Portland, Oregon Defending Their BDS Decision Against Israel

Boycotting, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) means to keep American businesses
out of Israel, depriving both of making a living.  It's use is to try to force Israel
into complying with people backing it, which now include
the mainstream Protestant churches in the USA. Caterpillar Tractor Company  is one of the
businesses they are trying to harm.  

Portland, Oregon's City Hall received this decision to harm Israel with BDS.  

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                                  

Israel puts terrorists in prison just like the USA would,
but also treats them humanely; not like Turkey would.   They even receive salaries from
their Palestinian leaders for being there, something that wouldn't happen in the USA.  So they're being paid to terrorize civilians that BDS is designed to harm.   (Turkey threw a female relative and friend of mine, author Gene Hirshhorn LePere,  who was a tourist in Turkey , into the female prison where she might have had to stay for life.)

Out here in the Wild West of Oregon, our largest city and my home town, Portland,  has voted for BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) against Israel right now at this point in time and why?  What is going on to create this decision?  I contend that it's a build-up of anti-Semitism that always lies near the surface of people's minds, and sometimes even permeates  into our own Jewish people who suddenly turn against their own.  It's different from honest criticism.  Anti-Semitism is showing hostility or prejudice against Jews.  Israel is a Jewish country of 6 million Jews and 1.7 million Muslims and some Christians, etc.  Even Alice is showing prejudice and not any sort of helpful criticism.  She doesn't live there.  She's judging from afar or heresay.  Israel is the ONLY Jewish majority country in the world whereas there are at least 48 Muslim majority countries in the world--and that is without a Palestine yet.
                                                                             

I watched a TV program last night about the Irish and a leader of the IRA said, "Turn against my own people?  Never.  I'd rather die first."  Their group had just managed to kill quite a few people.   Yet we have people who go along with the masses and do not trust their own.  They're few and far between, yet they exist, and Alice Rothchild is one of them. What upsets me is that she attacks without knowing any of the circumstance.  She's joined the followers of Noam Chomsky. She's a medical doctor and like Chomsky, uses her background, which has nothing to do with the history and current events of the Middle East, to sway the public.    Her big guns have been brought into our town to defend our City Hall's decision for BDS.
                                                                           

Arafat, originally leader of Fatah terrorists.  His leadership molded the minds of the Palestinians.

Fatah terrorists from Judea and Samaria, formerly following Arafat
who was replaced by Abbas.  They're hooked up with Hamas of Gaza.  

   
The Oregonian newspaper published what is evidently a wonderful opinion piece of hers that took up 3/4 of a whole page including a huge picture which was all for BDS.  It has been followed up with a  running stream of comments for BDS, and very few against it.  If against it, the sentiment is that stupid accusation of anti-Semitism and oh, they feel wrongly criticized if they say anything against Israel and this is another point against us.  .
                                                                         

Hamas terrorist, who branched off of Fatah,  who shoot missiles, mortars and rockets into southern Israel from Gaza,
and make attacks on Israel's civilian population 

          For some time now, I as a Jew have felt the atmosphere here in the USA is leaning towards Germany's in the 1930s, getting worse and worse each year towards the same feelings that grew with Nazi power in the late 30s.  This is just the icing on the cake.  Jews have stepped out of their 2nd class Dhimmi status of the Middle East and of many other cities in Europe and are being put down by those worried about it.                                                                                

Demonstrations in Europe Against Israel 

There's a fever of attacks by those of the Muslim persuasion in Europe, but BDS must be used against the Jews of Israel,  who for the first time in over 2,000 years,  live in their own state and are being noticed.  Attacks in the UN are far more against Israel than any other group with the result that masses think they are the bad guys of the world.
                                                                               

The spill-over of population density of Arabs  now in Europe  have been treated  royally.  They have been given "the right to free education, free social services and free health care.  They have the right to voice their opinions in the media and to vote in democratic elections.  They are not disenfranchised.  Yet the Europeans get back attacks for their kindness and their troubles.  They are experiencing what Israel has been experiencing.
                                                                               
