The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is calling out the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for its recent stated intent to treat campus BDS resolutions on a case by case basis.
The ZOA described the ADL’s intention of using what it termed “experts” to determine what is and what isn’t anti-Semitic as giving a “free pass to… left wing anti-Semitism.”
This summer, the ADL announced that through a partnership with Hillel International they would not always treat anti-Israel activity on college campuses as anti-Semitism.
“Anti-Israel activism in and of itself is not anti-Semitism,” an ADL spokesperson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Situations vary widely with BDS, we will carefully evaluate each one and make a determination based on our criteria for anti-Semitism.”
ZOA National President Morton Klein said in a statement that it was “deeply concerning” that the ADL is setting aside “the fact that BDS resolutions are invariably anti-Semitic.”
“ZOA has been combatting BDS resolutions on college campuses for almost two decades,” said Klein. “We’ve never seen one that wasn’t anti-Semitic. BDS resolutions single out Jews to Boycott, Divest from, and Sanction (BDS) and Delegitimize.”
Klein called the BDS movement the “very essence of anti-Semitism.”
“The Nazis’ campaign to annihilate the Jewish people began with the Nazi boycott of Jewish-owned businesses and Jewish professional offices on April 1, 1933,” he said. “Nazi Brownshirts stood outside Jewish shops and offices holding signs saying ‘Don’t Buy from Jews,’ and ‘The Jews are our misfortune.’ Back in 1896, Theodore Herzl wrote in his famous book, The Jewish State, that boycotts of Jewish businesses (‘Don’t Buy from Jews!’) were one of the types of anti-Jewish persecutions that required the existence of a Jewish State.”
He added: “BDS also relies on falsehoods about Jews and the Jewish state that reek of classic antisemitic canards – such as outrageously and falsely accusing Jews and the Jewish state of perpetrating war crimes, human rights violations, and ‘genocide.’”