SAJR stands up for Israel & against BDS

ANT KATZ

A series of events will held in cities and campuses across South Africa and the world in an attempt to characterise Israel as an apartheid state and to build support for the growing global non-governmental organisation Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

BDS in South Africa will soon be putting out initial details about Israel Apartheid Week 2014. Last year they announced that “The IAW SA team is made up of 50 members across South Africa.”

They also claim 35 endorsing organisations in 6 provinces and plan activities on 9 campuses.

Thay also boasted they had 35 endorsing organisations in 2013. Thay are likely to put together Israel Apartheid Week 2014 on nine campuses in six provinces.

There can be little doubt, however, that the brave stand of Larissa Klazinga and others at RHODES will ensure that at least at that campus, no illegal financial assistance will be given to the event.

In response, SAJR Online will partner with all pro-Israeli organisations and do whatever it is able, to expose and counter this growing anti-Israel movement.

“When students hear allegations about Israeli brutality or illegally built structures being levelled,” says Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, they need to have “the resources to respond in an informed and effective manner.”

SAJR Online agrees. We will work hard at both countering the falsehoods of the BDS narrative – and also giving people who stand up for Israel the information they need to tell it like it is!

Of course, with Israel being an absolute democracy (and the only civilian one in its ‘hood), and given the Israeli penchant for free speech – Israeli opinions differ widely as do those of Jews in the diaspora. This is not a political statement, but a factual one. We will challenge facts that are untrue and give facts that are true.

It wasn’t Voltaire – but it is absolutely correct!

The quote: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” is often misattributed to Voltaire.

It was, in fact, written by his biographer Evelyn Beatrice Hall (1868 – 1956) who wrote under the pseudonym S.G. Tallentyre. In her biography published in 1906, Hall wrote the phrase as an illustration of Voltaire’s beliefs.

SAJR Online has no intention to disseminate any of the IAW nonsense that is already filling our in-boxes – further than to ensure that Jewish and Christian Zionist students are made aware of what to expect, where and when.

This website has also launched a campaign titled “Don’t blame Israel” which is amply illustrated on this page and will be running throughout the IAW “season” to support pro-Israel individuals and groups who need the tools to support Israel.

This website will also attempt to act as a portal for those creating material to share their posters, banners, parables, and so on with others in the same situation.

If you have any information that SAJR Online can publish to give factual information to those who face uninformed BDS and IAW followers, please send them to online.editor@sajr.co.za and Jewish community and the many friends of Israel have good ‘ammunition’ on hand.

In the mean time you will find valuable arguments and real narratives in the three videos by Danny Ayalon on this website.