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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element" dir="ltr"> <font
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href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/un-report-gives-israel-free-hand-smear-bds-movement">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/un-report-gives-israel-free-hand-smear-bds-movement</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">UN report gives Israel free hand to
smear BDS movement</h1>
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<div class="reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr"
style="text-align: left;">October 1, 2019<br>
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<figure id="file-84806"><source media="(min-width:
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<p>A new report by a United Nations expert gives Israel
and its lobby carte blanche to smear the movement for
Palestinian rights as anti-Semitic.</p>
<p><a
href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/freedomreligion/pages/freedomreligionindex.aspx">Ahmed
Shaheed</a>, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of
religion or belief, <a
href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Religion/A_74_47921ADV.pdf">issued
the report</a> ostensibly focused on anti-Semitism
in late September.</p>
<p>It adopts a controversial definition of anti-Semitism
which is being promoted by Israel and its lobby
groups.</p>
<p>Human rights defenders have long warned that the
so-called <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/ihra-definition-anti-semitism">IHRA
definition</a> conflates criticism of Israel and its
state ideology Zionism, on the one hand, with
anti-Jewish bigotry, on the other.</p>
<p>Shaheed’s report acknowledges that critics of the
definition are concerned that “it can be applied in
ways that could effectively restrict legitimate
political expression,” including criticism of Israel’s
violations of Palestinian rights.</p>
<p>He therefore advises that the definition be used “as
a non-legal educational tool” to minimize such
“chilling effects.”</p>
<p>Shaheed also warns government bodies that use the
definition in a “regulatory context” to exercise “due
diligence” to ensure that freedom of expression is
protected.</p>
<p>He pushes back gently against efforts to outlaw BDS –
the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for
Palestinian rights.</p>
<p>Without necessarily endorsing them, Shaheed gives
space to Israel lobby claims that the goals of the BDS
movement – freedom, equality and justice for
Palestinians – are “fundamentally anti-Semitic.”</p>
<p>He ultimately concedes that “international law
recognizes boycotts as constituting legitimate forms
of political expression, and that nonviolent
expressions of support for boycotts are, as a general
matter, legitimate speech that should be protected.”</p>
<h2>Violating his own warnings</h2>
<p>But in his report, Shaheed ignores his own warnings,
giving broad credence to Israel’s efforts to redefine
advocacy for Palestinian equality as anti-Semitism.</p>
<p>For example, while discussing the BDS movement, he
asserts that expression which “rejects the right of
Israel to exist, or advocates discrimination against
Jewish individuals because of their religion should be
condemned.”</p>
<p>The BDS movement already <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-boycott-part-global-anti-racist-struggle">explicitly
condemns</a> discrimination against Jews for being
Jews, as it rejects all forms of racism.</p>
<p>But Shaheed lumping anti-Jewish bigotry together with
the questioning of Israel’s political claim that it
has a “right to exist” is part of his report’s broader
agenda to muddy the waters.</p>
<p>This is clear where he attacks what he brands as
“left-wing anti-Semitism.”</p>
<p>Shaheed claims that in some cases so-called left-wing
anti-Semites have “conflated Zionism, the
self-determination movement of the Jewish people, with
racism; claimed Israel does not have a right to exist;
and accused those expressing concern over
anti-Semitism as acting in bad faith.”</p>
<p>Shaheed makes these assertions as if they are
uncontroversial statements, but each contains a highly
contested political claim frequently made by Israel
and its lobby.</p>
<h2>Shutting down debate</h2>
<p>Firstly, as Columbia University scholar Joseph Massad
has <a
href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190618-the-core-of-zionism-is-settler-colonialism-not-democracy/">explained</a>,
the claim that Zionism is the self-determination
movement of the Jewish people is a recent invention
dating back to the 1960s and 1970s.</p>
<p>Massad notes that historically, Zionism always
defined itself as a settler-colonial movement. It
rebranded itself as a movement for “national
liberation” and self-determination only in the
post-colonial era.</p>
<p>Secondly, the notion that Israel as a state has an
abstract “right to exist” flies in the face of basic
precepts of democracy and international law. Israel
