(JTA) — The Graduate and Professional Student Association at the University of New Mexico overturned a divestment resolution on the West Bank. Saturday’s vote rescinded an April 28 resolution calling on the university to divest from companies that operate in the West Bank. The vote was 10-10, with the tie broken by the meeting chair.

Since the agenda of the earlier meeting was not available in advance, members of the pro-Israel community did not attend and were not available to debate the resolution. The second hearing was held in order to allow the association to hear the other side of the issue, the pro-Israel organization StandWithUs said in a statement.

StandWithUs credited the groups Lobos for Israel and Hillel for convincing the association to hold another hearing on the resolution, which called on the university to divest from companies that “directly profit from the ongoing violations of international law and human rights, and have an economic stake in the continuation of these violations.”

The university’s Students for Justice in Palestine organization, which sponsored the resolution, said in a Facebook post that it would continue its divestment initiative in the coming semester.

Last month, a similar resolution was voted down by the Associated Students for the University of New Mexico.

The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage presented an interfaith dialogue, “Do Not hate Your Brother In Your Heart, How Interfaith Cooperation Builds Compassion, Respect and Understanding.” Participants were Rabbi Robert Nosanchuk of Beachwood’s Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple and Imam Mohammed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), who have been leading initiatives for interfaith dialogue for a decade. The evening seemed a lesson in duplicity.

Rabbi Nosanchuk spoke first. His leadership of the Greater Cleveland Congregations, a coalition of diverse religious groups, seemed inclusive and therapeutic, but out of focus with the needs of Jews worldwide and Israel. He feigned ignorance about the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) that is perilous for Jewish university students across the US, most egregiously on the University of California campuses, where forty protesters bullied, harassed and blocked Jewish students from entering a university administrative building; where the president of the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) hosted an event that spoke of killing Israeli “colonizers,” and where Jewish students have been physically attacked.

Palestinian students at Boston’s Northeastern University defaced a campus menorah, disrupted Jewish events, and frightened students for a year before they were finally suspended. Thirty-nine Vassar faculty members, administration and detached citizens, signed a letter supporting an academic boycott of Israel. Threats, harassment, intimidation and assaults on Jewish students are now a California tradition that is spreading across the country, yet this rabbi is not aware.

Fairmount Temple’s website reveals Nosanchuk’s concern is with social issues, meaning joining Olivet Baptist Church’s Rev. Colvin’s fight against voter ID laws, thereby squandering voter integrity. He is also against our Second Amendment, which will ensure that Jewish citizens remain unarmed and unprotected from those who would be armed to harass and kill Jews and Christians. His interests in social justice and interfaith relations do not encompass rampant Islamic campus violence.

Further, if the rabbi is affiliated with the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), one might assume he supports the anti-Zionist J Street and New Israel Fund, both of which work diligently against the true interests of Jewish survival.

Imam Mohammad Magid spoke of his family, his long friendship with the rabbi, and his leadership in ISNA, the largest Muslim organization in America. ISNA traces its 1963 origin to several US and Canadian organizations, including the Muslim Student Association (MSA), whose attacks against Jewish students are infamous. In the Holy Land Foundation terrorist-financing case, ISNA, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and the North American Islamic Trust, were named unindicted co-conspirators and one of a number of “members of the US Muslim Brotherhood” with ties to the Islamic Association for Palestine and Hamas, extremists and terrorists.

Since October 2003, Magid and ISNA have been providing US Bureau of Prisons with extreme orthodox Wahhabi Muslim clerics who promote their radical political, ideological and theological foundation, and connecting them to 50 to 79 percent of mosques in North America. Three-quarters of “charitable” funding to ISNA supports warriors (irregular combatants – terrorists) who volunteer to fight for the Cause of Allah.

Magid assured us that we believe in the same God, but the Judeo-Christian faiths differ greatly from Islam as do the Gods. The Qur’an consists primarily of Allah’s admonishments to Muslims, with eighty percent being commands to kill the infidel (Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, all non-believers). Islamic law, Sharia, is a strict legal system that controls every aspect of one’s life, including the demands, torture, dismemberment, and slaughter of humans for their God. Islam celebrates violence, with jihad as its driving force in an endless expansion and enforcement of Islam worldwide.

He also compared Sharia to Judaism and Jewish dietary laws (Kashrut – Kosher), and Christian laws. The Torah, Hebrew law, and the Ten Commandments, are the ideological basis for the 613 commandments (mitzvoth) in the bible – a God-given moral code. The first five prescribe man’s relationship with God (belief, worship, respect); the last five concern man’s relationship with people (honor, respect; prohibitions against murder, adultery, stealing, bearing false witness, and coveting.) The dietary laws concern foods that are permissible and forbidden, cleanliness, preparation, and the humane slaughter of animals for food.

Protesters who plan to demonstrate today at the world’s largest shofar-blowing event in history in New York City have drawn praise from the Israeli government coalition chairman, who expressed his admiration for their “courage.”

