Showing posts with label Avi Mayer. Show all posts

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Universities Standing Strong For Academic Freedom and Against Bigotry

Thanks to Avi Mayer, whose Tumblr account is keeping a running list of institutions condemning the ASA boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

Universities Standing Strong For Academic Freedom and Against Bigotry (running list)

The following is a list of institutions whose presidents or chancellors have publicly rejected the academic boycott of Israel in recent days. The Executive Committee of the Association of American Universities, which represents 62 top institutions in the U.S. and Canada, has also expressed its strong opposition to the boycott, as has the American Association of University Professors, which counts more than 48,000 members.
(Updated 3:27 p.m. EST, 12/28. Current tally: 78)

In addition, the following institutions’ American Studies programs have withdrawn their membership in the American Studies Association (ASA) following last week’s boycott vote:

Furthermore, the following institutions have flatly denied being institutional members of the ASA, though the organization lists them as such:

Keep checking here - as the list is updated frequently

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Delta Airlines: the latest BDS hoax

There is such a paucity of real BDS victories, that anti-Israel activists often spread lies- pretending routine business decisions are politically motivated and are signs of the "momentum" of their movement.

Years ago, Code Pink issued the usual self congratulatory pats on the back when Costco discontinued its Ahava Holiday gift pack- in January. Such a victory for them!

Our friend Jon did a wonderful job compiling BDS hoaxes at his Divest this website. Check them out.

Today there is a new BDS hoax to add to the list. Several days ago, anti-Israel activists triumphantly crowed their success in getting Delta Airline to discontinue serving Achva halva. An article in the Electronic Intifada was picked up by dozens of anti-Israel bloggers and social media sites. Trouble is, it wasn't true.

From Avi Mayer: (If you are in Israel , buy this man a beer for me, please).

Last week, hate site Electronic Intifada breathlessly reported that Delta Air Lines would be dropping a snack produced in the industrial area of Barkan, located over the Green Line The writers, Adri Nieuwhof and Ali Abunimah, presented the move as the result of a complaint filed by an individual associated with the radical "Coalition of Women for Peace). Abunimah, the site's editor, even went so far as to fabricate a claim that "Delta Air Lines lawyers ruled that Israeli settlement-made snacks should not be served" and to link the move to the bigoted Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement

Finding the hate site's reporting somewhat difficult to believe, I reached out to Delta myself and a rather different picture emerged.

The following is an email that I received a short time ago from Betsy Talton, General Manager of Corporate Communications for Delta Air Lines:

Good morning,

"We regret that a letter from an individual in our customer care department incorrectly suggested that Delta removed a vanilla halva bar because of its origin.

Like on many of our international flights, all food items on Delta flights exit Tel Aviv are sourced by our local caterer. This includes more than 1,000 local items. The item in question, a Vanilla Halva Bar, was recently removed as part of a normal catering cycle and review. In many cases products that are removed are later re-boarded. In addition, items are periodically rotated or changed in the course of our menu cycles.

The snack (fruit) that replaced the bar is grown locally in Israel. Delta makes a practice of sourcing local goods for catering in most international markets we serve.

Thanks,
Betsy

Thanks for following up on that, Avi.

BDS hoaxes: Hampshire college. Blackrock. Harvard. Tiaa-Cref Ahava. And now Delta joins the list of fabricated BDS victories straight from the fertile imagination of the anti-Israel cru. Lets wish them many more such "victories"

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Avi Mayer: Another Side of Israel

Another Side of Israel: The Impact of Tikkun Olam

Written by Avi Mayer, the Director of New Media at The Jewish Agency for Israel. Follow him on Twitter @avimayer.

On a chilly day in the middle of February, seven young Syrian men appeared near the border fence separating the Syrian and Israeli sides of the wind-swept Golan Heights. Suffering from gunshot wounds, their bodies riddled with shrapnel, they called out to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers guarding their side of the fence and asked for permission to draw near. When the IDF soldiers saw the Syrians' condition, they immediately permitted them entry, provided them with first aid, and transported them in military ambulances to Ziv Hospital in the northern Israeli town of Safed for further treatment.

"This is not the first time in the hospital's history that we have received wounded individuals from the other side of the border," hospital director Dr. Oscar Embon later said. "It is always a humanitarian activity and we concentrate on the wounded as we would on any other wounded person, focusing solely on the medical issue without going into other matters. We treat every wounded person as he is, and it does not matter where the person comes from."...

The seven Syrian men who staggered toward their country's border with Israel in February knew that their supposed enemy to the southwest would come to their aid when they needed it most. Indeed, Israel's commitment to helping those in need is embedded in the country's national DNA. It has manifested itself throughout Israel's existence and continues to do so in a myriad of ways, both close to home and at the furthest reaches of the globe.

In spite of the continuing conflict with the Palestinians, Israel has always extended its hand to its neighbors, offering aid and humanitarian assistance to those in need.

According to the Office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Defense Ministry department responsible for implementing government policy vis-à-vis the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 210,469 Palestinians in need of medical care were admitted into Israel to receive treatment in Israeli hospitals in 2012. A report by the World Health Organization found that 91.5% of applications to enter Israel for medical purposes were approved in 2012, while a further 7.2% were awaiting approval, pending security clearance.

