Alyza Lewin - Brandeis Center

Israel exists —no kudos to people who think acknowledging its existence is a major concession. Few question the legitimacy of the ten new countries created in the last 20 years or the tens of countries created in the decades before. That Israel is a Jewish state is bizarrely controversial when 30 countries proclaim Islam as their state or official religion and 19 countries are Christian. And Israel does not need to prove itself error free or offer to commit existential suicide either. But the BDS movement, a variant of the Arab Boycott of earlier decades, relies on historical ignorance and misinformation which internet searching does not remedy. We must reclaim Israel’s history from those who would distort, defame or destroy it. Here follows a short guide to the creation and legal status of Israel.

If ever a country was midwifed by legal and international norms it was Israel. The creation of Israel was approved by United Nations Resolution 181 in November 1947. That resolution envisioned the creation of two states, a smaller Jewish state and an larger Arab state. Jerusalem was to be an international city. The Jewish community accepted the partition; the Arab leadership rejected it and vowed to oppose by force any Jewish state.

Israel declared its independence on May 15, 1948 and immediately faced five Arab armies and Arab violence from within the Israeli state borders. Notwithstanding overwhelming odds, Israeli army’s proved victorious. During 1949 Israel signed a series of armistice agreements with Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. A year earlier, with little fanfare or international condemnation, Jordan unilaterally occupied the West Bank and banned Jewish access to the Old City of Jerusalem, site of the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism.

During this period, the Egyptian government built the refugee camps in Gaza since Egypt, like the other Arab countries surrounding Israel excepting Jordan, refused to give citizenship to the Arabs who had fled Israel, many through their own choice. Instead the ostracized Palestinian refugees served a mighty purpose by distracting other Arab domestic populations from their own nations’ failures. The refugees were and continue to be supported by the United Nations, receiving more international aid than any other ethnic group.[i]

Approximately 1,000,000 Jews from Arab countries, who were mercilessly despoiled and expelled, after 1948 were granted Israeli citizenship and today their descendents form nearly half of the population of Israel. (This number is about thirty percent higher than the number of Arab refugees who left, mostly voluntarily.)

In 1967 Israel again fought Arab armies. Israel rapidly swept away Jordanian, Syrian and Egyptian forces and occupied the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights and the West Bank. The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 242, which requires the:

( i) Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict; [and]

(ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.[ii]

In other words, Israel would withdraw from occupied territories in return for Palestinian and Arab state legal recognition of the state of Israel’s right to live peacefully within safe and internationally recognized borders.

Crucially, the Resolution does not say “all territories” but simply “territories” because of the general understanding that certain territorial adjustments would be made to give Israel its “secure” borders. Furthermore, Israel was to remain in legal occupation of the territories until the peace demarcated in Resolution 242 emerged. . Unlike Jordan, Israel permitted access by Arabs to the holy sites in the Old City of Jerusalem.

The hope of a majority of Israelis, that the Palestinians and their Arab state sponsors would be willing to trade land for peace, proved illusory. In October 1973 Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon again attacked Israel. At the war’s end, which produced no territorial change, the United Nations passed Resolution 338 which reiterated that Resolution 242 was to be the basis for a permanent settlement. Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1979 and Israel returned the Sinai peninsula to Egypt. Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty fifteen years later. (more…)

Last week the British government issued guidance banning local government and public sector Boycott Divestment and Sanction (BDS) actions toward any country not blacklisted by the Foreign Office. The Canadian Parliament passed a motion calling on the Canadian government to “condemn any and all attempts by Canadian organizations, groups or individuals to promote the BDS movement, both here at home and abroad.” …… Seven U.S. states have now passed laws condemning or forbidding BDS- type actions. Building on these victories, the anti-Semitic by another name BDS movement may yet be defeated.

