Quick Takes II
Still a little quiet on the BDS front (although I expect that to change soon enough)… In the meantime, here’s an enjoyable piece about the Israeli distributor of Ken Loach’s films who plans to donate...
View ArticlePunishing Your Friends
I had planned to write on an incident that happened earlier this year when a Palestinian cultural event taking place in Jerusalem chose to un-invite invited Israel guests when the BDS campaign set up a...
View ArticleMuzzlewatch Gets Miffed
Sorry, but I’m going to have to take a day off from exposing the Hampshire divestniks for what they are in order to respond to this hilarious posting from my old friends at Muzzlwatch. Given that...
View ArticleBDS Avatar?
The best BDS hoax story yet has just arrived from Canada, causing one of those truly “you can’t make this stuff up!” moments. I spent much of last year chronicling the tendency of boycott and...
View ArticleCameron BDS-Hoaxers: We’re a Joke!
Well, it looks like the James Cameron – Boycott story has hit the papers. And, surprisingly, the people responsible for circulating this letter (who never fail to pipe up whenever one of their beloved...
View ArticleFilm Boycott Update
For this blog’s 100th post, I wanted to provide updates on the James Cameron-Israeli film boycott flap. The latest news come from The King of the World himself who basically tells the boycotters in no...
View ArticleDescend Tutu
My son started taking ballet lessons about a year ago. I suspect he might not continue it forever, but I can attest to the fact that all of his physical activities (most recently his skiing ability)...
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Giving BDS the Fingers
A recent commenter left a note which struggled with a central question many of us deal with in our activist lives, namely: how do we contend with a movement like BDS which is perfectly comfortable...
View ArticleRock of Ages
BDS activity in the UK tends to careen between worrying (such as the recent anti-Israel agitation in the British trade union movement) and ridiculous (such as moronic attempts to protest all things...
View ArticleSoft Targets
Like many of you, I’ve received a fair share of alerts that Elvis Costello has joined the ranks of entertainers planning to boycott Israel until the boycott “movement” gives them the all clear. A...
View ArticleBDS and Celebrity
I seem to have gotten through the last US election without paying attention to how Bruce Willis or Whoopi Goldberg wanted me to vote. In fact, the whole notion of celebrity political endorsement has...
View ArticlePlaying Catchup
Having inflicted a month of Presbyterian politics on my reader recently, I’m committed to not overdoing the whole Olympia Co-op thing (even though I suspect this will be one of those seemingly trivial...
View ArticleRotten Luck
I’m still trying to find some time to do a little historical unreality fiction at the expense of my old friends at JVP, but in the meantime here’s one missed news story and one observation on the...
View ArticleWe’re Pretty Lame, Activists Say
In re-reading the Globe piece on BDS last night, it occurred to me that a bit more research would have shown the weakness of the three examples (Elvis Costello, the SF Dockworkers refusing to unload an...
View ArticleAutumn Updates
Time to catch up on a couple of stories from earlier this year. Starting with the forever-coming, but never-arriving “cultural boycott,” I’ve already pointed out that the spillover effect of Elvis...
View ArticleWasn’t That a Time
With this week’s tempest in a thimble over whether or not Pete Seeger has joined the BDS “movement,” I think we can safely say that Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions has jumped the shark. Just to sum...
View ArticleRadio Daze
I’m frequently asked what will be the next “target of opportunity” for the BDS “movement.” After years of alienating decision-makers and members of colleges and universities, Mainline Protestant...
View ArticleJust sit right back and you’ll hear a tale
I must momentarily return to Snark mode to comment on a new video making the rounds in the BDS ether. This was created by that august Canadian film professor John Greyson who was last seen trying to...
View ArticleGive Peace No Chance
A couple of weeks back, the New York Times ran a piece on YaLa, a loose-knit virtual organization of young Israelis and Palestinians trying to bridge the ever-widening gap between their societies using...
View ArticleWhen is a Boycott Not a Boycott?
Apologies to my reader for the uncontextualized reference to a BDS press release in my last posting, one which gave the impression that the boycotters had racked up a win with regard to International...
View ArticleBDS-holes
I had neglected one possible mutation of the BDS virus in the wake of dawning realization that the original goals of the “movement” (to get major civic organizations like universities and churches to...
View ArticlePennBDS: The Cultural Boycott
This is part of a series of articles based on the program of the upcoming PennBDS conference. Check out this landing page to find out more. When BDS first came on the scene at the beginning of the last...
View ArticlePark Slope Boycott Revisited
Given my proclivity for exposing BDS hoaxes, I guess this piece should touch on the latest bit of fraudulence (in this case a sports hoax) from our friends over at BDS Europe. But since CAMERA has...
View ArticleA Look Back at 2013: Stephen Hawking
Of the three major BDS stories that broke last year, the only one I didn’t take time out of my hiatus year to write about was Stephen Hawking’s decision to turn down an invitation to Simon Peres’...
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Rolling Stones BDS Bust
The other big BDS news story that broke while I was riffing on Rules for Radicals was the Rolling Stones flipping Roger Waters the bird (figuratively, anyway) as they played to a packed 50,000 person...
View ArticleThe A Word
Like so much else that comes from the mouths or pens of the BDSers, claims that Israel and its supporters routinely use accusations of anti-Semitism to stifle debate is really a projection of the...
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