Joanne Bregman, a local Jewish activist and attorney who advocated for the resolution’s passage, told JNS.org that the Tennessee General Assembly’s action could serve as a template for other U.S. states to recognize the growing threats of the BDS movement and anti-Semitism. She added that the Christian-initiated bill should be a “wake-up call” for the Jewish community to be the ones “who need to fill the public information void” on BDS and anti-Semitism.

While BDS is wrong to insist on a single-state solution(neither national community could leave peacefully with the other in the same political entity at this point) the group isn't evil.

It looks like they are driven(at least the ones I've seen) by a great sense of despair-a feeling, primarily, that the arrogance and intransigence of the Netanyahu government in its insistence on expanding the illegal West Bank settlements and on perpetuating the military occupation of the West Bank(and on insisting, as Netanyahu has, that IDF troops must remain essentially forever in the Jordan Valley even after the formal Occupation ends) have made the two-state solution impossible(A Palestinian state reduced to the pitiful slivers of land not taken by the settlers would obviously not have enough territory or resources to be viable, and would never be a real country with real sovereignty if a foreign army remained on its territory forever) and believe that pushing for a single state is the only way to ever free the Palestinian people fromthe oppression they are currently subjected to.

The best way to fight the BDS challenge is to push for the removal of the West Bank settlements(none have any justification for remaining, and none serve any purpose that could possibly be more important than ending the cycle of war) to ease the material hardship and petty repression the Occupation inflicts on ALL Palestinians for the actions of the violent few, support the right of peaceful protest by Palestinians against the status quo(there are actually quite a lot of peaceful protests by Palestinians, and the IDF often treats such events almost as harshly as it does acts of violent resistance) and to acknowledge that, while violent Palestinian tactics should be condemned, Palestinian opposition to the status quo is very often based on things they have every legitimate right to be angry about-like water shortages, loss of land, destruction of the ancient Palestinian-grown olive and citrus trees(or the theft of those trees and their transplantation on the settlements) and the petty humiliations and privations inflicted on most Palestinians by the IDF on a daily basis(humiliations that are completely ineffective in either getting protecting Israeli "security" OR in getting Palestinians to accept Israel's existence.

Pretending that BDS exists for no good reason or out of pure bigoted malevolence is a useless exercise. And it can never succeed in making BDS go away.

And this type of thing usually enjoys bipartisan support.

No matter what the rationale or intentions of the BDS movement may be.

Last edited Wed Apr 22, 2015, 02:28 AM - Edit history (1)

BTW...is this the moment I should remind you that, not so long ago, same-sex marriage bans snowballed to most states and, at the time, enjoyed bipartisan support?

Bipartisan snowballing does not in and of itself make right.

Back to the Middle Ages.

Every single neighbors of Israel is stuck in medieval times where it comes to Gay rights.

Why would any self respecting Gay support going backward in time culturally more than a 100 years- WTF would risk that in a 1 state ?

Israel is the only country in that region allowing equal rights to LGBT.

BDS can get lost WTF are they to drag us backwards 200 years.

It's not fair to demand that Palestinians be kept oppressed because you don't want LGBTQ people to be oppressed. The Occupation and the settlement expansion are not good for gays and people who have been oppressed need to stand with everyone who is oppressed.

And there is never any excuse for LGBTQ people to applaud any actions by a homophobic legislature.

Did you even read my alternative proposal for how to respond to the BDS challenge?

....ruled by the PA, Hamas, or some combination of both?

A state that will be brutal against gays, christians, women, and liberals.

Yes or No?

they show your hatred all to well.

I' glad I could help you out there.

This is boring.

would have that effect on you.

...if there was any chance that extending the Occupation could ever produce a Palestinian leadership that was less, rather than more likely to do those things.

We both know, however, that that cannot happen.

Hamas is only in the position it is in now BECAUSE the Occupation has continued and because Netanyahu, the last time he was prime minister in the lat 1990's, put discrediting Arafat and removing the PLO from its leadership position ahead of working to end the conflict. Netanyahu KNEW there was no way this could lead to the rise of a better, more malleable Palestinian leadership, he knew it could only make the situation worse and more extreme, and he did it anyway. And, AFAIK, you never publicly condemned him for it.