The same thing has happened in Israel.  Israel has offered the very same things to those 1.7 million who are citizens and also to those living in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and East Jerusalem, and find they are the ones affected by the Khartoum Conference of 1967 whose motto is NO, NO AND NO.  Israel has been as frustrated as Europe now is.  Israel as even higher standards of morality than any other country in the world, so it hurts them even more to keep to their standards when being attacked all the time.
                                                                         

With people on the fringe of respecting Israel or Jews, they are just not looking at the situation through  normal glasses but with damaged ones.  They've turned things around in their heads and see a teeny country of Israel,   who has been successful in defending herself against a horde of Arabs with medieval standards,  as the bad guy even though they may turn against them as well.

This week, what has happened in Israel to cause Alice's opinion piece to be published?  The USA's Obama does not consider the Golan Heights as a part of Israel and has published this.  Netanyahu has said it is.  Israel has sovereignty in this high  area which before 1967 rained rockets, mortars and missiles down on Israel.  It is populated now by the Druse, an Arab group who are peaceful and a part of Israel.  It connects to the famous historic city of Safed (Tzfat)  where I lived for over 4 years.  Please read "THE SOURCE" by James Mitchener.   When Israel's only defender keeps arguments going publicly against Israel, it brings down the defensive walls Israel has to protect its citizens.  This argument alone can cost lives.

For weeks, attacks have been happening mainly in Jerusalem of Palestinians with knives against civilians there.  This Palestinian "intifada of the knives" is blamed by those outside of Israel on some lack of hope for a better future, anger and frustration.  However, every sort of American type opportunity and help have been offered to them, and their leaders always come up with the 3 NOs (from 1967's Khartoum Conference) , and the results are attacks against Israelis.  The nicer Israelis are, the worse the answer is.  It doesn't help that Hamas is ruled by the more recent and obvious more bloodthirsty terrorists who have control of the old terrorists who were run by Arafat and now Abbas, the PLO.
                                                                          

On April 19th, the Israeli IDF detonated the Hamas terrorist attack tunnel it found 10 days before which lead from the southern Gaza Strip into Israeli territory.
                                                                             

Israel already experienced 80% of the promised Jewish Homeland being stripped away
and given to King Abdullah for the creation of Jordan.  Now the Palestinian Arabs want Jerusalem, too.
After experiencing the Holocaust with the murder of 6 million Jews, Israelis have had to deal with accusations of being in a country the world leaders said YES to while the Arabs have said NO to.  

On April 21st, Shin Bet (The Israel Security Agency) said the identity of the Palestinian who detonated a bomb on an Egged bus in Jerusalem earlier in the week was confirmed.  The terrorist was Abdel Hamid Abu Srour, 19, of Beit Jala.  He had died of injuries in the attack which wounded 20 men, women and children; 7 of them seriously.

April 21st and Sin Bet announced that security forces uncovered a Judea-Samarian Arab terror cell that plotted to kidnap a settler in order to gain leverage in negotiations to free Palestinian prisoners.

Update: 5/16/16/2:18pm from Ron Dermer, Israel's ambassador to the USA:  While it's not an economic problem for Israel, BDS is a moral problem. It is an attempt to demonize Israel, to cast it as a pariah state that has no legitimacy and should be destroyed. . .

Reference: Oregonian Newspaper, Sunday-May 8, 2016 page A21, Divestment is an appropriate response to Israel's treatment of Palestinians. by Alice Rothchild-(in my opinion)
The Jerusalem Report magazine, May 16, 2016, page 2, 3. by Bjarne Tolstrup of Copenhagen and staff.
Author Gene LePere nee Hirshhorn: : 2 books and a TV movie from the book, Never Pass This Way Again

http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2016/05/protestants-against-israel-now-for-bds.html

http://goldfoot_genealogy.blogspot.com/2016/05/illegal-refugee-relative-of-my-relative.html

BDS Attack From Portland, Oregon on Israel

Nadene Goldfoot                                              

Portland, Oregon, city of my birth, now with 609,456 people as of 2013.  I go to events pertaining to Israel now and I'm usually the only home-grown person there.  

