Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team
Ansgar <ansgar@debian.org> writes:
>>
>> The crux of my strong disagreement is here: as DPL, you just _framed_ the
>> Montreal miniDebConf as a protest.
>
> I think the announcement by the organizers framed the conference as
> being organized specifically to support the BDS movement
You might think that but I think you should think again, or maybe read
again, that is just plain false.
> a movement
> that is uncontroversially seen as antisemitic.
[snip]
> And before people complain too much about BDS being antisemitic being
> controversial:
[snip]
> And because we are talking about Canada and Toronto: Wikipedia says that
> Ontario in 2016 passed a motion condemning BDS as well, because "The
> motion was necessary because of growing concern on Ontario’s university
> campuses where members of BDS movements have harassed and targeted
> Jewish students under the guise of free speech"[3]. The two largest
> parties supporting the motion held 82 of 107 seats at the time. So
> again pretty uncontroversial.
[snip]
> [3]: https://torontosun.com/2016/12/01/ontario-mpps-reject-bds-movement/wcm/12c5c198-aa3a-459d-b34b-2c1d47c1475a
Amusingly, the article you are using to support your claim that it is
'uncontroversial' must not have been read by you, as it starts by
specifically saying it was a "controversial vote".
Ontario’s legislature rejected the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS)
movement in a controversial vote Thursday, with some MPPs saying it
promotes hatred against Israel.
To speak to the specific resolution that you are talking about
here... it was *not* to say that BDS is antisemtic. The only thing
related to BDS with regards to that resolution was to reject the
"differential treatment of Israel" by the BDS movement. Differential
treatment is hardly "antisemtic".
In fact, in 2017 an EKOS survey showed that four in five Canadians (80%)
believe the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS)
on Israel is *reasonable*. That seems to suggest that it is just a tiny
bit more controversial than 'uncontroversial'.
Nevertheless, I completely agree with you: if you omit things that don't
support your position, then yes it does look very uncontroversial
indeed! Amazing how that works.
Are there *allegations* that BDS is anti-Semitic? Sure there are. Are
those allegations uncontroversial? Hardly.
What I believe is uncontroversial is when you assert something that is
obviously not true on its face, it undermines any argument you might be
trying to get through.
Lets be clear, calling criticisms of Israel anti-Semitic detracts from
arguments against true anti-Semitism.
Making the claim that BDS is against all Jewish people because it
doesn't agree with everything that the state of Israel does is presuming
that all Jewish people share the same political commitments while
ignoring the reality that there are quite a few Jews who are extremely
critical of the state. This isn't hard to verify.
If you wish to debate this, then I think doing so somewhere other than
this mailing list would be prudent.
--
micah
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