Of course I don't want what you outline there-you know that perfectly well-but all maintaining the Occupation and obsessing over who should lead the Palestinians has achieved is to make that scenario more likely.

People aren't made more open-minded and accepting by having somebody else's soldiers swaggering through their streets like Roman centurions or Cossacks.

I asked you a while back whether you supported a unilateral withdrawal given that it would lead to certain war, probably the worst yet in the I/P conflict. You believed the risk was worth taking. And now you're saying you would support a fascist totalitarian dictatorship under Hamas rule. Neither would lead to a better situation for Palestinians.

It's striking you think this is "moral" position to take.

How is waiting it out for one Jewish state next to a Palestinian one, in genuine peace with each other......a less moral position than yours?

There is no way that continuing the Occupation can ever produce a better Palestinian leadership. All "waiting", all preserving the inherently unjust status quo can do is to give worse and worse Palestinian voices the chance to be heard. You know that nobody ever becomes MORE humane by being kept under repression longer.

There's no really good choice here, and "waiting" is not better than not waiting.

It would be different if you were advocating continuing a small troop presence(much smaller than now) just at the permiter of Palestine while easing or ending the daily collective repression and immiseration of Palestinians, while beginning settlement dismantling(you know perfectly well that all of the settlements are toxic to the situation and will have to go)and while starting a genuine reconciliation project that admits that Palestinian suffering at the hands of Israelis has been at least equal to that of Israeli suffering at the hands of Palestinians-in other words, if you were to advocate the South African path-and if you were to admit, finally that Palestinian resistance, whatever anyone might say about the tactics involved, is based on legitimate grievances and not irrational hatred.

But you don't advocate that-you think it's possible to make Palestinians get kinder to Israelis by keeping them under the IDF bootheel. How can you possibly believe that doing that can cause anything on the Palestinian side to become more to you liking? How can you possibly think you can persecute a people into greater kindness?

Your problem is that you still assume that the Palestinians have nothing to be angry about and are doing what they do for no reason-and that resolving the situation means getting the Palestinians to admit that their entire narrative is bullshit and that they were totally wrong. Please, tell me why you would believe anything remotely like that...given that that is the conclusion that anyone would have to draw from everything you have ever posted on the subject?

You can't blame Israelis for not wanting to risk a war that could very well lead to thousands of Israelis killed.

Israel offered several credible offers for a Palestinian state. The Palestinians refused w/o making a counter-proposal, and worse they went to war instead.

Israel tried unilateral withdrawals from both Lebanon and Gaza. That led to wars.

What's next? You know Einstein's definition of insanity, right?

=========

When do u start blaming the Palestinians for not wanting to honestly negotiate a peaceful 2 state solution?

It's not Bibi preventing peace. It's not a rightwing nation electing him to office. He got 25% of the vote.

You HAVE to be able to convince the Israeli public that doing another Lebanon or Gaza is in their best interests, and that if thousands of Israelis die as a result - that's the way it has to be. Oh well...

Good luck with that.

==============

My take is that EVEN IF Israel does everything you say they should do - no excuses - the war that would result against Israel after they pull completely out of the W.Bank would force them to RE-TAKE the W.Bank again in order to prevent more senseless Ken-Burch style bloodshed in the future. We'd all be back to square one - current situation.

So why go with your insane plan?

If there was any reason to think that waiting would make a positive difference.

The history of this dispute proves that waiting only makes things worse.

The Israeli government waited through the late Seventies, all of the Eighties and part of the Nineties before tey even tried negotiating with the PLO. At the same time they kept trying to build up Hamas as an alternative leadership to the PLO, and by the time they did, half-heartedly, try negotiations in the mid-Nineties, Arafat was too weak to make a deal stick.

If the status quo is preserved(and the status quo is far closer to Einstein's definition of insanity, because it is driven by the delusion that the Palestinians can be made to change if only the Israelis are totally unchanging in their tactics) no positive change is possible on the Palestinian side. And that is because the Israeli position is still predicated on the belief that not only is nothing the Palestinians do ever justified(even the huge number of nonviolent protests the media doesn't cover in the West) but nothing they feel is ever legitimate or valid.

