The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network joins with USPCN and others in congratulating the organizers and participants in the PennBDS conference for the widely successful Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Conference held this past weekend at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The conference was an inspiring gathering of BDS activists from around the country exchanging ideas on how to strengthen existing campaigns, share lessons learned from past campaigns, and envision the future world in which Palestinian self-determination is a reality.
In the lead-up to the conference, the opposition revealed that all it has left to rely on to undermine our work are slander and lies. In multiple Philadelphia-based papers, conference organizers and speakers were vilified and even compared to “Nazis” and “Capos” in an opinion piece by a UPenn professor, which the university president refused to denounce. Though clearly stating she had no intention to prevent the conference from happening, UPenn's President stated unequivocally that she did not support BDS and went as far as to co-sponsor the anti-BDS conference featuring Alan Derschowitz, a Harvard professor who denies the historically known fact of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 during the founding of the State of Israel.
We in the BDS movement know how Zionist institutions falsely level the charge of anti-Semitism at those who defend Palestinian rights. These disingenuous claims aimed at silencing our movement are not only inaccurate but becoming more and more irrelevant and even self-incriminating. In his keynote address to the conference, Ali Abunimah laid out who the true anti-Semites are: those who claim that all Jews speak unanimously in support of Israel's crimes, thereby attempting to lump all Jews into one group and silencing the voices of those who strive for a just future for all humanity.We applaud the BDS conference for once again demonstrating its commitment to the principles of truth, justice, and liberation and look forward to continuing the work ahead of us.