The Counter BDS (“Counter BDS”) forces are garnering significant legislative victories. The British ban stands out for several reasons. As Britain is Israel’s fourth largest trading partner, the guidance protects an important economic relationship. The British government’s directive makes clear that this decision is mandated by international treaty, in this case, the World Trade Organization Government Procurement Agreement, which requires that all signatories treat partner governments equally. As an European Union member (if only for the moment), Britain’s directive may embolden other EU members into adopting a similar policy.
Emphasizing the illegality of a British public sector boycott of Israel is something Counter BDS groups need to follow. For over a decade BDS advocates have wrapped themselves up in humanitarian and legal disguises which permits them to take a 1984 -Newspeak moral high ground. By pointing out the fallacy of BDS pronouncements, the British government has demonstrated the illegitimacy of many anti-Israel BDS arguments. Moreover local councils are never elected because of their foreign policy platforms and to say that they have the democratic power to make such decisions is a Bolshevik/Hard Left argument which one hoped had disappeared in the last century.
The Canadian parliamentary resolution is important for different reasons. It attacks the moral basis of the BDS movement when it urges the Canadian government to condemn BDS actions. Counter BDS needs to regain the moral legitimacy BDS has stolen. Look at the statement of the Reverend James Moos, speaking for the United Church of Christ, a Protestant denomination in the USA, which voted in favor of an Israeli divestment resolution last June 2015: “The United Church of Christ condemns all forms of violence and anti-Semitism, and affirms Israel’s right to exist within secure and internationally recognized borders…. “We similarly assert the right of Palestinians to have a sovereign, independent and viable state within secure and recognized borders.” Moos speaks as if Israel has rejected Palestinian overtures for peace in order to launch attacks on its peaceful neighbor. In reality, Israel is the legal occupier of the territories until the Palestinians come to the peace table and recognize the right of Israel to exist, something no Palestinian leader has ever agreed to in Arabic.

The state legislature laws are a significant US victory for Counter BDS. Illinois’ new law stops the state’s pension funds from investing in companies that boycott Israel. Similarly, the South Carolina legislature has passed legislation banning the state from entering into contracts with companies that participate in political boycotts generally. Tennessee’s General Assembly and New York’s State’s Assembly condemned BDS.
The U.S. Congress has taken action, including anti-BDS language in the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015. While President Obama opposed some of them in a signing statement, his words have no legal effect and can clearly be disregarded by the next president. Meanwhile, Senators Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Representatives Robert Dold (R-IL) and Juan Vargas (D-CA) introduced the “Combating BDS Act of 2016” (S.2531 and H.R.4514), bills “which seek to authorize state and local governments to divest assets from and prohibit investment in any entity that ‘engages in a commerce or investment-related boycott, divestment or sanctions activity targeting Israel.’” As a leading BDS advocate says, this bill is dangerous because: “First, they seek to proactively prevent the doctrine of preemption from being employed in the future to invalidate state-level anti-BDS laws. This doctrine holds that federal law takes precedence over state law when the two are in conflict. By passing the Combating BDS Act, Congress would align federal law with emerging state law to prevent this potential conflict from arising in the future. Second, the bills attempt to immunize state and local governments from legal challenges by corporations which may be harmed by state divestment.”
Counter BDS now has a strong base on which to build. These laws stop anti-Israel economic boycotts (reinforcing explicit decades- long U.S. policy), de-legitimize BDS’s attempt to delegitimize Israel and also assist Counter BDS in its fight to prevent new BDS resolutions on college campuses and in other venues as well.

What a week it has been for Jerusalem. The President of the United States arrived, transformed the King David Hotel into his (and his entourage’s) home away from home, and then began a series of meetings and visits – to the official residences of President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, to the Israel Museum and the Shrine of the Book, to the Jerusalem Convention Center, to Mount Herzl, Yad Vashem, and to the grave of former Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin. All of these sites are in Jerusalem. But are they in Israel?

According to the U.S. State Department they are not. The State Department refuses to recognize Jerusalem as being in Israel and says that the city’s status must be determined in future peace negotiations.

My father, Nathan Lewin, and I were in court this week – the day before President Obama arrived in the Middle East – on a case that concerns this very issue. The case is Zivotofsky v. Secretary of State, and it involves the right of a Jerusalem-born American citizen to self-identify as born in “Israel” on his or her U.S. passport and birth certificate. (more…)

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Amicus Brief in Support of Texas Anti-BDS Law

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By Melissa White ~ August 7, 2020

Jewish Insider

The student government vice president at the University of Southern California resigned this week, alleging she was the subject of antisemitic harassment over her support for Israel. In response, the university administration said it is launching a new educational initiative to counter on-campus hate.

