One of the most absurd fronts in an ongoing Arab/Palestinian war on Israel's legitimacy is the fight about food. Israelis are accused of food imperialism, i.e. appropriating Palestinian foods, with James Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute, going so far as to call it "cultural genocide" in a 2017 tweet.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram  

This inane offensive over ownership of original recipes as part of a campaign against the Jewish state would not succeed without the assistance of the media. And The New York Times is the latest to join in.

In "Preserving a Palestinian Identity in the Kitchen," (online, Oct. 19; print, Oct. 20, 2022) New York Times contributor Aina J. Khan cites a Franco-Palestinian chef who created a cooking video series "aimed at reclaiming a cuisine that is part of a broader Arab tradition involving foods like hummus, falafel, tabbouleh, fattoush and shawarma that he felt was being co-opted by Israeli cooks." She features and highlights his outlandish accusations:

"Food is being used to normalize the Israeli occupation by denying the origin of everything from hummus to falafel," Kattan said.

"The images of our grandmother's hands working in the kitchen, rolling the vine leaves, dipping the bread of the mussakhan in oil," he added, "These are images of beauty that are being stolen from us."

That the food angle is just an excuse to expand on the greater theme of an illegitimate Jewish state is soon made clear by the article's author. She writes:

"Before 1948, when over 750,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes or fled as the state of Israel was created, a mass displacement Palestinians call the nakba or 'catastrophe,' about three-quarters of the Palestinian population lived in villages centered around agriculture…."

In fact, Palestinians were displaced not as the result of the establishment of the Jewish state but of the war of aggression launched by Arab armies to annihilate it. Most estimates of the numbers of Palestinians displaced as a result of this war vary between 500,000-600,000, with the vast majority of Arab refugees having fled in advance of the fighting, to escape the fighting, or at the behest of Arab leaders who urged them to temporarily leave their homes during the fighting. Although there were some instances where Arabs were expelled from their homes by Jewish troops during the hostilities, these represented only a small minority.

Khan further emphasizes the theme of Jewish dispossession of Arabs when she writes of large areas near Haifa having been "originally allocated to a putative Arab state by the United Nations in 1947" that "were occupied by Israeli soldiers in 1948 after Arabs rejected the UN [partition] plan…. Many Palestinian families returned to razed homes and slaughtered livestock."

Again, it was not that Arabs passively rejected the UN plan that led to Israeli soldiers occupying the area, but that they launched an aggressive war, in violation of the UN Charter, besieging Jewish communities and attacking Jewish defense troops.  That property and lives were lost during these hostilities was a direct result of the illegal and ill-conceived attempt by Arab leaders to annihilate the Jewish state. Disingenuously leaving out relevant parts of the story implies Israeli guilt; it's an easy way to attack Israel.

The New York Times has been increasingly showcasing the claims of anti-Israel activists and promoting their propaganda against the Jewish state, be it under the guise of a film review, and now, cuisine and food preparation.  It is yet another entrée into the wholesale delegitimization of the Jewish state, in an attempt to make it more palatable to the general public.

Featured on JNS.org, this article was first published by CAMERA.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories! 

The post The New York Times joins the food war against Israel appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

The boycott of Jews has a long and sordid history.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

A classic weapon of antisemitism, the boycott ostracizes and disenfranchises Jews by depriving them of education, livelihoods, civil rights and camaraderie. Historic manifestations of the antisemitic boycott include barring Jews from practicing certain professions or holding agricultural leases, denying Jews membership in associations, societies and guilds, limiting the numbers of Jews allowed to attend universities, picketing Jewish businesses and pressuring people to reject Jewish services.

Boycotts against Jews have been historically employed to diffuse societal unrest and divert anti-government protests by turning the focus of blame onto the Jew. From the late nineteenth century onward, "Don't buy from Jews," "Buy from Christians only" and "Each to his own" were commonly heard slogans in Europe, as organized boycotts targeted Jews as the scapegoats for rising unemployment and poverty. Boycott organizers justify their anti-Jewish actions as a defensive tactic or as retribution for alleged wrongdoing by Jews.

No sooner had Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party risen to power in Germany in 1933, than they organized a boycott against Jews as retribution for unfavorable press and boycotts of Nazis that were occurring across the world. It marked the beginning of Hitler's campaign against Jews that resulted in the Nazi's so-called "Final Solution" – the genocide of European Jews.

Just months after the defeat of the Nazis and Hitler's suicide, and even before the establishment of the State of Israel, the Arab League launched its own boycott against Jews in Palestine. The December 1945 declaration stated that "Jewish products and manufactured goods shall be considered undesirable to the Arab countries."

After Arab League attempts to physically annihilate the newly established State of Israel failed, its boycott became an alternate instrument of war to bring about the demise of the state through economic means. The boycott consisted of three levels: a) barring commerce between citizens of Arab League countries and citizens of Israel or the Israeli government; b) barring commercial relations between anyone who does business in Israel; and c) barring commerce between Arab and companies that do business with Israel.

The latest iteration of the Arab boycott is the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against the Jewish state, which, like previous boycotts, is recognized as an antisemitic tool of discrimination against the Jews. As a result, there has been a global backlash.