Israeli nongovernmental organizations play an important role as well. One NGO, Save a Child's Heart (SACH), works with Israeli government agencies and medical centers to provide lifesaving medical treatment to children from 44 developing countries, including some that do not maintain diplomatic relations with Israel. Approximately half of the 3,000 children treated through the program have been Palestinians, 70% of whom have come from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Though Iraq has been at a state of war with Israel since 1948, dozens of Iraqi children have received medical care in the Jewish state. SACH is the largest organization of its kind in the world and all medical staff involved in the program work voluntarily.

Read Avi Mayer's article in its entirety here , and help spread the word.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

BDS fails of the Week

And the BDS fails of the week include:

* Ohio State Treasurer Josh Mandel has purchased $42 million of Israel Bonds There are now over $80 million dollars worth of Israel Bonds in the state's treasury portfolio. The March 1 purchase is the largest single government purchase of Israel Bonds in United States history, according to the Cleveland Jewish News. According to Mandel.“We believe this is a sound investment for the taxpayers of Ohio and consistent with our strategy of investing in safe and strong securities.”

* Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel), the largest multi-country mobile operator in the world, and Amdocs, provider of customer experience systems and services have opened a joint development center in Israel on Sunday. “We have been extremely satisfied with the wealth of talent in Israel”, said Allen Lew, Chief Executive Officer of Group Digital L!fe, SingTel.

* The Associated Students of Stanford University Undergraduate Senate have rejected a Divestment proposal proposed by the Students for Palestinian Equal Rights (SPER) The bill originally would have committed the Senate to urge the university’s Board of Trustees to reconsider endowment investments in 8 companies doing business in Israel A revised bill pared the list to two. There was only one vote in favor of the resolution. A wide spectrum of people weighed in on the proposal, with J street's Jeremy Ben Ami adding his voice to those opposed.

In fairness, it should be mentioned that the UC Riverside student Senate voted to divest. Their decision was immediately followed by this statement from UC Riverside's Interim Chancellor Jane Close Conoley

UC Riverside’s student government, Associated Students of UCR, passed a resolution called “Divestment from Companies that Profit from Apartheid,” which calls for UCR to divest of any holdings with companies “materially supporting or profiting from Israel’s occupation” of Palestine.
It is important to note that such divestment is not the policy of the University of California system nor of UC Riverside. Moreover, The UC Board of Regents requires this action only when the U.S. government deems it necessary. No such declaration has been made regarding Israel.
To quote a statement issued in May 2010 by the University of California Regents’ Chair and Vice Chair along with the UC President:
“The overarching question of the University of California divesting from any company is a complex one and any action considered must conform to State and federal laws, as well as to the University’s fiduciary responsibilities as a public entity to protect the security of its pension and endowment funds. In 2005, the Regents stated that a policy of divestment from a foreign government shall be adopted by the University only when the United States government declares that a foreign regime is committing acts of genocide. It was also noted at the time that divestment is a serious decision that should be rarely pursued.”
The campus looks forward to continued constructive exchanges that benefit our students, faculty and community.

Having trouble keeping track of the BDS fails? Thanks to Avi Mayer, there's an interactive Google map that provides you with all the information you need. I think we are going to have some fun with this.

UPDATE:

Legendary singer and actress Barbra Streisand will perform in Israel on June 18 at the opening ceremony of Shimon Peres’s annual Presidential Conference, in honor of Peres' 90th birthday. Streisand, 70, has visited Israel, has performed in Friends of the IDF fundraisers but her June 18 appearance will mark her first official performance in the Jewish state.

Here's a taste of things to come:
Barbra Streisand singing Hatikvah

Thursday, February 7, 2013

UN cuts ties with official tied to false Gaza tweet

All things come to those who wait.

Kulhood Badawi, a public affairs officer at the United Nations Office of the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has been terminated. Badawi gained notoriety for tweeting a 2006 photo of a girl from Gaza, and falsely insisting she was killed by the IDF during its shelling of Gaza Its taken nearly a year, and its likely too late to undo the damage. At the time, Badawi's tweet was picked up by dozens, and spread virally via social media. In the Bay Area, Eyad Kishawi of the local Al-Awda chapter also spread this discredited photo

From the J Post

Kulhood Badawi, a veteran public affairs officer in the Jerusalem branch of the United Nations Office of the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), has been "separated" from the UN, say officials in New York.

The de facto firing, publicly explained as a contract non-renewal, comes shortly after the conclusion of an internal investigation lasting almost a year.

The investigation conducted by the UN Development Program centered on a February 2012 Twitter post containing the photograph of a dead Palestinian girl, who Badawi insisted was killed by the IDF during its shelling of Gaza.

Subsequent investigations revealed that it was in reality an archived Reuters photo originally taken in 2006.

According to Reuters, the photograph was that of a young woman killed as the result of local clashes in Gaza, not as the result of any IDF action.

