Getting the BDS Message Out

I never got around to getting a picture of our flyering. We handed out about 200, and Jack was counting cars by the minute. Don't remember the number in the hour we were there, but it was in the thousands. With the big banner in front, that is getting our message out to a lot of people.

One car stopped in traffic after reading the banner. "Can I have a flyer?" the woman asked. Several cars took flyers when we had a chance to be there at the right time.

Jack also liked the banner and suggested a second one. They are cheap enough, so let's think about that. I paid a about $32 for 400 flyers and there has to be a cheaper way to get them printed.

All in all, a good session. We had about seven people in all. Thanks, Eli, for setting this up. He says he is ready to do it again next month.

BDS in New Paltz

Seven of us passed out several hundred flyers in New Paltz on a very hot afternoon.

The crowds were not as big as during the spring when SUNY New Paltz was in session, so there was plenty of time to talk to people as they went by.

No one seemed insulted by our message. Several thanked us for being there. A man wearing a yamaka spent 20 minutes talking amiably with one of our members and left with a good deal of information.

Eli and I (later joined by Joe) handed out all our flyers and cards at the Dennis Ross talk that was given at SUNY New Paltz.

Everyone was very friendly because they didn't really know if we were representing a group. Handing out flyers without signs works better, at least for events like this.

My high point: a woman came back and showed me the card with the four maps of Palestine. "Did you hand this out? she asked. When I said I had, she told me she had read it, and couldn't go in to listen to Dennis Ross. I thanked her, she thanked me, and she walked away.

Don't Buy Israeli Apartheid

Against state crimes

I WAS surprised to read a letter to the editor of The Australian claiming that I regard the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement’s tactics targeting Israel as “pure anti-Semitism, aimed at the destruction of Israel” and that I said BDS efforts are “inimical to the interests of and lacking any genuine support from the Palestinian people” (Letters, 14/12).

These tactics have enormous support among Palestinians, and the charge of anti-Semitism should be dismissed with disdain.

When Human Rights Watch “calls on the US and European Union member states and on businesses with operations in settlement areas to avoid supporting Israeli settlement policies that are inherently discriminatory and that violate international law”, it is advocating BDS tactics, rightly, and there is no hint of anti-Semitism.

I have personally been involved in such forms of opposition to the Israeli occupation for years, long before there was a BDS movement.

Any tactics, however legitimate, can of course be misused. But they can also be used quite properly and effectively against state crimes, and in this case regularly have been.

Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA

Blood Bath & Beyond

Cold day in New Paltz

Cold, but a good action. We went through about 120 flyers despite the weather.

People seem to read the flyer we hand out as opposed to some of the glossy cards. More to learn from  it?

Some people stopped and talked about BDS, but most hurried on to find someplace warm. New Paltz continues to be a good place, however. Return in the spring?