Israel supporters should boycott Ottawa's terra20 stores

Scarlett Johansson in a Sodastream ad

terra20, a two-store outfit in Ottawa that sells eco/organic products announced last week that it will cease to sell Israeli-made Sodastream products because, they say, of "concerns held by a number of individuals and groups with regards to Sodastream operating a production facility in a West Bank settlement."

The "individuals and groups" so described tend to be anti-Semitic and/or virulently anti-Israel, and devoted to the elimination of the Jewish State, but I suppose that would be a minor detail for terra20's corporate leadership. As of the publication of this post, terra20 is still selling Sodastream accessories on its website, since their "ethical stance" evidently doesn't extend to not wanting to maximize its profits on existing stock.

The company is chaired by Steve Kaminski, who is also the Director of Colonade Investments. A media inquiry about the terra20 boycott of Sodastream products led to a number provided which was for Colonade Investments.

The affect of terra20, which has only two outlets, no longer carrying Sodastream will be economically of no significance whatsoever. However, for a desperate BDS campaign against Israel conducted by a variety of demented extremists, even something this minor will come as a psychological victory to them. The bizarre Independent Jewish Voices, a collection of losers, oddball bigots, and emotionally unbalanced creeps, founded by the weird 9-11 conspiracy theorist Diana Ralph, is crowing about the terra20 boycott on its website.

Supporters of the Israel, which is in an ongoing struggle against the terror group Hamas, may wish to return the favor to terra20 and boycott both that company and its parent organization, Colonade Investments, Colonade Develoment, and Colonade Management. It seems there's a reason Colonade Management starts with a Colon.

UPDATE July, 2015: It seems that as of now, the Terra20 anti-Israel boycott has been called off.

Pro-Israel models in knee socks look a hell of a lot better than those anti-Israel ones

I know which one I prefer...

anti-Israel and pro-Israel models in knee socks.
Not a hard call as to which is better.

Brian Lilley describes the stand Scarlett Johansson took when confronted with the hypocritical bigotry of the "charity" Oxfam.

I've encountered anti-Israel activists on a number of occasions and they are uniformly repulsive and banal.

Charity Oxfam loses its only A-list movie star ambassador over its hypocritical anti-Israel stance

Scarlett Johansson resigned from her role as a goodwill ambassador for the charity Oxfam because of its criticism of her being a spokesperson for the Israeli soft drink maker SodaStream.

Johansson was the highest profile person on its list of "ambassadors" and the only A-lister among the actors it uses to promote itself.  Having traveled to devastated regions throughout the world, lobbied politicians and civil society leaders and participated in other fundraising on their behalf, Johansson has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars if not more for Oxfam.

This development will cause further loss to Oxfam's fundraising ability as the insult to supporters of Israel will result in their donating to other charities engaged in similar work.

Sounds like that anti-Israel Boycott, Divest and Sanctions thing isn't working out as planned

This report is from Julius Suraski, of the Jewish Defense League, who was a member of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's delegation to Israel this week:

Mr. Jonathan Medved, CEO of  OurCrowd Funding Group delivered a very positive and interesting presentation called "Start up Nation".    He told the delegates that Israel was quickly becoming recognized around the world for the development of high tech business and the country is developing a favourable financial, as well as intellectual market that has enabled the creation of what he referred to as "serial entrepreneurs" - business people who were developing successful, recognized business templates for the development of high-tech start-up ventures.   He noted several start-ups that have been purchased by Google and IBM for significant amounts of money and cited that the business climate was very encouraging for a future prosperous economy.

Medved stated that over the past ten years there have been over 900 successful public company exits, many of which have strongly linked the Israeli economy to the American economy.   There are over 300 multinational companies that are located in Israel which have further linked Israel strongly to the world economy - and said that in the "life sciences" field, there have been over 700 device company start-ups alone.

He commented that "Europe is addicted to Israeli products" and is one of Israel's largest trading partners despite it's boycott rhetoric.   Trade with the UK is surging despite it's fixation on the BDS movement.

Medved further stated that Asian investors are flocking to Israel.

The theme of the presentation concluded that here was a positive future in Israel for high-tech industry.

