Massive US support for BDS revealed by hate advert in NY Times

Horowitz’ list of BDS supporters shows massive US support
Zatar and spinach
24.04.12

‘Endearing’ Zionist Islamophobe David Horowitz today ran an ad … in the New York Times, linking the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to the tragic murders of three Jewish children and four adults in Toulouse, France in March. [The ad is reproduced here ] Horowitz goes on to belittle the Holocaust by invoking its savage memory in attempts to frame the BDS movement as one promoting hate.

The ad smears Berkeley Professor Dr. Hatem Bazian, who is also the chairman of the organization for which I work, The American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), as well as Joseph Massada and Bill Ayers, among others.

Actually, Horowitz did the BDS movement a big favor by listing the more than 1,0000 organizations and individuals who support the life-affirming, inclusive movement that wants to hold Israel accountable for its numerous violations of international and law and flagrant abuse of Palestinian human rights. He did us a favor because we can be emboldened by the long list of supporters. We can also be motivated to action because so many worthwhile organizations and individuals were not included. This can only make us redouble our efforts to do more for BDS.

So, I guess we should thank David for bringing attention to BDS in the mainstream media. For anyone who wants more info on BDS, go towww.bdsmovement.net. And enjoy Horowitz’ list of BDS supporters [by clicking the headline above.  The list is very long and includes European and Israeli supporters of BDS as well as Americans].

David Horowitz and the pornography of the Holocaust

Richard Silverstein, Tikun Olam
26.04.12

Jews suffered from a crime unique in the history of Europe. The Holocaust is seared into the identity of the Jewish people. The enormity of that crime helped lead to the creation of the State of Israel.

That is why it’s an especially egregious sin for anyone to abuse this tragedy for their own political purposes. Pro-Israel apologists like David Horowitz not only abuse the Holocaust, they engage in a sort of pornography of the Holocaust. I use an extreme term like pornography because Horowitz uses the Holocaust in the same ways a sex addict uses pornography. Instead of sexual arousal, he seeks to arouse others on behalf of his radical far-right agenda. Any prop will do. Instead of pornographic photos or sex aids, he uses images of Nazis and Jewish victims.

The goal is to shame the left. The goal is to turn the left into Nazis and genocidaires. We mustn’t allow the David Horowitzes of the world to get away with it.

If you read the copy for this ad Horowitz bought on the op-ed page of the New York Times, you’ll find him making a travesty of the Holocaust. Instead of Nazis though, we have university professors. The professors, instead of sending Jews to the gas chambers, supposedly arouse Islamists in France to murder Jews. They supposedly “call for a new Holocaust” in the Middle East as well. This new catastrophe involves the annihilation of Israel.
The NY Times advertisement

In order for this to happen, according to the scenario laid out by Horowitz, there must be incremental steps like those taken by the Nazis in the early 1930s against German Jewry. That’s where BDS comes in. These professors supposedly (since little is as it seems in Horowitzworld, we don’t know what these academics actually believe) advocate the same type of boycott that the Nazis used to begin their campaign that led to Jewish genocide.

I don’t think many people actually believe much that David Horowitz says. But there are many delusional people in the world who can do great harm if they aren’t confronted. Horowitz must be confronted. Besides, as the Nazi propagandists maintained, if a lie is big enough and repeated often enough, people begin to believe it.

There’s another reason he poses great danger. He is backed by wealthy, ultranationalist Jews like Aubrey Chernick, who’s worth nearly $1-billion and who has pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into Horowitz’s Jewish jihad against Islam and the “radical left.” Chernick and Horowitz are partners in this pornographic hate-fest. We must expose them for what they are and not let them get away with it.

BDS has nothing to do with hate. Nothing to do with violence. BDS doesn’t seek to destroy Israel. It seeks to destroy Occupation. The hatemongers want to conflate them so that a legitimate political idea that should be debated seriously instead becomes confused with the worst crime of the 20th century. David Horowitz has desecrated God’s Name (Hillul ha-Shem) and the sacred memory of six-million in order to give the left and Islam the shaft. It’s a shandeh–a crying shame.

Abe Foxman should call Horowitz out on this. One of the missions the ADL under his leadership taken upon itself is to call out those who debase the Holocaust. I don’t know if he has it in him to do this. But if he has an ounce of courage and decency in him he will call out Horowitz as a Holocaust porn-meister.

Why would the NYT publish such a scurrilous ad? Why would it allow Horowitz to speak such blatant defamatory lies? You can’t hide behind freedom of speech on this one. There’s no obligation for a newspaper to print an ad like this. None. They should be ashamed.

New York Times ad accuses BDS movement, college professors of inciting murder of Jewish children
By Ali Abunimah, electronic intifada
24.04.12

In a sign of growing desperation among anti-Palestinian groups, a New York Times ad published today likens the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement to the Holocaust.

“The Holocaust began with boycotts of Jewish stores and ended with death camps,” begins the ad, placed by notorious anti-African American and Islamophobic agitator David Horowitz.

Citing the murder of three Jewish children and a rabbi in Toulouse, France earlier this year, the ad says, “it is time for supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) to ask themselves what they did to contribute to the atmosphere of hate that spawned these and other murders of Jews.”

Unsatisfied with blaming supporters of Palestinian rights in general of aiding and abetting murder, the ad names specific professors whom it holds responsible, and calls on them to be “publicly shamed and condemned for the crimes their hatred incites.”

The overwrought language in the advertisement is typical of Horowitz who has made a career out of such libelous accusations. It seems that no abuse or cheapening of the memory of Holocaust victims is too outrageous for anti-Palestinian crusaders such as Horowitz.

Acceptable?

The New York Times does have “Advertising Acceptability Guidelines” which state:

The Times may decline to accept advertising that is misleading, inaccurate or fraudulent; that makes unfair competitive claims; or that fails to comply with its standards of decency and dignity.

And:

In addition, an advertisement must sometimes be declined because of the applicability of laws dealing with such matters as libel, copyright and trademark, the right to privacy, the sale of securities, the sale of real estate and political advertising.

Some things do go too far for The Times. Last month the paper reportedly rejected an ad from Pamela Geller’s anti-Muslim hate group.

Apparently however, accusing specific individuals – effectively of responsibility for the murder of Jewish children in France – for supporting equal rights for Palestinians, does not cross any lines of deceny, dignity or accuracy for this newspaper of record.

Most, but not all, the names on the ad are of professors who have endorsed the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

Horowitz: Black people should be grateful for slavery

As I wrote in last December, Horowitz has a record of the most vile racism and Islamophobia:

For those who have forgotten who Horowitz, the editor in chief and owner of FrontPage Magazine is, he has engaged in continuous campaigns against Muslims and African Americans. Ten years ago Horowitz notoriously ran ads in college newspapers across the country saying that black people should be grateful that their ancestors were slaves in America and in fact owed America a debt for slavery. The ads caused an outcry on campuses all over the United States.

More recently, Horowitz has defended Robert Spencer, another notorious bigot and inspiration for Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik, as “a man of great courage and decency.”