{"id":1949,"date":"2019-05-29T08:53:11","date_gmt":"2019-05-29T07:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/?p=1949"},"modified":"2019-05-29T08:53:11","modified_gmt":"2019-05-29T07:53:11","slug":"bds-and-justice-for-the-palestinians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/?p=1949","title":{"rendered":"BDS and Justice for the Palestinians"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I signed up for Future Learn<\/a>. \u00a0\u00a0They run a huge collection of on-line courses on a vast section of subjects from different Universities.\u00a0 I thoroughly recommend them.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe that people learn from people they disagree\nwith.  (On the grounds that it if two\npeople agree, there will not be much learning going on.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I signed up to an on-line course on Anti-Semitism at Yad Vashem,\nIsrael\u2019s Holocaust Remembrance Centre.  I\nbelieve that the holocaust was an incredibly evil act.  The process by which an advanced first world\ncountry can be organised for the industrial slaughter of six million Jews should\nnever be forgotten and never be repeated. \n(The process is, I believe, at the start of being repeated today, with a\nnew target, Muslims.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the course is irredeemably Zionist.  That is, the course ceased to be educational and\nflipped over to propaganda.  I only want\nto talk about one example.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here<\/a> is a video on Boycott Sanctions and Disinvestment, BDS.\u00a0 The description promises us – \u00a0What is the BDS movement, what are its goals and what characterizes its activity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are given bland material about Boycotts and South Africa, and that choosing a Spanish orange rather than an Israeli one is not anti-Semitic. \u00a0We are told that the aims of BDS are deliberately kept vague, in order to bring in a wide variety of people.\u00a0 This is not true. Then we are told that behind the nonviolent campaign of BDS is a global invitation to mass violence.\u00a0 No individual, or organisation is quoted as supporting any violence let alone mass violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key questions are \u201cwho called for BDS?\u201d and \u201cWhat are their demands?\u201d\u00a0 The presenters both have PhDs.\u00a0 It took me about 5 seconds to look up BDS<\/a> on Google and find the answers.\u00a0 So why would academics with honed research skills not look it up?\u00a0 I cannot believe that they do not know.\u00a0 That is when they moved from objective academics to pro-Israel propagandists.\u00a0 So what do they want to hide?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. The BDS movement was launched by\n170 Palestinian unions, political parties, refugee networks, women\u2019s\norganisations, professional associations, popular resistance committees and\nother Palestinian civil society bodies in 2005. <\/li>
  2. There are three demands <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    A             Ending\nits occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    B             Recognizing\nthe fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full\nequality<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    C             Respecting,\nprotecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their\nhomes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The demand comes from a people who have lived under Israeli\noppression for 71 years.   Palestinians\ndo not like the occupation, the Apartheid Laws, the kidnappings, the daily\nhumiliations let alone water and land thefts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    These academic spokespeople for the oppressor refuse to even\naccept that the oppressed have made demands. \nThey refuse to discuss those demands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It is much easier for them to attack people who answer the\ncall for solidarity with the smear of anti-Semitism than discuss why\nPalestinians are oppressed and how we can end it.  It is clear to me that we need to build BDS\ntill Israel starts to listen.\n\n\n\n\n\n<<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I signed up for Future Learn. \u00a0\u00a0They run a huge collection of on-line courses on a vast section of subjects from different Universities.\u00a0 I thoroughly recommend them.\u00a0 I believe that people learn from people they disagree with.  (On the grounds that it if two people agree, there will not be much learning going on.) I … Continue reading BDS and Justice for the Palestinians<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dicks-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1949"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1950,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1949\/revisions\/1950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}