 


You can read a full transcript of Prime Minister Harper's speech to the Israeli Knesset HERE

Andrey Coyne gets the analysis dead right in The National Post

Tireless Enemies of Israel: America’s Academic Boycotters

Edward Alexander in The Weekly Standard:

If there are still many Americans who believe that college and university professors are harmless drudges obsessed with moldy futilities, people who know so much about so little that they can neither be contradicted nor are worth contradicting, they should be disabused of their illusions by the recent decisions of three (ostensibly) academic organizations to boycott the academic institutions of the state of Israel. First, the Asian American Studies Association in April, and more recently the American Studies Association, and the Council of Native Americans and Indigenous Studies Association.  All have decided that they can no longer share the globe with a Jewish-majority state, any more than the academics included in Max Weinreich’s classic study of Hitler’s Professors (YIVO, 1946) could continue to share Europe with its Jewish minority.

It was these German professors who made anti-Semitism academically respectable and complicit in raw murder.

h/t Werner Cohn

The idiocy and irrelevance of a dying United Church of Canada

The best thing I can think of to say about the United Church of Canada is that, since the average UCC churchgoer is 68 years old and a full 82% of its membership is over the age of 50, it isn't likely to be around for very much longer.

There are still a few decent members of the United Church who, with a combination of tradition and good intent, have clung to the organization. But those are the few.

Once described as "the NDP at prayer," as the NDP membership turned almost uniformly secular, the prayer became redundant. For the UCC, it means that what was once a vibrant church which played an integral part in the lives of many Canadians, is now mainly reduced to a collection of pathetic, geriatric leftists less interested in practicing the principles of Christianity than in being perceived as "social justice" activists.

As if to demonstrate their irrelevance and the idiotic need to be viewed to take a "progressive stand" on an issue in which they only have a dilettante's comprehension, the Moderator of the UCC has called for economic action against Israeli companies. The new directive comes from Rev. Gary Paterson, whom at 63 is a youngster in the United Church and whom they proudly describe as "the first openly gay leader of a major Christian denomination." Paterson has called for conflicting "economic action focused on settlement goods; and support for trust-building programs between Palestinians and Israelis."

The United Church has a weird history involving its anti-Israel activism. The Church helped to set up an anti-Israel group, founded by a 9-11 conspiracy theory crackpot, that in significant part consists of United Church members pretending to be Jews in order to deflect charges of anti-Semitism. 

I was at a meeting a couple of years ago with the then-Moderator of the United Church, Mardi Tindal and Reverend Bruce Gregersen, who headed its Israel/Palestine file.  The meeting was between the top people of the UCC and a Jewish organization for which I consulted and was looking to do more interfaith outreach. But the meeting quickly became a discussion about the pending anti-Israel stance that the Church was about to make official. While the discussion achieved nothing, the meeting was extremely informative about the mindset within the UCC.

Gergerson did virtually all the talking for the United Church side. Their stance was based on the call for action of the so-called Kairos-Palestine document, which was written by a handful of Palestinian Christian anti-Israel activists.

What was glossed over, or perhaps not fully understood by Gergerson and the UCC Moderator, is that the document in which they invested their intellectual allegiance, such as it is, is filled with explicit support for violence, terrorism, and is inherently anti-Semitic.

The document talks about Israeli Jews in terms of "the evil that is in them." As to the complex and myriad reasons for the ongoing occupation of the West Bank, where the Palestinian leadership still proclaims that it will not recognize a Jewish state and celebrates terrorists and mass-murderers of children, the Kairos document places all of the blame on Israel with support for violence against it and with hyperbolic Jew-hatred: "The aggression against the Palestinian people which is the Israeli occupation, is an evil that must be resisted. It is an evil and a sin that must be resisted and removed."

To make it clear that when Palestinians blow up Jewish children on public buses, it's the Jews' own fault, the document in which the United Church places so much stock proclaims the "roots of "terrorism" are in the human injustice committed and in the evil of the occupation."

As happens so often among the not-very-bright activists who think they have mastered an issue that has eluded the best efforts of brilliant political leaders and diplomats like George Mitchell, Henry Kissinger and Bill Clinton for over six decades, the UCC leaders removed all context from their mental framework of the Israel/Arab/Palestinian issue. They seem to do this so it can be framed in simplistic terms that fit their very limited comprehension of the quagmire. But those limitations become obvious when they are challenged.

One of the "issues" the UCC leaders have with Israel is that it purports to be a western democracy, but still engages in "oppressive" behavior.