Parliaments around the world have passed resolutions condemning the BDS movement as antisemitic, including the Austrian National Council, the Czech Republic parliament and the Canadian parliament, which condemned "any and all attempts by Canadian organizations, groups or individuals to promote the BDS movement, both here at home and abroad." The German parliament designated the BDS movement as antisemitic, recalling "the most terrible phase of German history," and defunded organizations that "actively support" BDS. Britain has announced plans to outlaw the BDS movement and boycott of Israel. France's National Assembly adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism that considers BDS' anti-Zionism a form of antisemitism.

Anti-boycott legislation in the US

Long before the launch of BDS in 2005, the United States had condemned the Arab League's boycott of the Jewish state as religious discrimination and legislated against it. In 1975, the US Commerce Department included language in the Export Administration Act that banned religious or racial discrimination by exporters. The 1976 Ribicoff amendment to the Tax Reform Act targeted companies that participated in the boycott from enjoying international tax benefits. In 1977, legislation was passed making it illegal for US persons (individuals and companies located in the United States and their foreign affiliates) to comply with most aspects of the Arab boycott. That legislation formed the basis for Section 8 of the Export Administration Act of 1979.

Additional legislation has since been introduced, most recently with the Combating BDS Act of 2021, to combat the BDS campaign against Israel. These include the Anti-Boycott Act of 2018 (Part II of the Export Control Reform Act) which created the Office of Antiboycott Compliance (OAC) within the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security that administrates and enforces U.S. anti-boycott regulations. And in 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.Res.246  -- "Opposing efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel and the Global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement targeting Israel."

Thirty-five US states thus far have enacted laws against the BDS movement's boycott of the Jewish state – including Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Promoters of anti-Israel boycotts denounce the resolutions that consider BDS a form of anti-Jewish bigotry to be penalized. They claim such legislation infringes upon their freedom of speech, violating their First Amendment rights under the US Constitution. They promote the movement in terms of Palestinian human rights and justice, using the pretense that the BDS campaign constitutes "non-violent" criticism of Israeli policy toward Palestinians, which is protected speech.

In fact, the violent and discriminatory nature of the movement is evidenced both by its targeting of the Jewish state alone for attack and by its leaders' and members' justification of and engagement in verbal or physical violence against Israelis, Jews, and Jewish supporters of Israel.

A recent effort to combat anti-boycott legislation in the name of the First Amendment's freedom of speech comes from Just Vision, a BDS-affiliated film team whose previous anti-Israel propaganda films include "Naila and the Uprising," "Encounter Point," "Budrus," and "My Neighborhood." Their latest film, "Boycott," takes aim at US state legislation against the anti-Jewish boycott campaign.

The heroes of the film are a lawyer from Arizona, a speech therapist from Texas, and a journalist from Arkansas who have sued their respective states over the right to freely participate in the anti-Jewish boycott without incurring any negative consequences. The film endeavors to convince viewers that while the BDS movement's discriminatory boycott is protected under the US.Constitution, attempts to boycott the boycotters are both unlawful and deplorable. Referring to "dangerous bills" that allegedly "remove the legal protection that has been awarded to boycotts for generations," the filmmakers make clear the partisan angle they take in their synopsis of the film:

"The film chronicles the courage of three Americans as they defend freedom of expression and lays bare what's at stake – our constitutionally-protected right to boycott – if they are defeated."

The New York Times

It is probably unsurprising, given The New York Times' propensity to whitewash BDS (see, for example, here, here, here and here), that the newspaper highlighted the views of Alan Leveritt, one of the film's protagonists and publisher of The Arkansas Times. Leveritt sued the State of Arkansas over its state-funded university's refusal to advertise in Leveritt's newspaper if he refused to sign a pledge not to boycott the Jewish state.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

Leveritt's column, which was published first as an online op-ed and then as a guest essay in the Sunday Review section of the newspaper, expounded on an approach taken by the film to discredit anti-boycott legislation: He suggested that opposition to BDS and anti-Jewish boycott was predicated upon the "eschatological beliefs" about "the Second Coming and Armageddon" that "conservative Evangelicals" in his state hold. By depicting support for Israel and the rejection of those who discriminate against the Jewish state as the view of a minority of religious fundamentalists, the film and Leveritt attempt to marginalize the pro-Israel perspective of a majority of Americans.

What about the anti-boycott legislation in liberal states, like California and New York? Leveritt condemns them as "trading their citizens' First Amendment rights for what looks like unconditional support for a foreign government."

Leveritt argues that "boycotts have repeatedly been used as a tool of political speech and protest" and are part of America's "founding mythology." His view and that of the filmmakers and fellow BDS activists is that legislation against BDS's anti-Jewish boycott is unconstitutional in that it "strangl[es] free speech" by "allowing government to use money to punish dissent."