Portland's Willamette Week's headlines were:

Portland’s Human Rights Commission Sparks Anger With Vote to Divest of Companies in Israel

Oh, they are so smart, the HRC Human Rights group in City Hall..

 Human Rights Commissioners are appointed by the Portland City Council.   The Human Rights Commissioners are volunteers who work without pay.   They had 2 people on their committee who voted for BDS against Israel and chatter is they didn't even know what they were voting for.  Since then they have renounced their votes but are not allowed to do so by the Human Righters.  Once you've voted, you've had it!

Portland is going wild.  This Portland government council dumped all their Walmart bonds.  Not appropriate for them.  Politically incorrect company. 

 "The idea, championed by City Commissioner Steve Novick, led to Portland City Hall last December expanding its "do not buy" list of corporations in which it refuses to invest its $940 million portfolio. That list currently includes Wal-Mart and fossil-fuel companies such as Chevron and Exxon Mobil.

A step further to controlling Israel came their way.  "Earlier this month, the Portland Human Rights Commission, an independent offshoot of the city's Office of Equity and Human Rights, endorsed a proposal that would ask the city to grow its "do not buy" list—to include companies that activists say play a role in the state of Israel's occupation of Palestine."

As a teacher and  student of history and a publisher of 3 blogs defending Israel and her rights to exist, I am appalled!!  Their history of Israel and their knowledge is worse than a 1st grader.  Israel is a legitimate state and there NEVER WAS A STATE OF PALESTINE!  And these people are making blind votes pertaining to the existence of Israel!  Evidently we have several left wing anti-Israel groups in town today.  "Bob Horenstein of the Jewish Federation   says the true goal of groups such as Occupation-Free Portland", one of them, " is to undermine Israel.  "This has nothing to do with human rights," says Horenstein. "It is yet another attempt by the boycott/divestment/sanction movement to de-legitimize the state of Israel and demonize the supporters of the state of Israel."  So all the Jews assembled yesterday afternoon at 4pm were demons, to them, including a few rabbis.  

I was born and raised in Portland, and this is the first time such anti-Semitism has shown itself, to come down on Israel in such a way. 

The BDS Movement stands for Boycotting, Divesting and Sanctioning somebody you are tying to control and change.  It's an 
unsuccessful effort to isolate Israel and create new Boycotts against the only democratic state in the Middle East.

The first reference I've noticed is to BDS G4S, a British security company that provides equipment and services to Israel's 5 prisons.  Political prisoners are held there.  The BDSers claim they are held without trial and are tortured.  By being the supplier of goods and service, the demonstrators against this company claim they are participating in Israel's use of torture and holding them in prisons.  More than 6,000 Palestinians are held this way to discourage them from resisting Israel's apartheid policies.

None of these claims are true.  This is what happens in Israel:

1. Proper custody and internment resources - improvement in the living conditions with the goal of reaching international standards, through optimal utilization of resources and development of alternatives to imprisonment.

2. Corrections - maximum utilization of the period of imprisonment to efficiently treat the offenders in order to enable them to successfully reintegrate into society.

Security Prisoners

There are some 4,500 security prisoners and detainees incarcerated in the Israel Prison Service, about 50% of whom are considered prisoners “with blood on their hands.” These prisoners include men, women and minors.

Among the security prisoners one finds senior members of Palestinian terrorist organizations, terrorists who were on their way to a suicide mission and were apprehended by the defense forces; dispatchers; attack planners; those responsible for preparing the explosives, etc. As the primary incarceration authority, the Israel Prison Service is responsible for the incarceration of these prisoners, while accommodating their basic needs in accordance with the law.

