israeli MKs, NGO Monitor Invent False Anti-Semitic Claims Against BDS

August 16, 2016 By Richard Silverstein

SJP’s “anti-Semitic” eviction notice distributed to NYU students

Israeli and American Jewish media have become willing facilitators of yet another fraud perpetrated by right-wing MKs and their NGO counterparts.  The Knesset foreign affairs committee began the fraud by titling the hearing, “Singling Out Jewish Students by BDS on U.S. Campuses.”  MK Anat Berko, who touts herself as a former IDF colonel and “expert” on Islamist terror, made flagrantly false claims that the BDS movement compiled lists of Jewish students along with their addresses.  Berko is the solon who claimed Palestine doesn’t exist because there is no “P” in Arabic.  Not to be outdone, MKs from Yesh Atid and Labor also chimed in supporting this hash of a hearing.  The charges were formulated as if this were BDS’ first step toward a Final Solution of the Israel Problem.  For those pro-Israelists without a sense of humor, the above sentence was meant entirely ironically.
Arutz 7, a settler website, ran this headline: Jews Persecuted Around the World.  A video of some of the proceedings (in Hebrew) is here.  NGO Monitor, a group whose leader was sued successfully for libel by an Israeli Palestinian non-profit group, even claimed that BDS’ anti-Semitic activism could be criminal in nature.  Another NGO, Reservists to the Front, which was founded to combat Breaking the Silence, joined in claiming (without any evidence) that there were 941 anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. in 2015.  90 were committed on campuses.  He added, for good measure:

Jewish students are the most persecuted minorities on U.S. campuses, bar none.

Former Shin Bet chief and current Likud MK testified not just to his histrionic view of BDS, but his abject racism:

“BDS is an anti-Semitic wave against Jews.  To my sorrow, it exists in nations considered enlightened and campuses considered intellectual [sic].  The style of BDS activists bring an Olympic judo medal, but nothing respectable.  A great portion of BDS activism springs from the frustration of recent years when the subject of Palestine has sunk from the international agenda.”

Dichter continued his delusional rant thanking the Reservists group for the fake claims they offered: “The things done against Jewish students are carried out with the intent of harming Israel.”
The former domestic security agency chief was alluding to a bit of guerilla theater in which Students for Justice for Palestine (SJP) placed “eviction notices” under the dormitory room doors of students at NYU.  Jewish students who received the notices filed complaints with the administration that they were targeted because they were Jews.  In reality, two dormitories received the flyers.  One of them contained a Shabbat elevator for observant Jewish students.  Both buildings contained both Jewish and non-Jewish students and there is no evidence that Jewish students were the only ones targeted for the notices.
NGO Monitor claimed that SJP deliberately distributed eviction notices to non-Jewish students so it could not be prosecuted for a hate crime.  Again, an evidence-free claim.  This action did not involve, as the media reports allege, any lists of Jewish students, their mail or e-mail addresses.  None of the reports substantiate this claim with any evidence whatsover.  There is no evidence.  Even the ADL, not known for its fondness for BDS acknowledged this in the Forward:

“According to our research, there is no evidence pointing to Students for Justice in Palestine compiling specific lists of Jewish students.”

Even more virulent pro-Israel groups stepped back from Berko’s hoax:

…Officials from the Zionist Organization of America and Stand With Us….told the Forward they had no knowledge of this sort of activity taking place.

But that didn’t stop other members of the pro-Israel media.  The Times of Israel (which Jeffrey Goldberg calls a “highly credible” publication):

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a pro-Palestinian student advocacy group, has been compiling lists of Jewish students on college campuses in North America and detailing their dorm address information, raising fears for the students’ safety, Israel Radio reports.

The report came as the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee met earlier Tuesday to discuss Israel boycott efforts at US colleges.

Israel HaYom also went to town on the report.  It’s come to smell like a bunch of flies buzzing around a corpse of a story.  That’s what all the lies amount to.  Defending the indefensible.  You get tired of having to defend Israel’s oppression and so you turn the tables and blame the accusers, the victims.  They’re not the real victims, you are.  They hate you  Want you dead.  You?  You did nothing wrong.  It’s all their fault.  Focus it all on them.  Then they won’t be able to shine the light back at you and what you’ve done.

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2016/08/16/israeli-mks-ngo-monitor-invent-false-anti-semitic-claims-against-bds/