But that argument makes no sense to anyone who understands history or has any knowledge of the context and actions involved. Israel is not neighbors with Luxembourg or Canada. I asked Gergerson to name a country, democratic or otherwise, in the entire history of the world, that faced with contiguous enemies who launch attacks against it, have declared their intent to destroy it, and while remaining in a formal state of hostilities with those enemies, has behaved as benevolently as Israel has with the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Holding a single, index finger in the air to emphasize the point, I asked him to "just name one."

His response was nothing more than a vacant look, and then he continued to speak as if the question had never been asked.

Whether he was embarrassed to admit the answer was that there are none, or that he didn't know enough of the history of the conflict or of global conflict in general to be able to answer amounts to the same thing. In either case, it points to an intellectual dearth at the top of the United Church of Canada. These are people who evidently are more interested in image than in integrity.

Which is the very sort of thing that Jesus spoke against. But then again, the way the United Church of Canada is going these days, Jesus' teachings are something they may not know much about either.

Israeli Supermodel Bar Refaeli tells anti-Israel douchebag Roger Waters to Boycott her as well

Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli on Wednesday demanded of Pink Floyd front-man Roger Waters, a vocal supporter of Boycott Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, that he remove a glamorous shot of her from a video he uses in his performances, saying that Waters’s calls for a cultural boycott of the Jewish state should also include her.

More HERE

h/t Meryle K

This will piss off the anti-Israel clowns...

Buckingham Palace announced Saturday that an Israeli professor is among the more than 1,000 people being presented an award by Queen Elizabeth as part of her Birthday Honours list.

Professor David Newman, Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, will receive the award for his promotion of the academic partnership between Britain and Israel. He has been a leading advocate of the academic partnership between the countries, and a key campaigner against the British academic boycott of Israel.

The awards presented by the Officer of the Order of the British Empire are given for a significant achievement or service in a major local role...

Irrelevance: Stephen Hawking boycott reminds us he is the Elvis Costello of science

The decision by famous author and celebrity physicist Stephen Hawking to join an academic boycott of Israel has given a brief psychological boost to opponents of the Jewish state.

Stephen Hawking at the height of his power

His decision was confused by conflicting messages made on behalf of the disabled scientist. But in the end, it highlights the irrelevance of Hawking and a pathetic trend by `yesterday`s stars` to stay relevant.

Virtually no one of contemporary significance in the serious academic world (of which vapid Grievance Studies subjects, like Gender Studies do not merit consideration) has participated in the anti-intellectual discrimination against Israel.

The same holds true even in the generally less sagacious environs of celebrity culture. The few recognizable names to have fallen victim to a propaganda campaign that preys principally upon the uninsightful and desperate are far past the days when they have produced anything of note.

The biggest name in music to have publicly joined the boycott against Israel is the British musician Elvis Costello, and he only did so more than two decades after he has written a song that more than a handful of people could name. Adding his name to the unimpressive list of anti-Israel poobahs was the most attention Costello was able to garner for himself since the early 1990`s.

Which raises the question of the timing of Hawking`s decision. The Cambridge professor had paid  visits to Israel in the past. most recently in 2006, when tensions between Israel and the Palestinians were even more exacerbated. So why now, in a time of relative calm, would Hawking`s position suddenly alter, particularly after he confirmed only a month ago that he would attend the conference he now has chosen to boycott?

As someone who evidently craves attention, Hawking, who has tried to argue that God is irrelevant,  has been struggling in the last decades to maintain his own relevance. Many of his theories have been discarded and ignored, and he is now best known not for his contributions to science, but his appearances as a cartoon character on shows like Futurama and The Simpsons.

Hawking had no qualms about attending conferences in China and Iran, where repression of free speech and all forms are dissent are the norm. But loathsome left-wing accolades don't go to people boycotting those totalitarian dictatorships.

If patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, than what we are seeing from people like Elvis Costello and Stephen Hawking is that adopting trendy political postures is the last refuge for a has-been celebrity.

(Updated May 9/13)

UPDATED: It`s official - Stephen Hawking`s voice-box is now smarter than the mute physicist

After statements, then denials and retractions and now a counter-statement, it appears 71 year-old pop-physicist Stephen Hawking, best known as the author of the best-seller a Brief History of Time, has succumbed to the vacuous trend among British left-wing academics to boycott the Jewish state. 