Badawi, it was later discovered, had been involved in several earlier controversial actions, including a 2006 demonstration in Jerusalem in which she labeled current Defense Minister Ehud Barak a "war criminal." UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs Valerie Amos, while not disputing Badawi¹s actions, publicly questioned whether the world body could be held accountable for "personal" tweets.

As such, she launched the inquiry that Israel's UN mission charged was a "whitewash," with Ambassador Ron Prosor repeatedly insisting that Badawi be fired.

Amos then explained she was awaiting conclusions and recommendations. Yet weeks turned into months, with the investigation having been concluded in October 2012, and repeated inquiries to Amos for updates produced nothing.

On Wednesday, an email from the UN revealed that all facets of the fact-finding mission had finally been completed, and that the organization had opted not to renew Badawi's contract.

Avi Mayer describes how the story went down at Storify

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Price Tag attacks. A Tale of Two Cities.

In Israel, they are called "price tag" attacks.

From Patrick Martin of the Globe and mail:

Amidst a series of audacious attacks carried out apparently by young Israeli settlers this week, one of the extremists’ targets stood out. It was a site I’d never heard of right in the centre of the city: The Nebi Akasha mosque, built more than 800 years ago.
It’s situated, I would learn, where three ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbourhoods converge, on a small one-way street named Prague.
The mosque itself is a simple single-storey stone building, with most of its barred windows bricked up – no longer active as a place of worship since 1948. Attached is a modest, attractive stone minaret that stands about two and a half storeys high.
Across a courtyard dominated by a playground filled with children on swings and climbers sits an equally old domed mausoleum. Inside this stone structure are three graves, believed to be those of some of Saladin’s commanders who perished in the taking of Jerusalem in 1187.
The mosque is named for Akasha Bin Mohsin, a 10th century Muslim, whose tomb was on the site when the stone buildings were constructed.
It was to this unused historic structure that the young extremists came before dawn on Wednesday. They threw a gas bomb through a small opening of one of the bricked up windows, scorching the stone all around the window and doing minimal damage inside.
They spray-painted on the outside stone walls and on the green metal doors things written in Hebrew such as “Mohamed is dead,” “Mohamed is a pig,” and “price tag,” a reference to the costs that Muslim and other Arab institutions will pay if Israel moves to dismantle any Jewish settlements or outposts in the West Bank.

Reports of the vandalism attack spread throughout the country and the act was widely condemned. But words are one thing. Actions are another. Two young men, Avi Mayer and Arie Hasit showed up. They painted over the graffiti and scrubbed smoke off the exterior walls.

“What happened here is unconscionable, and I don’t think it is representative of Israeli society, this neighborhood or Jerusalem,” said Avi Mayer, a Jerusalemite who works for the Jewish Agency. I found the entire incident deplorable and felt I had to try and right this wrong..."

Thank you, Avi and Arie. May you go from strength to strength, and continue to be a source of light to all.

In Berkeley, there appears to have been a local version of a price tag attack. The fence surrounding Michael Lerner's home in the Berkeley Hills has been vandalized again.

From JTA:

The northern California home of Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of the progressive Tikkun magazine, was vandalized for the fourth time in the last year.
In an e-mail sent to Tikkun supporters, Lerner said that on Tuesday evening, two black-hooded men pasted signs on the outside of his house and garage saying that "Palestine is an Arab fantasy." ...
"It seems obvious to me that the attack, while responding to the NPR interview with me this morning, is part of the same attempt to terrorize me and my family as the past three assaults," Lerner wrote in his e-mail. "As the police made clear to us the last time, the goal is not to destroy property as much as to remind us that they know where we live, and that we are not safe."
People. This type of childish hate-driven vandalism is wrong in Israel. And its also wrong in Berkeley. Your actions do nothing to help our people or to further our cause. Remember the words of our sage Hillel "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary".

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Twitter Wars: #IsraelLoves overtakes #Israelhates

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction....The chain reaction of evil--hate begetting hate...must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963.

When you pay a huge PR firm 30 K a month plus expenses to manage your social media, what does it get you?
Apparently it pays for "#israelhates" to trend on twitter.

Twitter activists noticed this disturbing trend over the weekend, as hateful, often anti-Semitic tweets began appearing, using the hash tag #israelhates. The hash tag had reached 0.15 percent of all worldwide tweets, according to the web site Trendistic, which monitors the popularity of trend topics.

The initial response from Jewish community activists? Variations on the theme #israelhates terror

Enter Avi Mayer, head of social media for the Jewish Agency, who tweeted “The haters have gotten ‘IsraelHates’ to trend worldwide. Let’s counter with #Israelloves”

From the Jerusalem Post

Mayer’s tag had become so popular, reaching 0.02 percent of worldwide tweets, that the message of hate he had sought to combat had disappeared from the trending list.

“It’s important for those who love Israel to talk about it in a positive way,” said Mayer.

Thanks Avi. This is an important lesson for all of us who love Israel throughout the world. As we enter the darkest day of the darkest month of the year, let us remember the power of light to overcome darkness, evil,and despair. Thats the message of Hannukah, and thats the also the message of Avi Mayer.