“As you may know, our Vice President of Undergraduate Student Government, Rose Ritch, resigned yesterday from her position in student government,” wrote USC President Carol Folt in a letter sent Thursday evening. “In her heartbreaking resignation letter, Rose described the intense pressure and toxic conditions that led to her decision — specifically the anti-Semitic attacks on her character and the online harassment she endured because of her Jewish and Zionist identities.”

In the statement, Folt announced the launch of a new initiative by the USC Shoah Foundation to provide educational programs and antiracist and anti-hate for-credit courses.

A letter sent to university administrators last month by the Louis D. Brandeis Center detailed the online harassment faced by Ritch, a rising senior, and other students.

LDB Letter to President Fol… by Jacob Kornbluh on Scribd

Ritch told JI in an interview that she first faced blowback from other students due to her support for Israel during her campaign for student government vice president earlier this year. She said the online harassment began in late June after several other members of the student government came under fire over past inappropriate comments.

“From there, it just kind of greenlighted a lot of students to say some pretty horrific things on social media messages, text messages,” Ritch told JI. “Most of it was entirely isolated onto Instagram, a little bit on Twitter as well.”

“It’s a very different time we’re living in — with everything, really, our entire social interaction being constricted to being online,” she continued. “People in general feel safer behind a screen. It’s different interacting with a person face-to-face versus just digitally online. You can’t have a conversation retweeting or in the Instagram comments.”

In a series of messages in one Instagram screenshot included in the Brandeis Center’s complaint to the university, a resident assistant on USC’s campus, Shaden Awad, wrote: “Even if all the orgs on campus that r Jewish r also Zionist That’s not an excuse For you to join That’s still blood on ur hands.”

Awad did not respond to a request for comment.

In her statement of resignation Wednesday night, Ritch listed “cancel culture” and a campus environment that made it inhospitable for a pro-Israel student leader to hold office.

In the memo, Ritch alleged that she was the subject of a social media campaign led by students seeking her impeachment from USC’s student government. “Because I also openly identify as a Zionist, a supporter of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, I have been accused by a group of students of being unsuitable as a student leader,” the statement read. “I have been told that my support for Israel has made me complicit in racism, and that, by association, I am racist.”

During the campaign, Ritch was asked during a debate how her affiliation with Trojans for Israel, an activist group on campus, would affect her ability to govern. The question was, she said, “essentially asking, ‘how can I be an effective leader and representative for all students with my not hidden, my very blatant support of Israel with this growing BDS and the discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.’ So that was something I was also asked about, which was very interesting to be the only candidate on that stage getting asked about how their identities may affect their ability to govern.”

The situation mirrors a 2015 incident at the University of California, Los Angeles, when student Rachel Beyda was asked by a student council member how Beyda, then a candidate for the school’s judicial board, would be “able to maintain an unbiased view” given her activity in the Jewish community. Beyda’s nomination was first voted down before a faculty member intervened; she was then unanimously voted onto the board.

Ritch said the events differed slightly — Beyda, she noted, was asked explicitly how her Judaism would impact her votes. In Ritch’s case, she said, “There never was an explicit like, ‘dirty Jew,’ like anyone ever invoking even the word ‘Jew.’ It was all under that kind of cloak of anti-Zionism.”

Ritch acknowledged that her situation was not unique. In her statement, she wrote: “The sad reality is that my story is not uncommon on college campuses. Across the country, Zionist students are being asked to disavow their identities or beliefs to enter many spaces on their campuses.”

The university’s statement also addressed growing antisemitism on college campuses. “Despite the significant progress we have made in cultivating and supporting a vibrant Jewish community on campus, we still wrestle with a history of anti-Semitism at USC,” the statement read. “Over the last several years, incidents of anti-Semitism in American higher education have dramatically increased, and anti-Semitic attacks remain the most common religiously motivated hate crime in the United States.”

In November, a bathroom at the university was defaced with antisemitic graffiti that included a swastika and the message, “Holocaust is a lie says the liar with a nose bigger than any Jews.” In March 2016, USC printers were hacked with Daily Stormer flyers featuring swastikas and antisemitic language.

Ritch told JI that until recently, the campus had been relatively quiet. “It’s just been people expressing their views and us expressing our views and that’s what it’s been. It’s been very civil and that’s what it’s been quite frankly my entire time here at USC,” she said.

“You know, I never thought my belief in the existence of the State of Israel would ever put me in this position.”

Ritch Resignation Letter by Jacob Kornbluh on Scribd