There is another perspective, however, that is less aired on the pages of The New York Times. It is the view of most Americans, who reject anti-Jewish/anti-Israel boycott and support legislation against it. The last time the Times featured an op-ed presenting this position was nearly three years ago, when Florida Senator Marco Rubio defended the Combating BDS Act that he introduced with others on the Senate floor in 2019. (Unlike the pro-BDS column, the senator's viewpoint did not merit guest essay status in the Sunday Review print section, only an op-ed in the Times' web blog.) At that time, the senator pointed out that:

"While the First Amendment protects the right of individuals to free speech, it does not protect the right of entities to engage in discriminatory conduct. Moreover, state governments have the right to set contracting and investment policies, including policies that exclude companies engaged in discriminatory commercial- or investment-related conduct targeting Israel….

"…Just as United States court rulings have repeatedly affirmed that states have discretion over whether to invest or contract with a company undertaking actions at variance with their laws or policies, companies remain free to bow to radical anti-Israel interests and engage in discriminatory economic warfare against one of America's closest allies."

George Mason Law Professor Eugene Kontorovich, an expert on international law, has similarly pointed out that the First Amendment allows state governments to place conditions, like anti-discrimination restrictions, on those with whom they engage in business and hence "if states can choose to not do business with South African companies because of their politics and practices (which BDS proponents wholeheartedly support), it also means they can choose to not do business with private companies because of other discriminatory policies – like a boycott of Israel."

As he explains: "The campaign to 'boycott Israel' in reality seeks to legitimize discriminatory refusals to deal with people or companies simply because of their connection to the Jewish state. This is a legitimization of bigotry, just as boycotts of people because of their race, sexual orientation, or national origin would be discriminatory."

In order to weigh both sides of the debate about anti-Jewish boycott and understand why so many seek to combat it, one must be familiar with the boycott's history and its inherent antisemitism.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

The post BDS: The latest chapter in the sordid history of anti-Jewish boycott appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

The Times columnist justifies BDS as "the controversial campaign to make Israel pay an economic and cultural price for its treatment of the Palestinians" – a characterization that turns the tables to condemn Israel instead of the anti-Semitic campaign that denies Jews the right to self-determination in their ancestral land. Barghouti and his fellow BDS proponents have repeatedly declared that the goal of BDS is to eliminate any Jewish state. Moreover, BDS activists frequently single out Jews for bullying, using their presumed support for Israel as an excuse.

The columnist bemoans the denial of entry into the U.S. of Barghouti, who was to come for a speaking tour to promote BDS. She suggests that this is an unjust "assault on pro-Palestinian speech" and that the U.S. is hypocritical by presenting itself as a champion of free expression while denying Barghouti entry to express his legitimate political opinions.

The denial of U.S. entry to Barghouti is presumably based on Section 212(a) of the country's Immigration and Nationality Act, which declares would-be visitors inadmissible to the U.S. on various grounds, including when those foreigners' beliefs, statements, or associations are not lawful within the U.S. or when the Secretary of State believes that the foreigner's entry into the US would "compromise a compelling US foreign policy interest."

So an alien whose entry or proposed activities in the U.S. the secretary of state has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the U.S. is inadmissible.

Laws like this are typical for democratic countries, that enact such regulations to protect themselves from foreign agitators who seek to foment unrest or promote activities deemed non-conducive to the public good. (CAMERA has documented similar laws in several Western countries. See "At The NYT, seeing Israel through a jaundiced eye.")

While acknowledging that Barghouti and BDS are committed to a single, non-Jewish state, Goldberg presents this as a reasonable but debatable political perspective – "a single state in which Israeli Jews, as individuals, would have civil rights, but Jews as a people would not have national rights." By contrast, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's election promise to annex Israeli settlements in the West Bank is portrayed as a far-right, unreasonable position – "a single state where Jews rule over Arabs." She deceivingly suggests that this proposal negates the validity of any opposition to Barghouti's view of eliminating a Jewish state.

But Goldberg is setting up a false moral comparison. Netanyahu's proposition neither denies Palestinians the right to national self-determination in areas outside Jewish settlements nor compromises the civil rights of Arab citizens in a Jewish state.

It becomes apparent that Goldberg has no interest in debating the actual facts. Her column is devoted to whitewashing the BDS founder and demonizing Israel and its American ally.

On Barghouti and BDS:

"Barghouti assumed he was denied entry to the U.S. "because of his political views."

"The BDS movement doesn't engage in or promote violence. Its leaders make an effort to separate anti-Zionism from anti-Semitism…"

"Barghouti couches his opposition to Zionism in the language of humanist universalism. The official position of the BDS movement, he says, is that 'any supremacist, exclusionary state in historic Palestine – be it a 'Jewish state,' an 'Islamic state,' or a 'Christian state' – would by definition conflict with international law and basic human rights principles."

"Barghouti threatens Israel's American defenders not because he's hateful, but because he isn't."

On Israel:

"Israel has aligned itself with the global far right."

"Israel is winning the far right around the world," Barghouti said at an NYU event last week, where the journalist Peter Beinart interviewed him remotely. But, he added, "it is losing its moral stature around the world."

"American authorities," the columnist concludes, "may be able to quash this message on some college campuses, but it won't stop being true."

Goldberg's column represents just the latest salvo in a New York Times campaign designed to legitimize BDS and its proponents.

This article is reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

The post The New York Times continues campaign to legitimize BDS appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.