Academic BDS: Going from failure to failure

The Jewish Virtual Library has a helpful analysis of the history of campus divestment initiatives.  The sky is not falling, and in spite of the usual BDS puffery, there is no indication that "BDS is on a roll".

 65 % of all resolutions have been defeated.  And 97% percent of American campuses have had no divestment votes and have little or no BDS activity.

In the years 2005-2019

*A total of 127 BDS measures have been considered – 83 were defeated (65%).
*Those votes were limited to a total of 68 schools, less than 3% of America’s four-year colleges. (The California Community College Association is counted as one college and the UC Student Association, which has no power and represents no individual schools is excluded as were four graduate student programs).
*A total of 38 schools have approved a BDS resolution in the last 14 years, which represents about 1% of universities.*
*A total of 54 schools have rejected BDS (there is some overlap as some of these have adopted BDS in other years) .
*A total of 28 schools had two or more votes; 9 schools had three or more (Ohio State, Berkeley, Davis, Riverside, UCSB, UCSD, UCSC, Michigan, Dearborn), and 5 schools had four (Michigan, Michigan Dearborn, UC Riverside, UCSD, Ohio State)
*Only 5 schools (Michigan Dearborn, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, and UC Davis) have passed BDS more than once.
*Of the 68 schools that voted on BDS, 11 were ranked in the top 20 and 11 of 15 (73%) resolutions were defeated.
*A total of 22 schools in the top 50 entertained BDS initiatives and 30 of 46 were defeated (65%). In 2019, Brown became the first Ivy League school to pass a divestment resolution.

Of the schools that voted for divestment, there is no evidence that the resolution was any more than a symbolic act. 

Read it all here:  Campus divestment Resolutions in the USA 2005-2019

The rich fantasy life of BDS losers

From the Mike Report, a great new cartoon highlighting the rich fantasy life of the BDS cru

Mike writes:

2014 has unquestionably been the year of the BDS fail. Out of fifteen campus Divest from Israel resolutions in 2014, only three were passed and validated. But of all the BDS losses under their belt, the most decisive smack down came from the students of the University of Washington this past week.

Let us understand the magnitude of SUPER-UW‘s humiliating loss. From the first day of the Fall quarter, SUPER-UW and their allies, Jewish Voice for Peace in particular, saturated the UW campus with BDS trainings and anti-Israel info sessions.  First tier Israel haters, like Ali Abunimah, Max Blumenthal and the Corries as well as fifth tier radicals like Wael Elasady, Jesse Hagopian, and Maya Rotem were trotted out to tell their tales of Olive tree bulldozing, baby killing, wild-eyed Jewish settlers.

When the time seemed ripe for the kill, UW student senators Peter Brannan and Amira Mattar submitted the BDS Holy Grail; divestment resolution R-20-39.

But after nine months of lectures, lobbying and leaflets the resolution went down in flames. The final tally; 59 to 8 with 11 abstentions. What this means is that Brannan, Mattar and all of the minions at their command managed to persuade  a pathetic  six senators to join them out of 78 in attendance that night!

As of today,  however, there  were 16 campuses weighing in on divestment.  Today was the final day of a divestment vote at DePaul University, where the entire student body was given the opportunity to vote on the bill. Of the 25,000 plus  students at DePaul, the resolution was only able to  garner 1,575 votes. After months of  "actions", apartheid walls, sit-ins, op-eds, spamming social media, less the ten percent of the students were sufficiently engaged by this issue to even vote, and of those,  the resolution passed by only a narrow margin- with 1,333 opposed.

Expect the usual self-congratulatory  press releases on their "dramatic victory".

BDS: Losers and Liars

There is an interesting discussion taking place in the comments section of Divest this! (your one stop shopping for all things BDS).

Our old friend Mike asks:

 I have to say, Jon, while I very much respect the work that you are doing here and I value your insights, I cannot escape what seems to be a central contradiction.

On the one hand, you write about the BDS threat as if it is an actual threat to the Jewish people… which it is… but on the other hand you constantly inform us that BDS is failing. 

 If BDS is failing then it is not much of a threat and, therefore, why should anyone care?

Commenter Barbara nails it with her answer

What is BDS really about?
 
One might naively think its aim is to obtain a settlement between Israel and Palestinians, or perhaps even “justice for Palestinians” – whatever that might mean. The strategy is to apply pressure on an obstinate Israel to make concessions. The tactic is to use economic boycott. In actually recruiting boycotters, their success is minimal.

However, all that is a red herring, and at the same time a means to recruit unsophisticated, well-meaning, under-informed people to support their cause, and promote it.

However, the real aim of the BDS movement is to undermine popular support for the State of Israel (did the last Gallup poll say 72% of Americans hold a favorable opinion of Israel?) The strategy is to create a popular image of Israel as a cruel, evil, racist state whose creation was illegitimate and as a state, wantonly violates international law. The tactic is to use boycott efforts as a means of getting publicity to give voice for this narrative.

So while they don’t get institutions to join their cause, they do get plenty of platform for promoting their lies and distortions. Either way, those accusations cannot be left unanswered.

Why else would  various SJP's and MSA's throughout the UC system continue to put their student associations through the wringer, on a resolution that the Regents have guaranteed  will have zero effect?

Local divestment activist and UC Berkeley graduate Tom Pessah  has freely admitted the resolutions exist solely as a pressure tactic. He and his ilk have repeatedly shown their willingness to sacrifice their student governments' time and energy (for 13 years!)  for a symbolic "victory" worth no more than the paper its written on.

 
Its all about the noise level, and the student body, or the food coop, or the corner hardware store is just a means to an end.

Divest this! responds to Mike and Barbara:

 ...the war against Israel has always had multiple fronts. 

Originally, it was a traditional war in which the armies of neighboring states played the major role. But when that failed, some states (such as Egypt and Jordan) went for a grudging or de facto peace with Israel, while others moved the conflict to different fronts: unconventional warfare (i.e., terror/surrogate wars) coupled with a propaganda campaign designed to turn a conflict driven by an Muslim/Arab world refusing to accept a non-Arab/Muslim state in their midst to one perceived as the Jewish state refusing to accept a Muslim/Arab (i.e., Palestinian) state in *its* midst.

As that propaganda campaign expanded to include an attempt to characterize Israel as not just intransigent, but Apartheid and even Nazi like, the war moved to different fronts. But ultimately, it is still a war being waged by nation states (over which we have little control) which have succeeded in corrupting major institutions (like the UN), turning them into new fronts in the propaganda war. And when it comes to dealing with organizations like the UN (which represents states, not the people in those states), again there is not much we “civilians” can do (other than expose that corruption, as groups like UNWatch does so effectively).

But as the war moved to our backyards: to my home town, to Barbara’s food coop, to Will Spotts’ Presbyterian Church, that provided us an opening to actually join the battle and win. And winning has two advantages: (1) it empowers those who succeed and motivates them to fight further afield (which is why you’re reading what you’re reading now; and (2) it helps break the propagandists momentum and makes it that much harder for them to either corrupt a civic organization to their cause or have their accusations accepted at face value (since, remember, BDS has been exposed as not just a loser, but also a liar).

So that’s why I don’t see a contradiction between urging a continued fight against the BDS threat while also treating it like the loser it is. History is awash with little men and women who have been able to seize control and do huge amounts of damage because good people didn’t stop them. The fight against BDS both stops the bad guys and gives the good guys hope that they can achieve something if they just gin up the strength and resolve to join the fight.

In Summary.
BDS is full of losers and liars. Expose them. Because when we fight back we win.