How about trying to reach the Palestinian public? How about acknowledging the validity of their feelings and the justification of their anger regarding both the tactics of the IDF and the land seizures? How about admittimg that at least some, at least SOME of their suffering in this conflict was undeserved, that innocent people have been hurt and killled im their co,munity as is yje case with the community you align yourself with? And how about accepting the fact that they have just as many reasons to fear and distrust leaders on the Israeli side as Israelis have to feel fear and distrust about the Palestinian side?

You end long-running wars like this (especially wars in which military victory by either side is totally impossible)by not only negotiation, but empathy towards the other side. Israelis want Palestinians and other Arabs to acknowledge the history of persecution and suffering Jews experienced in Christian Europe that drove the creation of that state Fine. They should. Equally, Israelis should acknowledge the persecution and oppression that the creation of that state, justified as it was and is, visited on the Arabs of Palestine, a group that was blameless in the Holocaust. The Palestinians have been made to suffer, for 67 years now in some cases and since 1967 in virtually all)for other people's crimes-have taken the brunt of t he rage that should have been directed solely at Christian Europe(for colluding with Hitler)and North America(for barring the door to the refugees in their most desperate hour of need. The state was and is needed, but the Palestinians never deserved that treatment.

Where did you get the notion that those who promote BDS also want to see the creation of a society that promotes conservative values and beliefs? BDS has absolutely nothing to do with the promotion of sharia law and everything to do with simply forcing Israel to FINALLY admit that a great injustice was done to the indigenous population of Palestine in order to see the creation of a Jewish state in an area of the world that had long been settled, farmed, or used as pasture by the dominant Arab population whose families had lived in Palestine for centuries unbroken....millennia even!
You see, the thing is, when Herzl came up with the notion of sending European Jews to Palestine where they would take possession of it one way or another whether the "Muzzies" living there liked it or not, the notion that white Europeans not only have a right to colonize lands where "lesser" people already live, but they believed they had a duty to save Asians, Africans, Indians (west and east) from their pagan beliefs and superstitious ways. The early Zionists were European born, raised and educated. As such they had few if any qualms about using whatever force was necessary to take the best land in Palestine for their own should the Arabs already there refuse to sell or simply abandon it to them. That was just the way it was prior to WW2.
Unfortunately for the Zionists however, the very attitude they were depending on to allow them to colonize Palestine was exposed as the type of thing that the world could no longer accept from its national leaders. What began as a perfectly moral idea by turn-of-the-century European standards had become --- by the end of WW2 and the stunning revelations heard at the Nuremberg Trials -- behavior the world had redefined as "war crimes". So what else could the Zionists do other than lie? Unless they all wanted to go back to Europe or the Soviet Union, it was necessary to try to present the Muslims as the aggressor and themselves as the peace-loving farmers who had survived Auschwitz only to be attacked by Muslim terrorists who wanted to finish what Hitler couldn't. Which is precisely what they did along with a helping hand from the New York Times owner/editors, the pro-Zionist Sulzberger Family, already busy tilting reports on the Palestinian/Zionist conflict with pro-Zionist, anti-Arab bias. A prime example of how Americans came to believe the reverse of the truth can be seen in the way a 1948 LTE, sent by A. Einstein, Hannah Arendt +26 other high profile Jewish Americans, writing a letter warning the public about the true nature of an Israeli politician then in America soliciting funds to take back to the new nation of Israel. Despite the author being possibly the most popular man in the world at that time, the editor/owners of the NYTimes buried it away in a back section, undoubtedly because it contained a description of an Israeli politician as a "pre-war fascist", "terrorist leader", "brutal thug" and "a killer". That politician happened to be Menachem Begin, future PM of Israel, and founder of Likud, the far-right political party that Netanyahu belongs to..... a party that never would have even been founded had the NYTimes done its job and not reversed the facts about who the aggressor has been over there.

Anyhow....!! Yes I grew up believing the Israelis were the good guys, the victims who had suffered so terribly under the Nazis, and who because of that could NEVER be the aggressors against Palestinians or anyone not threatening them first. But as I grew up I began to sense something was missing in the chronology I had heard regarding Israel's founding and subsequent hostilities with the Arabs. Along came the internet, access to source materiel and scholarly papers often written by Jews themselves that show without question how deeply distorted our understanding of the issue has become here in N. America.

