BDS Opponents Launch "Campus Maccabees" to Fight Student Divestment Efforts

[marmar]

BDS Opponents Launch "Campus Maccabees" to Fight Student Divestment Efforts

Wednesday, 22 July 2015 00:00
By Bill Berkowitz, Truthout | Report


David Brog, the executive director of Pastor John Hagee's Christians United for Israel (CUFI), was recently named to head Campus Maccabees, an organization aiming to take on the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement on campuses around the United States. The newly launched entity, funded by two billionaires - gambling magnate Sheldon Adelson, and Haim Saban, an Israeli and American entertainment mogul - intends to blunt BDS gains. In all likelihood, the Brog-led group will try to use a highly divisive "for us or against us" approach and try to create a narrative that conflates any opposition to Israeli government policies with anti-Semitism.

It will be interesting to see if Brog, who has spent the past decade courting Christian support for Israel, actively encourages Christian students to participate in Campus Maccabees activities. Another of Brog's tasks might be to keep the controversial and incendiary Pastor John Hagee as far away from Campus Maccabees as possible.

Earlier this July, the BDS movement marked its 10th anniversary. Critics tend to dismiss the movement and minimize its successes. BDS supporters see it as a nonviolent movement that has engaged activists from around the world.

Nevertheless, however one views BDS, it has obviously been successful enough to grab the attention of Adelson and Saban who, in Las Vegas in June, launched Campus Maccabees. The organization is "expected to be the best funded pro-Israel organization on campus, with initial funding reaching $50 million," the Forward's Nathan Guttman recently reported. ................(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31988-bds-opponents-launch-campus-maccabees-to-fight-student-divestment-efforts

[aranthus]

2. Good.

BDS is not about Israeli government policy so much as it's about the existence of the Jewish state. It attracts antisemites because it is antisemitic at its heart.

[marmar]

3. Good that an organization associated with JOHN HAGEE is leading the effort?

Mon dieu.