Israeli government coalition chairman MK Yariv Levin  is “deeply moved” by demonstrators who are to gather to protest participation in the Israel Day Parade of groups promoting the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

In a letter sent to Richard Allen, founder of JCCWatch – organizer of the rally being held in New York – Levin praised the rally, set for Tuesday April 29 at  5 pm, “courageous stance of so many friends of Israel involved in the parade, calling to delegitimize those who delegitimize Israel.

“It is not logical or reasonable for Israel supporters to condone or overlook or indirectly cooperate with BDS groups which represent the antithesis of support for Israel. Refusing to recognize the State of Israel’s sovereign right to develop and maintain an independent legal position on any issue of national importance is not legitimate.”

The UJA-Federation and Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) which sponsors the annual Israel Day Parade, agreed this year to permit a number of anti-Israel groups to march this year in the parade, setting off a tsunami of protest over their participation. Among those  are:

• Partners for Progressive Israel: which encourages the public to boycott Ahava Cosmetics, SodaStream and wine from nine Israeli vineyards.
• The New Israel Fund: which finances NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that promote BDS activities against Israel. NIF funds Machsom Watch, the Coalition of Women for Peace, Women Against violence, Social TV and Mossawa, all of which signed a letter to the Norwegian government pension fund, urging it to divest from Israel.
• B’Tselem: A major recipient of funds from NIF, the group has produced the anti-israel video shown at Israel Apartheid Week events held at various universities around the world. The organization’s board chairman, Oren Yiftachel, has publicly called for “effective sanctions” against Israel.

The rally, promoted as the “largest shofar blowing event in Jewish history,” is set to take place this afternoon (April 29) at 5:00 p.m. Eastern time (New York City) in front of the UJA-Federation building at 130 East 59th Street, between Park and Lexington Avenues. Participants are urged to bring their shofars to the rally. Those who do not have a shofar but who wish to participate can receive one to use on site.

Scheduled speakers include Rabbi David Algaze from the World Committee for the Land of Israel / Havurat Yisrael; Richard Allen, JCCWatch; Dr. Paul Brody of the Jewish Political Education Foundation; Helen Freedman of Americans for a Safe Israel; Beth Gilinsky of National Conference on Jewish Affairs; Mort Klein, head of Zionist Organization of America; Robert Muchnick of Manhigut Yehudit, and Lauri Regan of Endowment for Middle East Truth.

On June 1, the 50th annual Zionist parade, the “Celebrate Israel Parade” will take place in Manhattan. It is one of the most important, visible and widely attended  pro-Israel events for the American Jewish community, a community which impacts Israel’s future almost as much as the people in Israel.

The hallmark of the parade has always been an unabashed pride and love of Israel, both from its  hundreds  of participating organizations and its hundreds of thousands of viewers.

Strange then that this year, there will also be a participating organization which is perceived by millions of Jews around the world as not only a complete stranger to the essence of Zionism, but also as one of its most significant opponents – the New Israel Fund (NIF).

In truth the NIF is like the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing.  Despite exhausting public relations contortions to convince Jews that they are Zionistic supporters of Israel, their actions consistently demonstrate the exact opposite posture.

Whether it has been their past relationship with the notoriously anti-Semitic Ford Foundation, or their close involvement of the organizations which filled the infamous Goldstone Report with accusations of IDF war crimes, or the statement by their former Vice-CEO, Hedva Radovanitz, that “If Israel were to disappear, it wouldn’t be a tragedy” it is inescapable that the NIF is out to undermine Israel as a strong Jewish State.

Of course, this is not how they present themselves in their frequent well-funded marketing campaigns.

In the toxic arena of Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), the New Israel Fund is particularly disingenuous. It declares on the one hand that it will not support organizations calling for a boycott of Israel, or activities encouraging a boycott. However, as recently as April 11 the Fund’s spokesperson, Naomi Paiss, told the Ma’ariv newspaper that “since it [the NIF] objects to the occupation and the settlement project… it will not avoid supporting organizations that encourage not consuming or buying products manufactured in the settlements…”

Huh?

The difference between organizations encouraging a “boycott” against Israel and organizations encouraging “not consuming” Israeli products, is similar to the distinction made between a terror organization and an organization that kills innocent people for political gains.

It is a distinction without a difference.

And so, the NIF openly supports organizations such as the “Social Television”, which promotes the use of the “Buycott” [a combination of the words “buy” and “boycott”] app to identify and boycott Israeli products, and Adalah, whose Negev branch head, Dr. Thabet Abu Rass, admitted following an assignment to Brussels that he wanted “To encourage policy designers to increase diplomatic pressure on Israel.” And there are more of the same

Increasingly, people in Israel are waking up to the insidious nature of the New Israel Fund. They are not fooled by semantics where not consuming products made in Israel is somehow not a boycott. It is time for American Jews to see the NIF clearly for what it is, and to shun it.

Having the NIF march in the Israel Day Parade is to turn support for Israel on its head. Having a big tent of various organizations is one thing; willingly welcoming those who seek your destruction is another thing.

The NIF is way too smart to forthrightly express their true destructive anti-Zionist beliefs and intentions. But the consequences of their many activities would lead to the same disastrous results.

The sooner American Jews reject the New Israel Fund, the better. The Celebrate Israel Parade is a great place to start.

