But what sealed the deal in favor of BDS were Jews \u2014 in two different flavors of radicalism.<\/p>\n
Sadly, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) has become an integral part of nearly every campus-based attack on Israel, and Michigan was no exception. Jarring, though unsurprising, was the op-ed<\/a> from the University of Michigan chapter of JVP, published the day before the divestment vote, entitled \u201cTo fight white supremacy, support divestment.\u201d<\/p>\n This, of course, is a blatant lie: The creation of the State of Israel was itself a historic triumph over a white supremacist regime that sought to destroy a people it considered racially inferior.<\/p>\n What is JVP\u2019s evidence that Israel represents white supremacy? First, they charge that Jewish organizations (including my own, the American Jewish Committee) issued congratulations to President Trump after his November 2016 victory \u2014 which, as nonpartisan entities, they surely were right to do, whatever they thought of the new president. Next, they cite the odious Richard Spencer, the disreputable doyen of the alt-right, who, true to his trollish nature, heaps praise upon Israel despite his well-known disregard for Jews. Finally, they offer a litany of disputed racial incidents in Israeli history, as if Israel must be perfect to deserve to exist.<\/p>\n This rhetoric isn\u2019t limited to Michigan. At schools across the country, and off-campus as well, JVP\u2019s outspoken anti-Zionism gives cover to non-Jewish Israel-bashers and renders them immune to the charge of anti-Semitism, no matter how deserving of the label they might be.<\/p>\n The second type of radical Jew that helped ensure the BDS victory is the far-right group behind the McCarthyite blacklist at Canary Mission<\/a>. The website, launched in early 2015, announced itself with a video featuring the tagline \u201cIt is your duty to make sure that today\u2019s radicals are NOT tomorrow\u2019s<\/span> employees.\u201d The site has documented the names, affiliations and activities of a number of young anti-Israel activists at campuses across the country, holding them accountable, in perpetuity, for the ill-advised tweets from their youth, their membership in political organizations and their campus activism.<\/p>\n Some of those exposed by the site are undoubtedly Israel-haters. But by creating the specter of a blacklist, Canary Mission handed powerful ammunition to the anti-Israel crowd at Michigan. Using Canary Mission as a bogeyman, BDS proponents so scared the members of the CSG that they would end up on a shadowy website intended to make them unemployable that they took the extraordinary measure of voting by secret ballot.<\/p>\n As the Washington Post\u2019s memorable slogan puts it, \u201cDemocracy Dies in Darkness.\u201d This deeply undemocratic decision to vote in secret left the members of CSG completely unaccountable to the voters who had elected them. Thus unburdened, they voted, narrowly, to divest.<\/p>\n Now Canary Mission, in a preposterous partnership with its ideological opposites at JVP, has forced the Jewish and pro-Israel community at the University of Michigan to deal with the fallout of a successful BDS resolution.<\/p>\n Is all lost for the pro-Israel community on campus? Have we entered an era when these two oddest of Jewish bedfellows open the floodgates to widespread divestment? Hardly. The very next night, with no Jewish Voice for Peace op-ed and an open, roll-call vote, the University of Maryland <\/a>student government heartily rejected BDS.<\/p>\n (Seffi Kogen is the American Jewish Committee\u2019s director of campus affairs.)<\/em><\/p>\n![\"Share](\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\")