So it's time you all took another look at it as well.

With their desire to create a single state solution or even RoR ,it will drag Gay rights to pre medieval times as it will be a state like any other bigoted homophobic gay killing state in that area.

Why would Gays agree to be stripped of all the equal rights now afforded them in Israel.

Never

....in Gaza or the W.Bank. For that matter, they don't advocate for christians, women, or the children there used as militants and human shields. They'd argue that's doing Israel's hasbara & that's why they do nothing. They don't care.

If that's not support for such oppressive & disgusting policies, then what the hell is it?

of 28 Republicans and 5 Democrats the House of Representatives is composed of 73 Republicans and 26 Democrats

State Representative G.A. Hardaway is one of the 26 Democrats

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Senate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_House_of_Representatives

Tennessee: Lawmakers Pass New Rules for Abortion Clinics

Legislation that would place licensing restrictions on all seven of Tennessee’s abortion clinics was overwhelmingly approved by state lawmakers Tuesday and sent to Gov. Bill Haslam, who is expected to sign them into law. Under the measure, facilities or physician offices would have to be licensed as ambulatory surgical treatment centers if they perform more than 50 abortions in a year. All of the state’s clinics fall into that category.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/22/us/tennessee-lawmakers-pass-new-rules-for-abortion-clinics.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141073635

I was always taught that you are known by your friends.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/15/tennessee-bible-state-book_n_7072746.html

in fact...why would you applaud a GOP controlled state that has passed a rather unfriendly bill against the LGBTQ community?

Some friends you have there, dave.

He doesn't get it that this isn't a situation where any "side" can actually defeat any other side-that the only way to end this is negotiations and then a long-term reconciliation program between Palestinians and Israeli Jews in which each side admits the other side has also has suffered too and that both sides have equal legitimacy, equal historic connection to the land, andd an equal right to live on the land in question, no matter how and where border lines are drawn-that only then will Likud and Hamas, the twin parties of death, hatred and misery, wither away and vanish from the scene.

This is a typical problem in long-term wars of attrition between competing nationalist movements-it is easy to get addicted to fighting for fighting's sake...to war as a kind of sport. Happened with the US and the USSR in the old Cold War days-and I suspect our leaders goaded post-Soviet Russia into elevating someone like Putin into power because they didn't want to let go of the idea that our country and the Russians HAD to be rivals.

Pretty sure that goes for the person to whom you are replying as well.

It's not "all I care about".

just because he has a disagreement with said organization.

What is the point of treating BDS as if the group isn't just taking a view you oppose, but as if the group was actually evil?

And what would you say about the alternative response to BDS I suggested above?

The want to abolish Gsy rights completely and drag us culturally backwards where gays are pushed off buildings like ISIS does now .

Hamas and the way they treat Gsys is the perfect example of what would be in store if BDS got their way.

and perhaos you missed it, once again, but the body you are applauding hates the LGBTQ community.

They are the ones who are passing legislation against you and not BDS as you complain about.

Talk about being dishonest, dave. You really stepped in it, and now you want to tapdance in it as well?

Gaza or West Bank that affords Gay rights to its LGBT ? In Gaza the Gays are lucky to live they that hateful towards Gays.

And BDS wants to create this kind of state where Israel is and drag Gay rights from full to Stone Age?

No thank you

you just fell on your face with more rubbish.

Foolish is no way for you to stumble through I/P, dave.

In fact there's a good chance a Gay person would be murdered especially in Gaza.

BDS goal is to recreate such a state in place of Israel especially with their goal of RoR.

Why would any LGBT take that chance of being blown back to Gay-primitive as it is in Palestine today?

WTF are they to tell the Gays that they should accept being blown so far back to cultural Stone Age for Gays as it currently is in Palestine, especially Gaza.

is your stumbling left and right: looking for an exit.

You're busted.

On same level as IS, Uganda, Iran.

That's not debatable.

Homosexuality is illegal in the Gaza Strip

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_Palestinian_territories

In fact there's a good chance of state sponsored murder of a person who is gay.

