January 1, 2016

(Educators)In its annual year-end survey of global anti-Semitism, the Simon Wiesenthal Center warned that the global effort to "demonize and delegitimize" Israel was gaining a foothold in US. academia.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center's social action director, told the Washington Examiner that colleges and universities were now part of the "front lines" in the struggle against anti-Semitism. Israel's critics "are trying to take a page out of the playbook used against South Africa in 1980s," Cooper said.

As evidence, the center's study, "2015 Top Ten Worst Global Anti- Semitic/Anti-Israel Incidents," pointed to a union, United Auto Workers Local 2865, which represents teaching assistants at the University of California at Berkeley. In December, the local voted to back the global movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel -- the first-ever US labor group to do so.

The BDS movement is sharply critical of Israel's policy towards the Palestinians and aims to use economic means to force it to change. The Wiesenthal Center warns that its "real impact is to hurt prospects for peace and to mainstream hate against Israel and her supporters."

"It is not having an impact on the Israeli economy, but it is poisoning the discourse," Cooper said. …