The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the German state of Baden-Württemberg has recently labeled the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement as anti-Semitic. As reported by The Jerusalem Post, the German domestic intelligence agency released a report on May 24th which stated that the neo-Nazi party Der Dritte Weg’s (The Third Way) calls to boycott Israeli products are a “new variation of anti-semitism: anti-Zionist anti-semitism.”

Der Dritte Weg was established in 2013 and is a minor neo-Nazi political party in Germany. According to The Jerusalem Post, the party has previously called Israel a “terror state” and the “Zionist abscess.” In 2017, Der Dritte Weg called on people to “avoid Israeli products when shopping in local supermarkets and all products manufactured by foreign companies that invest in Israel.”

The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution is believed to be the first German domestic intelligence agency to classify BDS as anti-Semitism. However, German politicians have previously been vocal about condemning BDS and declaring the movement anti-Semitic. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party passed a resolution in 2016 equating BDS to anti-Semitism. At the time, the CDU compared BDS to actions of Nazis and stated that BDS is simply a new form of anti-Semitism. In 2017, Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) passed a resolution declaring their opposition to the “anti-Semitic BDS campaign.”

The intelligence report could have important consequences by calling into question German organizations that are involved in BDS activity. The German Bank for Social Economy, for example, allegedly supports BDS accounts. The Central Welfare Board of Jews in Germany (ZWST), which is a partial owner of the German bank, has already called on the bank “to end its business relations with BDS organizations.” Other German Jewish leaders and Jewish human rights groups have also urged the bank to close accounts associated with the BDS movement.

These steps come amidst concerns of rising anti-Semitism in Germany. In 2004, the University of Bielefeld found that 27% of people fully agreed and 24% were inclined to agree that “what Israel is doing with the Palestinians is, in principle, no different than what the Nazis in the Third Reich did with the Jews.” A report published by the Research and Information Office on Anti-Semitism in Berlin indicated that in 2017, two to three anti-Semitic incidents occurred per day in the capital city. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has condemned the increase in anti-Semitism.

 

A trial date of March 4, 2019 has been set for a lawsuit brought against San Francisco State University (SFSU) by two Jewish students represented by The Lawfare Project and others. This lawsuit, which was originally filed in June of last year and re-filed on January 30, 2018, alleges that SFSU was complicit in the “intentional and discriminatory exclusion of Hillel and its members from the ‘Know Your Rights’ fair.”

This fair was intended to serve as an informational and training aid for those vulnerable populations who felt targeted in our present political climate. According to the lawsuit, Hillel was originally intended to be “excluded from participating in the fair and was only invited to the fair by accident.” After this invitation was extended, the organizers of the event then found a way to exclude Hillel from attending the fair by changing the cut-off date for student groups’ registration. The intention and result was the exclusion of “Jewish students from full and equal participation in the event.”

Furthermore, not only was Hillel precluded from attending this fair, but the SFSU administration had “direct and active involvement” in this discriminatory conduct. After the decision was made to exclude Hillel from the event, it was then sanctioned by high-ranking university officials, which, as the lawsuit claims, is “denied full and equal treatment to Plaintiffs Volk and Kern,” who were members of Hillel.

Speaking on why Hillel was excluded from the fair, one of the organizers stated, “Providing a table to Hillel, whose conduct has threatened the safety of campus Palestinians and other advocates for justice in Palestine, is akin to giving a table to ICE at a gathering of undocumented communities, or having the Ferguson Police Chief table at an event discussing police brutality against black teenagers.” This statement, in conjunction with the fact that SFSU administrators approved the decision to exclude Hillel from the fair, is indicative of, “a larger systematic pattern of discrimination against Jewish students” at SFSU. The lawsuit claims that SFSU’s conduct is a violation of California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, which requires that “government entities, including state universities, refrain from taking actions that suppress the rights of students or deprive any students of full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services based on their religion, race, ancestry, or certain other characteristics.”

With the trial date now set, SFSU may now be held accountable for their failure to provide a safe and cooperative learning environment for their students.

May brought several legislative advances in combatting anti-Semitism and BDS. Coming from different levels of government, these victories most notably include the reintroduction of the new Anti-Semitism Awareness Act in Congress, which is intended to help identify and address anti-Semitism in schools.

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