Why would any LGBT support the export of such hate?

Good luck on that one.

We both know where BDS stands and it's certainly not with the gays, women, or children of Gaza under Hamas' brutal oppression.

if you stomped your feet first for effect.

The onus is on dave to put up.

now it does engage in the rights of all Palestinians regardless of sexual or gender orientation, now if can show how Israeli's occupation supports the rights LGBTQ Palestinians it would be refreshing

n/t.

Going back to the two-state solution, besides having passed its expiry date, it was never a moral solution to start with.”
-Omar Bargouti
Founder, Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel

And again, if you don't support a single state(as I don't), the answer isn't to demonize those who do-doing that achieves nothing-it's to openly and publicly call for the Israeli government to stop trying to make a 2-state solution impossible.

Most people who want a single state don't want it out of bigotry-they want it because they believe there is no longer hope for a 2-state approach. And the reason that hope for a 2-state plan is vanishing is that Netanyahu cares more about crushing and humiliating the Palestinian people than he ever did about giving his own country a future free from war-remember, this is a man whose political party can only survive if Israel remains forever in or on the verge of war-real peacewould wipe Likud(and its mirror image party on the Palestinian side, Hamas) off of the political map once and for all.

Is a trip back to medieval times.

it would be the end of a democratic secular Israel. That is why BDS supports it.

Going back to the two-state solution, besides having passed its expiry date, it was never a moral solution to start with.”
-Omar Bargouti
Founder, Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel

but cling to what ever you need to

They support the single-state solution because Likud is doing all it can to prevent a two-state solution from ever happening.
They're acting out of despair, not bigotry. You fight despair-based choices by working to revive hope-NOT be vilifying people for believing all hope is gone.

BDS are not evil...and in defending the Occupation and the settlement, you feed the despair that has driven them to support a choice you disagree with.

If you want the communities you are part of to be free from oppression, you have to fight against any community being oppressed. No one can be truly free while others are chained down.

The Occupation is just as unjust as the persecution of LGBTQ people and Jews. All oppression is equally wrong.

Going back to the two-state solution, besides having passed its expiry date, it was never a moral solution to start with.”
-Omar Bargouti
Founder, Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel

( and he's a real Palestinian leader not some Anerican armchair activist)

it seems to pain you that they are not what you seem to need them to be BTW Omar Bargouti is one of the founders not THE founder as you claim

Going back to the two-state solution, besides having passed its expiry date, it was never a moral solution to start with.”
-Omar Bargouti
Founder, Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel

couldn't be something like it dates back to 2004 before the beginning of the BDS movement, could it? BDS is a global movement these days you do understand that right?
and once again Bargouti who seems to be the fav-o-rite of the 'pro'Israel community is only one of the founders

that are compatible to those of the Democratic Party. I think you see them as useful idiots, or do you secretly agree with their homophobia, bible thumping, misogyny, and the rest of their medieval values?

After their version of full RoR ends Jewish self-determination, with Hamas and the PA assuming rule....there goes all civil rights.

How can you support that?

My issue isn’t with the legislation being pro or anti BDS, it’s the simple fact that that it’s from Tennessee, where all the other legislation is dross. It seems unreasonable that when the Tennesseean legislature has displayed medieval values in all other cases, that this one case it should be the opposite. I don’t believe for one second that this legislation promotes liberal values.

Pro-Israel doesn’t mean pro-dumb, you know.

I doubt you can find one elected Democratic official from Congress on up who supports it.

Over and out.

Last edited Thu Apr 23, 2015, 09:05 PM - Edit history (1)

Bigotry in Palestine suddenly are defenders of Gay rights.


Coming from you it's hilarious and pathetically sad.

Seeing how YOU are the one embracing a republican body known for its hatred of the LGBTQ community.

I understand how you could intentionally miss that.

Back to the Middle Ages.

Every single neighbors of Israel is stuck in medieval times where it comes to Gay rights.

Why would any self respecting Gay support going backward in time culturally more than a 100 years- WTF would risk that in a 1 state ?

Israel is the only country in that region allowing equal rights to LGBT.

BDS can get lost WTF are they to drag us backwards 200 years.

When you find the truth ket us know.

