movement.                                        




BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT AND SANCTIONS
JVP answers the call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) made by Palestinian civil society through strategic, dynamic, and effective local and national campaigns.

JVP’s leaders are from San Francisco and include Noam Chomsky, one of their advisors.  .
                                                                             
Elective divestment and BDS Activities of JVP.
According to its website, JVP supports "divestment from and boycotts of companies that profit from Israel's occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem...

" The boycott/divestment/sanctions movement (BDS) encompasses a variety of tactics and targets. JVP rejects the assertion that BDS is inherently anti-Semitic, and we encourage discussion both within our own community and outside of it of the growing BDS movement"."JVP justifies its support for the movement by arguing that BDS provides a vehicle allowing individuals all over the world in the Jewish diaspora to bring about real change by threatening in their consumer choices to lower the profits of any business that by their activities reinforces Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories. Gal Beckerman of The Forward wrote that it "is a group that has demonstrated a guerilla-like savvy in staging actions that get its message out to a broader national audience. In its use of BDS, for example, JVP has staked out a position distinct from those who target any and all entities related to Israel, which for many Jews implies a rejection of Israel’s very legitimacy. JVP instead targets only entities involved in one way or another with Israel’s occupation of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria). ."JVP's executive director Rebecca Vilkomerson stated: “We do feel connected to the global BDS movement. We consider ourselves a part of it."
                                                                         
During 2004 and 2005, JVP protested against Caterpillar Inc. for selling bulldozers to Israel, and said that Israel's use of the D9 armoured bulldozers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip was a violation of human rights and Caterpillar's business code of conduct. Along with four Christian groups, JVP introduced a shareholder resolution calling on Caterpillar to re-examine its sales of bulldozers to Israel. The resolution was rejected by 97 percent of the votes at the Caterpillar 2005 shareholders' meeting. JVP continued to introduce shareholder resolutions at Caterpillar shareholder meetings every year since 2005. In 2010 the resolution received 20% of the vote.

In June 2010, JVP launched a divestment campaign against the pension fund TIAA-CREF. The petition to divest reads, “We are participants and investors in TIAA-CREF funds who are deeply concerned that TIAA-CREF invests in many companies that profit from Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Some of these companies provide weapons and covert surveillance supplies that maintain the occupation by force. Others take or exploit Palestinian resources, including scarce water and even the land itself. All are profiting from Israel’s violations of international law and international human rights standards.” The five companies targeted by the campaign are Caterpillar, Elbit, Veolia, Motorola, and Northrop Grumman
                                                                               
In September 2010, Israeli artists came to JVP asking for U.S. support to an artistic boycott of the theater in the city of Ariel, in the Israeli-occupied territories. JVP drafted a statement that was signed by over 150 theater and film professionals. On the significance of the action, JVP said that it "was the first time such mainstream figures had drawn a line around normalizing settlements which are illegal according to international law, and which constitute one of the main impediments to a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.” (Israel and others such as Professor Kontotovich of Northwestern U, expert international law professor on Israel, disagree with this statement.  They are not illegal.)

In June 2014, when the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted to divest its stock in Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola Solutions to protest "the companies' profiting from the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and pressure Israel to withdraw," JVP members attended the church's convention and supported the divestment measure. Rabbi Alissa Wise, a JVP co-director of organizing, told the Presbyterians that to her, divestment "helps Palestinians build their power. So that Israel is convinced, not by force, but by global consensus that something has to change."

On February 20, 2015, JVP published a statement moving from its former position of supporting selective divestment, to a full endorsement of the call from Palestinian civil society for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel until the Israeli government respects the rights of Palestinians.  Explaining the change in position on their website, JVP wrote:

JVP has long participated in the global movement to hold Israel accountable through nonviolent economic pressure, and we’ve done so by focusing on Occupation-specific targets including corporations as well as academic and cultural institutions. Today, the idea that there is a clear economic, political, or social separation between “Israel” and “the occupation,” has been widely discredited."

Don't be fooled.  This group is working to destroy Israel and will automatically cause more anti-Semitism to Jews in other parts of the world.
A cartoon from Israel seeing the position so many have taken against them.
This reminds me so much of the stand our Portland City Hall has taken against Israel
if they vote in BDS against businesses like Caterpillar.  

Resource:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Voice_for_Peace
 http://www.amchainitiative.org/
https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/

1 comment:



  1. Battling BDS

    Ambassador Danny Danon, Israel's representative at the United Nations, held a special meeting yesterday at U.N. headquarters to announce a new legal initiative aimed at combatting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in court.

    "We will focus on lawfare, the use of legal procedures, to fight bias and discrimination and to stand up to boycotts. We are here to learn from the experts to think of new ways to collaborate so we can tell BDS activists: See you in court," Danon said. "We engage institutions and trust them to do the right thing. We trust them to follow the law and to follow the principles of justice. And that's why we will win, because the truth is on our side, history is on our side and justice is on our side."

    One of the experts Danon is consulting with is Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz. Professor Dershowitz added that while he supports the use of legal remedies where appropriate, he is equally concerned that opponents of BDS win more than just cases, but hearts and minds too.

    "I do worry that sometimes when you pursue legal remedies, you win in the courtroom but lose in the court of public opinion," he said. "BDS must be fought in the court of public opinion. It is not enough to fight BDS in court of law."

    Professor Dershowitz is right. And that is one reason why Christians United for Israel and CUFI Action Fund are so eager to publicly declare our support for the Jewish state and to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our most reliable friend and ally in the Middle East.

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