has no more “right to exist” than, say, East Germany
or the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>East Germany ceased to exist in 1990, with German
reunification. No one argues that East Germany has
some abstract right to resurrect itself whether the
people of Germany want that or not.</p>
<p>Similarly, the United Kingdom has existed for
centuries, but not even the leaders of the British
state argue that it has an abstract right to continue
to exist forever against the wishes of its constituent
peoples.</p>
<p>That is why Scotland was able to hold a <a
href="https://www.bbc.com/news/events/scotland-decides/results">referendum</a>
on independence in 2014 and is likely to hold <a
href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/second-referendum-scottish-independence">another
one</a> in the future.</p>
<p>It is also why the British state recognizes that the
people of Northern Ireland, currently part of the UK,
have a <a
href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/irish-reunification">right
to vote in a referendum</a> to join a united
Ireland.</p>
<p>This is because <a
href="https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/reclaiming-self-determination/">self-determination
belongs to the legitimate residents</a> of a
territory: States do not have a “right to exist.”</p>
<p>Rather, a people legitimately living in a territory
has a right to constitute the entity that rules it.</p>
<p>Colonial settlers who invade and occupy that
territory, driving out or subjugating its legitimate
residents, cannot legitimize their own presence simply
by rebranding their invasion as “self-determination”
for the settlers, as Israel is attempting to do.</p>
<p>A more specific Israeli claim is that Israel has a
“right to exist <em>as a Jewish state</em>” – in
effect that it has a right to maintain a Jewish
demographic majority.</p>
<p>That majority was violently engineered by inherently
illegitimate means: the ethnic cleansing of 800,000
Palestinians by Zionist militias in 1948.</p>
<p>As I <a
href="https://mondoweiss.net/2014/03/abunimahs-justice-palestine/">explain
in my 2014 book <em>The Battle for Justice in
Palestine</em></a>, Israel’s claim that it has a
“right” to maintain a Jewish majority is an assertion
that it has a perpetual right to enact inherently
racist policies against the indigenous Palestinian
people in order to <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/gaza-massacre-price-jewish-state">control
their numbers</a>.</p>
<p>It is also self-evident that a basic Zionist policy,
denying the right of return of Palestinian refugees, <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/france-criminalize-anti-zionism">is
indeed racist</a>: Israel does not allow
Palestinians and their descendants expelled from their
homeland by Zionists to come home solely because they
are not Jewish.</p>
<h2>Assumed guilty</h2>
<p>Thirdly, Shaheed’s assertion that questioning <em>any</em>
accusation of anti-Semitism is itself evidence of
anti-Semitism makes it impossible for activists to
defend themselves.</p>
<p>In fact <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/how-israel-lobby-fakes-campus-anti-semitism">fabricated
allegations</a> of anti-Semitism have been at the
heart of Israel’s effort to shut down the Palestine
solidarity movement on US campuses.</p>
<p>Such <a
href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180901-israels-smear-campaign-will-not-stop-until-jeremy-corbyn-fights-back/">false</a>
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/how-israel-lobby-fakes-anti-semitism">accusations</a>
are also used to smear the UK Labour Party, led by
Jeremy Corbyn, as institutionally anti-Semitic.</p>
<p>It is understandable that Israel’s propagandists
would not want their <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/new-israeli-report-lies-about-anti-semitism">lies
and smears exposed</a>.</p>
<p>But it would appear that Shaheed also believes that
those falsely accused of anti-Semitism should be
automatically deemed guilty and never given a chance
to defend themselves.</p>
<p>He therefore grants Israel and its lobby a free hand
to defame and libel anyone they like.</p>
<p>With sloppy, bad faith and dishonest claims,
Shaheed’s report tries to put basic questions of free
speech and Palestinian rights out of bounds by
claiming that even discussing them is anti-Semitic.</p>
<p>The reason for that is clear: Zionist claims do not
stand up to well-reasoned and fact-based scrutiny.
Israel’s best strategy is therefore to shut down all
discussion.</p>
<p>In August, Shaheed <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/un-religious-freedom-monitor-working-israel-lobby">came
under strong criticism</a> from human rights
defenders for his close relationship to Israel lobby
groups and for ignoring Israel’s violations of
Palestinian rights and religious freedom.</p>
<p>Following the publication of his report, it is clear
those criticisms were well justified.</p>
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