Last edited Wed Apr 22, 2015, 04:59 PM - Edit history (1)

WTF would any Gay dude agree to allow Them to strip them of their hard earned rights as a 1 state or RoR surely would.

WTF do you think you are telling Gays they should accept returning to discrimination and medieval Gay times such as is found in Gaza and Ramallah?

Why would any self-proclaimed gay, Jewish Democratic dude hitch his wagon to Tennessee republicans that without a doubt hate his ass?



Keep doubling down, king dave.
You are starting to remind me of somebody on time out in your refusal to see reality.

Exhibit far worse hate than any group in the USA towards Gays .

BDS wants all of Israel and Palestine to be one state.

Do you realize how dangerous it is for Gays in Palestine today ?

How culturally backwards Palestine is today when it comes to Gay rights?

You're thinking it's bad for Gays in Tennessee who are 50 years behind California or NYC...

Tennessee is at least 500 years Gay- culturally advanced than Palestine currently is.

Now either show me some links where you claim BDS is anti-LBGTQ, real links where it is in their platform, or admit that you have made 2 huge blunders: making false claims and praising Tennessee GOPigs that you know hate you fir what you are.

You're really inexperienced... out if your depth to praise Republicans, dave.

Disgusting. And you call yourself a Democrat????

Last edited Thu Apr 23, 2015, 02:02 AM - Edit history (1)

....BDS prefers a totalitarian Hamastan in place of a liberal democracy that protects minority rights.

I challenge you to argue otherwise, with links.

in the OP.

Let me spell it out... the LGBTQ hating GOP in Tennessee.

Don't you feel the least bit embarrassed defending this glop?

....with a totalitarian regime that would brutally oppress gays, women, christians, jews, etc..

That makes them better than BDS.

Supporting a western democracy over a totalitarian one is a no-brainer. It's shameful BDS'ers prefer a Hamastan to liberal Israel.

where you come from.

I'm sure that you must be happy embracing the Tennessee GOP as well. Strange that supposed Democrats feel comfortable talking about that on DU...

...then they make a helluva lot more sense than BDS'ers.

Again, for the record:

You support a 1-state Hamastan over a western liberal democratic Israel......correct?

Or will you evade this and run?

of the Republican Tennessee legislature, the LGBTQ-hating legislature, the bible is the official book legislature, the everything backwards legislature, the footfalls if hamas legislature. I'm not sure I would be so proud of your endorsement, shira, of guys in the USA that want to act like the guys you hate in Gaza.

Boy, do you like stepping in it.

Don't you?

Well?

LOL

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/bds-the-bigoted-movement-sweeping-the-united-states/

Your article is a whitewash attempt .

It's not valid.

Here's what the founder of the BDS movement says :

Going back to the two-state solution, besides having passed its expiry date, it was never a moral solution to start with.”
-Omar Bargouti
Founder, Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel

literally a 15 year old named Benjamin Gerstein here's his self description

Last edited Wed Apr 22, 2015, 09:58 PM - Edit history (1)

....puts Jews into the minority within Israel and thus ends the Jewish state. And being that at most 10% of Palestinians support a secular liberal democracy - the vast majority support a state based on Sharia law - that state would become extremely oppressive like the rest of the middle east neighborhood.

A Palestinian state next to another Palestinian state.

Palestinians gain self-determination while Jews lose it.

Both must be freed of all oppression.

You're not going to spread gay rights in the Middle East by maintaining the status quo in the West Bank.

To do that, a secular democratic movement totally independent of any outside power's geopolitical objectives would be needed-one that emerges locally, does not depend on outside military intervention, and is controlled exclusively by people of the region. And yes, that is a daunting task, but nothing else will work. People in the West wagging their fingers and shaking their fists at the Arab/Muslim world will always just end up inadvertently screwing things up and their rhetoric will always read as meddling imperial arrogance.

It's crucial to take the LGBTQ issue out of the I/P debate, because inserting it there doesn't help gay Palestinians or gay Israelis.

And BDS supporters in the U.S. need education, not demonization. They aren't this year's Bund, for god's sakes.

It's not as if the place would be a secular gay-friendly democracy if only the West invaded and overthrew the current regime.