 B'Tselem - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, tells a more accurate report than the Portland council.  Their report is on Gaza of which holds Palestinian terrorists who have been shelling Southern Israel for years, through the past 2 Intifada at least since 2001.  Far from being tortured, the criminals; terrorists and all, are paid by the PA for being in prison. 

Hamas from Gaza, terrorist

According to the PA  more than 4,500 Palestinian prisoners (as of December 2012) serving time for terror-related offenses are recipients of PA salaries. This means that Palestinians convicted of crimes such as theft do not receive a salary, but Hamas and Fatah terrorist murderers do. 

 The Israeli Police noted that since 13 April 2008 the police is no longer responsible for any prison facilities(thereafter, the responsibility of the Prisons Service). The police no longer hold Palestinian detainees, other than for interrogation purposes." They are questioned.  That's it.  The police are not like those in Syria or any other Middle East country.  
                                                                 

"Updated: 

 14 Oct 2015

At the end of August 2015, 5,373 Palestinian security detainees and prisoners were held in Israeli prisons, 341 of them from the Gaza Strip.* An additional 977 Palestinians were held in Israel Prison Service facilities for being in Israel illegally, 13 of them from the Gaza Strip. The IPS considers these Palestinians – both detainees and prisoners – criminal offenders. A few dozen other Palestinians (we do not have precise figures) are held in IDF facilities for short periods of time. The following data were provided by the military and by the IPS."

" In January 2015, the PA Ministry of Finance announced that the PA budget includes ‎transfer of salaries to prisoners in Israeli jails who were from Gaza. [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, ‎Jan. 6, 2015] This openly contradicts the PA claim that the PA no longer pays salaries ‎to prisoners.‎"  When they are released, the PA pays them anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000.  

Students who protested and were for BDS in London were made up of many Arabs, I noticed.  All the women pictured were wearing scarves.  Politics against Israel are showing.  

There have been a lot of terrorists trying to kill Jews, and many of these have been a slaughter, horrible murders against Israelis.  

Portland invests with the farming company of Caterpillar. That's one company out of 4 they are divesting from.   "The city isn't currently invested in Motorola, Hewlett-Packard or G4S. It is invested in Caterpillar, and does buy products from the companies, including fire equipment from Motorola paid for with money from Portland's $72.4 million fire bond issue, which voters approved in 2010.  

"The Human Rights Commission didn't do their homework," says the federation's Horenstein. "The fact that they could consider a controversial issue like this without reaching out to the mainstream Jewish community is mystifying."  Evidently the meeting yesterday went pretty badly.  All the board wanted was reasons WHY they should not invest and they felt they didn't hear them.  It didn't make any difference, since it seems they already had made up their vote before the meeting had started. 

 The meeting was called for one building, and then changed a couple of hours before they were to start in another building about 8 blocks away.  It's amazing at least about 50 people made it there and wanted to have a chance to speak. 

 Human Rights?  Where are the rights of Israelis against a mob of uneducated and highly biased people?  

" The Jewish Federation of Greater Portland has accused the volunteer group of legitimizing a campaign that could foster anti-Semitism, and Mayor Charlie Hales has said he would block the effort to divest from the four companies."  I certainly hope he succeeds.  

This is also posted on my Jewish Facts From Portland blog.  

Reference:  http://www.bdsmovement.net/activecamps/g4s
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/oehr/62221?
http://www.btselem.org/statistics/detainees_and_prisoners
http://mops.gov.il/ENGLISH/CORRECTIONSENG/Pages/IPS.aspx
http://ips.gov.il/Web/En/Default.aspx
http://www.wweek.com/2015/10/28/portlands-obscure-human-rights-commission-sparks-anger-with-israel-palestine-vote/
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/1.611971
https://t.e2ma.net/message/gepgq/kxahhk HRC's endorcement of BDS
http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=1005 Palestinian prisoners being paid by PA
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4454760,00.html PA pays upon release huge sum
http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/1.634334 how other countries keep terrorists
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2015/06/palestinian-backed-bds-movement-abetted.html