Self righteous virtue signaling hypocrites and Airbnb

Airbnb is the company everyone loves to hate, until they are looking for the perfect charming low-cost vacation rental with a view of the surf.  Because they refuse to discriminate against Jews who list their homes in Judea and Samaria,  Airbnb  has been in the Israel's hater cross-hairs for some time now.

Jewish Voice for Peace and friends launched the Stolen Homes campaign, which follows the JVP formulaic and entirely predictable modus operandi.  A petition!   A hashtag!  Aging hippies holding signs!  

No doubt the 30 billion dollar company was left quaking  in its shoes. No! Not hippies holding signs!

Earlier this year the hard left National Lawyers Guild passed a  resolution by a vote of 67% to 33%  to boycott Airbnb, declaring: 

Whereas: Airbnb, the biggest listing service for short term and vacation rental housing, recently began listing rentals in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and thus both the websites and their users glean profit from stolen land. These settlements are in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from moving its civilian population onto the land it is occupying. There are over 650,000 Jewish settlers living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and settlement growth is rapidly increasing. Israeli settlements serve an exclusionary, Jewish-only population, are a clear form of state segregation. Settlers confiscate Palestinian land, homes, and resources, severely restrict Palestinian freedom of movement, and prevent any possibility of a contiguous Palestinian State. By listing homes in Israeli settlements, and earning a 9 to 15 percent fee from hosts and guests, Airbnb directly profits from and promotes Israeli apartheid and land theft. 

Airbnb has steadfastly ignored the Israel haters, even hosting a wedding at the Airbnb Headquarters  at 888 Brannan St, San Francisco for a couple who met through its listings in Israel. After a  initial Airbnb-related misunderstanding,  Ben from San Francisco enjoyed a blossoming romance with Tel Aviv's Noa.

From SF Gate:

"We wanted a private marriage ceremony but in a place that would be meaningful to us, [and] the Airbnb office seemed like a cool idea since we had met through Airbnb two years ago," the couple tells SFGATE. "We loved the Airbnb atrium and headquarters. We had great help from the staff and one of the founders, Joe [Gebbia]."

Airbnb has cancelled the listings of those that discriminate against Israelis.  During the recent fires in Israel, Airbnb took the compassionate step of waiving its service fees for those who opened their listings to victims of the fire. 

Airbnb set up "disaster response" page to help match hosts with guests and waived all posting and service fees. Those hosting for free were still be covered by standard Airbnb insurance policies. 

The Israel-haters don’t seem to be hurting Airbnb at all.

In July 2015, Airbnb raised $1.6 billion at a $25.6 billion valuation, according to Equidate. With the $850 million disclosed in last week’s filing, Airbnb has raised about $3.2 billion in equity.

Why has the campaign against Airbnb turned into yet another BDS fail? Could it be as simple as good old fashioned hypocrisy?

Rachel Lederman is the president of the San Francisco Chapter of National Lawyers Guild. Her Airbnb profile is available online. Perhaps she didn't get the Guild memo. Perhaps she was one of the 33% of the Guild members who voted against the boycott. Or perhaps she is one of those virtual signaling   “Do as I say, not as I do” activists.

Andy Griggs and Emma Rosenthal are members of  Labor for Palestine, the  Los Angeles Palestine Labor Solidarity Committee and the Cafe Intifada, and have been involved in many social media campaigns designed to demonize the only democracy in the Middle east.  No one doubts their commitment to quashing the state of the Jewish people,  unless of course, their personal livelihood is involved. That would be different.

Andy and Emma list rooms at their Dragonfly Hill Urban farm on Airbnb, and choose to ignore the “call from Palestinian civil society” ostensibly because it might interfere with their bottom line.  They’ll endlessly harangue community organizations to divest "from companies doing business in Israel", but they can not be bothered to do so themselves.

Makes me wonder. Could self righteous virtue signalling hypocrites be at the core of the failure of the BDS movement  in America?

The National Lawyers Guild, GUPS, and SFSU: Red Herring. Its whats for Lunch.

h/t Gary at Fousesquawk

Red Herring.  Its what's for Lunch.

Once again, the National Lawyers Guild proves that their commitment to advancing an ideology bypasses their commitment to constitutional law, justice or peace.

On Nov. 7, an event sponsored by the General Opinion of Palestinian Students at San Francisco State University featured signage stating "Our heroes have always killed colonizers", which was roundly condemned by university administrators, and advocacy groups.

In an open letter than never once mentions the controversial phrase, the National Lawyers Guild has come out with a statement declaring this as  "controversial political speech  rather than hate speech", and therefore safeguarded by protections under the first amendment. The statement, undersigned by NLGSF President R. Michael Flynn   and Rachel Lederman NLGSF President-Elect   neglects some appreciable aspects of first amendment law.  Speech that involves incitement, false statements of fact and threats is generally not protected by the first amendment.

But as importantly,  the NLG letter is a red herring.

A Red Herring is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. The basic idea is to "win" an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:
Topic A is under discussion.
Topic B is introduced under the guise of being relevant to topic A (when topic B is actually not relevant to topic A).
Topic A is abandoned.
This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because merely changing the topic of discussion hardly counts as an argument against a claim.

At no point did San Francisco State University President Les Wong speak of anything that could be construed as limiting the "academic freedom" or the " right"  of the General Union of Palestinian students to make complete fools of themselves not only on their home campus, but in the marketplace of ideas. Rather, he stated:

* As president, I was deeply disturbed by incendiary language that marred an annual commemoration of a cultural mural on campus.
* I am dismayed by the glorification of violence that this message conveys.
* The university is a place where dialogue, debate and the marketplace of ideas are cherished.

However, incitement to violence is not protected speech. The litmus test remains: Was the language of the sign mean to intimidate?

Given the reputation of GUPS on campus, their past history and their current rhetoric, many believe it was.

From the Simon Weisenthal Center

Simon Wiesenthal Center officials today warned San Francisco State University of a potential threat to its Jewish students after the Amcha Initiative uncovered a picture on Tumblr allegedly posted by the President of the University-sanctioned General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) in which he is shown holding a knife with the caption saying, “I seriously can not get over how much I love this blade. It is the sharpest thing I own and cuts through everything like butter and just holding it makes me want to stab an Israeli soldier….” The Tumblr post has since been removed. See larger image of Tumblr page here).

Copies of the picture were forwarded to SFSU President Leslie Wong by Amcha and the Wiesenthal Center, and in a phone conversation earlier today with Wong’s office, Center officials warned that such avowedly violent statements, especially when linked with another recent GUPS campus event where participants used a stencil saying, “My heroes have always killed colonizers,” pose a potentially significant threat to the university’s Jewish students.

“It is outrageous and unacceptable that the leader of a University-funded group would invoke a message of death and violence,” said a Wiesenthal Center official.

Indeed it is.

From the Tumblr account of Mohammad Hammad, president of SFSU GUPS

To R. Michael Flynn  and Rachel Lederman of the National lawyers Guild, in San Francisco:   Is Mohammed Hammad, president of GUPS stated desire to stab an Israeli soldier protected free speech or is it a threat? Is this legitimate discourse, or is this incitement to violence?  Is this speech protected as academic freedom or does it represent a clear and present danger to others?

To R. Michael Flynn  and Rachel Lederman , a final question: If this form of racist rhetoric was directed towards any nationality but Israelis, would you still publicly advocate for it?