This article was reprinted with permission of the author.

The Graduate and Professional Student Association at the University of New Mexico passed a non-binding resolution on Saturday calling for the university to divest from companies that operate in Judea and Samaria.

The resolution calls on the university to divest from companies that “directly profit from the ongoing violations of international law and human rights, and have an economic stake in the continuation of these violations,” according to the student newspaper, the Daily Lobo.

The resolution cites companies that work on behalf of Israel in Judea and Samaria.

“International corporations have been complicit in these severe and ongoing human rights violations systematically committed by the Israeli government, and their involvement has been documented by human rights organizations,” the resolution said.

Earlier this month, a similar resolution was voted down by the Associated Students for the University of New Mexico.

Campus Jewish groups did not attend the meeting, and Lobos for Israel President Sarah Abonyi told the Daily Lobo that the agenda was not available in advance and that the group did not know the resolution would be debated.

The confirmation of a reported 10 percent purchase of Israeli-based SodaStream by Starbucks would be another blow, if not a knock-out punch, to the Boycott Israel Movement, commonly known as BDS (Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions).

The Israeli Globes business newspaper set the financial markets on fire Wednesday with the report that sent SodaStream’s stock soaring 10 percent, pushing its total market value well over the $1.1 billion mark.

”Sources close to the deal say that an official announcement will be made soon,” according to Globes.

BSD has been uselessly trying to convince people for more than three years not to buy SodaStream’s homemade soda machines because it operates a factory in the Mishor Adumim industrial area of Maaleh Adumim, which the Palestinian Authority claims.

Tel Aviv, Haifa and Netanya also are part of “Palestine” according to official PA maps, but that kind of information interferes with  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s Peace Talk Follies, so let’s ignore it rather than make more trouble for the man.

BDS, like Kerry, has made problems for itself.

The more the Big Lie of the Mahmoud Abbas as a peace partner disintegrates, the more people – even the liberal Jews in the United States – throw in the towel  and go back to fighting for animal rights or against global warming, assuming they have thawed out from this winter’s brutal winter and record snowfalls.

That makes big problems for the BDS, whose leaders are going to stand in the unemployment lines if they cannot convince people that Israel is the reason that the Palestinian Authority is corrupt, totally undemocratic and racist.

The Boycott Movement has been able to win some success by targeting Israeli companies that are big in Israel but tiny in terms of the world economy.

But when companies like the conglomerate Whirlpool, through its subsidiary KitchenAid, start working with SodaStream, things get a but sticky for the anti-Israeli consumers, as reported here earlier this year.

And if Starbucks links up with SodaStream, the BDS folks are going to have to stop sipping Starbucks coffee.

Some Muslims  made fools out of BDS last year by trying to tie Starbucks with false stories that it provides financial support to Israel and even the IDF.

The Arab American News reported last year, Shultz “has championed and funded defense of Israel on U.S. university campuses.”

One of Starbucks’ sins apparently is that CEO Howard Schultz was honored in 1988 by a yeshiva in the Old City in Jerusalem , where the Palestinian Authority wants its capital.

BDS went on the defense and said it does not target individuals, even if they are Zionists. It targets companies that can be tied to Israel’s present in Judea and Samaria.

The boycotters have not let up on SodaStream  and  Jewish Voice for Peace’s Seattle chapter has come up with one of the most obscene collection of lies about Israel, the “Occupation” and SodaStream since the creation of the Palestinian Authority.

It has created the burstthebublle.org website that shows a series of videos that tries to convince people that the idea of Arab-Israeli co-existence at SodaStream’s factory, as promoted by actress Scarlett Johansson, is really just a camouflage. The true purpose of the factory, according to one of the videos, “is not to improve the lives of Palestinians living under occupation but to pad the pockets of an international corporation.”

A company that makes money is immoral, unless it is not run by Jews in Judea and Samaria.

The videos, like the peace process, are actually the best promotion for Israel and Zionism because they are so full of lies that everyone eventually sees the truth, except, of course, for the U.S. the State Dept.

On her Earth Day show, the American comedienne Ellen Degeneres gave out a prize to audience members. The prize is one that is truly wonderful for the environment – it eliminates completely the need for plastic soda bottles and it creates carbonated beverages without using any electricity.

SodaStream is an “active green product,” which means consumers are “actively reducing their CO₂ footprint every time they make soda  or sparkling water at home instead of buying it from the store.”

Ellen’s act of generosity was truly wonderful for another reason: as a cold hard smack in the face for the supporters of the economic and legal warfare method used against Israel, known as the BDS movement (Boycott of, Divestment from and Sanctions against Israel).

As its spokesperson, Scarlett Johannson, has said repeatedly, SodaStream’s plant in Maale Adumim, a suburb of Jerusalem, provides needed employment for Palestinian Arabs who are paid the same wages as are Jewish Israelis, wages which are substantially higher than ones otherwise available to them.

Watch the video, below, from the April 22 Ellen Show. In the second minute of the clip it shows the hugely positive response from the audience upon hearing that Ellen was giving away SodaStream products.