IAW ‘silly season’ in full swing globally

ANT KATZ

 Disingenuous

The disingenuousness of these efforts, says Patterson, are reflected in the counter-initiatives of governments, institutions, organisations and ordinary people who have had enough of the false claims of the BDS advocates.

Patterson lists some of the many recent setbacks that the BDS movement has suffered globally. In February the Canadian government passed a motion to condemn any and all attempts by Canadian organisations, groups or individuals to promote the BDS movement, both in Canada and abroad, Patterson points out in his blog today.

RIGHT: Anti-IAW- and -BDS Tweets about – this is one of the images doing the rounds

France and the United Kingdom took similar actions, he writes, while “seven US states have now passed laws condemning or forbidden ‘BDS-type’ actions.”

State legislation targeting BDS had spread to more countries over the past year, in particular. A lawmaker in Georgia recently introduced a bill that mirrors legislation pending in six other states in an effort to outlaw government contracts with businesses that support any boycott of Israel.

Martin Ritzmaier, spokesman for the mayor of Vienna said last month that Austria had cancelled a “BDS events in the city-subsidised Amerlinghaus building (as) the city of Vienna rejects boycott calls against the State of Israel and BDS-Austria receives no funding from the city of Vienna.”

BDS advocates have felt the heat and started to employ intimidation tactics as the counter-BDS movement has grown so significantly over the past year, writes Patterson. Last month, Palestinian human rights activist from East Jerusalem Bassem Eid, who recently visited SA on a pro-Israel speaking tour, “was heckled and threatened by students and anti-Israel protesters at the University of Chicago for his opposition to boycott Israel,” says Patterson.

He also brings to attention that this past weekend’s Algemeiner published an extract of the ‘Fall 2015 Campus Trends Report,’ produced by the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC).

LEFT: This famous picture of then-Presidents Mandela and Peres kissing belies the message BDS tries to sell in their effort to label Israel as an Apartheid State

One of the most significant points in the report, says Patterson, is that there are signs of growing internal fractures within the anti-Israel camp. “That is in line with my own perception while studying developments regarding pro-BDS and anti-BDS,” he says.

Willie Patterson quotes Noah Pollak, executive director of the Emergency Committee for Israel, who, he says, accurately described the reality, which began to emerge in the ranks of the BDS activists: “Radical political movements for years operate in obscurity, slowly building, organising and growing through trial and error. Then they burst into the open and experience a thrilling period of rapid growth and notoriety. Their enemies are caught off guard and unprepared, and their activists feel strong, confident and on the winning side of history. Crucially, the radicals start to believe, emotionally and intellectually, that their victory is inevitable. But then the victories do not come. The enemy not only does not surrender, but also reorganizes, rearms and counter-attacks – and then it dawns on the radicals they are in for a long, bloody fight. What is likely occurring in the ranks of the BDS movement is the beginning of this phase, and the accompanying internal debate about strategy.”

Where does South Africa fit into the latest developments? asks Patterson. “The BDS movement in South Africa is active and very vocal. With their slogans and rhetoric they charm some ANC politicians, trade unions and even the South African Council of Churches in supporting their cause.”

CLICK HERE TO READ A PREVIOUS PIECE ON SAJR.co.za
BEWARE OF ALLIANCES WITH TERROR, WARNS WILLIE

“However, I see some positive signs in the South African scenario,” says the well-informed Patterson in his Times of Israel piece today.

Although some individuals in the ANC support the BDS movement, he says, the government of South Africa refrains from publicly supporting them. In fact, the government never stopped trade relations with Israel. This statement, while true, is somewhat reduced by Board slams ANC over support for IAW, BDS posted on this website yesterday.

Patterson writes that he also sees a more realistic attitude at University campuses in South Africa regarding the BDS phenomenon. Sadly, this too was belied last week after BDS hijacked the Library Lawns and started IAW a week early. Granted, Wits did try to stop it (read Wits management adopt tough stand on BDS and Stand-off after ‘BDS-inspired Wits subterfuge’ published on JR Online last week) – but management’s efforts to meet their promises turned out to be fruitless and the demonstration continued unabated.

Patterson says that the attitude of University managements could be a result of their being “sensitive for more aggression during Israel Apartheid Week (IAW), due to the #FeesMustFall campaign, “but I am quite confident that some academics are beginning to realize that BDS is built on half-truths and falsehoods,” he says, adding the disclaimer that “it is rather discomforting that those academics took so long to do the necessary research.”

Patterson ends thus: “My sincere hope is that we are beginning to see the early signs of implosion of the BDS movement. If not, we need to relentlessly expose them for what they really are.”

• Willie Patterson is a Christian pro-Israel activist and writer. He is a regular reader and contributor to the SA Jewish Report, Times of Israel, News24, the Cape Fed website, and Hebrew People among others. He is the founder of the Fair Media Reporting Initiative which promotes factual reporting and exposes propaganda as a tool to promote personal agendas and radical ideologies
  

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Another of the images that Israel Advocacy groups are populating the twittersphere with this week