Earlier conflicting reports first had Hawking boycotting an academic conference in Israel, then his spokesman claimed he was not boycotting but withdrew for health concerns, and now a new statement is reiterating the first one.

Hawking, 71, has suffered from motor neurone disease for the past 50 years, and relies on a computer-based system to communicate.  

According to Shurat HaDin, an Israel law centre which represents victims of terrorism, the equipment has been provided by an Israeli hi-tech firm,Intel, since 1997.   

"Hawking's decision to join the boycott of Israel is quite hypocritical for an individual who prides himself on his whole intellectual accomplishment. His whole computer-based communications system runs on a chip designed by Israel's Intel team. I suggest if he truly wants to pull out of Israel he should also pull out his Intel Core i7 from his tablet," said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of Shurat HaDin.

Frankly, I`m past the point of caring what Stephen Hawking does anymore. This whole episode suggests his brain isn`t working particularly well. The only person in the world that remains impressed by him is Sheldon from Big Bang Theory.

h/t BCF

United Church of Canada set to make itself an irrelevant laughing stock

In a further bit of perverse irony that only the United Church's out-of-touch leadership would be oblivious to,  they are set, according to it's Israel/Palestine Working Group lead Bruce Gregerson, to pass the anti-Israel motions on Iran's "let's destroy Israel Day" this Friday.

al Starzeera publishes orchestrated response by rogues' gallery of anti-Israel lunatics

In response to a column in al Starzeera News (The Toronto Star) by Dow Marmur urging the United Church of Canada should reject a proposed boycott of Israeli settlement products, it published a collection of letters supporting the anti-Israel position.

That article was part of an orchestrated response by a deceitfully named pro Iranian organization called Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East.

Among the array of names on the less-than-distinguished list of letter writers were two bastions of local anti-Israel lunacy. One was Sheryl Nestel, an Ontario Institute for Studies in Education instructor who has managed to distinguish herself as the thesis adviser for an anti-Semitic paper that managed to humiliate the institute, bring its academic standards into disrepute and embarrass the University of Toronto as a whole, as well as being the go-to adviser for some other crackpot theses.

The other is a fringe conspiracy theorist named Karin Brothers, a fixture at anti-Israel gatherings, whose performance at a hate rally last year caused even the anti-Zionist United Church of Canada to disassociate itself from her.

One might think al Starzeera might do a little research before presenting such people as representative readers. Then again, given what that newspaper stands for, they may indeed be totally and accurately representative of what they are about.

But one does have to credit the United Church about one aspect to all of this. For a denomination whose average member is old enough to collect Social Security, and whose questioning of basic Christian tenets   has rendered itself completely irrelevant to anything, they must be pleased about the rare attention they have garnered.

Idiot of the Day: U Penn's Amy Kaplan

If the information in the video and story at The Blaze are correct, then University of Pennsylvania's English Professor Amy Kaplan has violated a sacred duty and crossed the line from being an educator into abusing her position to be a cheap radical political propagandist.

Uncle Ben's Rice versus Free Speech

The following is a letter to forward to Mars Canada following their withdrawal of advertising from Sun TV because of their coverage of the controversial Ontario school curriculum which introduces sexuality to children in Grade 1 -feel free to copy the letter and there is a link below you can use to send it to them. Mars products include Uncle Bens Rice, Wrigleys gum, Pedigree cat food, M&M  candies and Snickers  and Mars Bars:

During the Ontario Provincial election in 2011 the National Post and Sun TV network ran an ad sponsored by a group called The Institute for Canadian Values protesting the proposed Ontario public school curriculum which included teaching children as young as age 7 about sexual issues including gender identity.

Some groups objected to the language of the ad, particularly the term "corrupt" in reference to teaching children to question their gender identity. The National Post subsequently apologized for placing the ad, but Sun TV did not, and featured it in their news broadcasts as a matter of discussion and public debate over the Ontario school curriculum.

Many Canadians are deeply concerned about the poor judgement and potential psychological damage of introducing sexualized education to children too young to comprehend and process such information. The Institute for Canadian Values is closely associated with Reverend Charles McVety, a Canadian clergyman who has voiced strong opposition to Gay marriage. However many Canadians who support Gay marriage and transsexual rights also strongly object to introducing a sexualized curriculum to children younger than 11, regardless of the sexual orientation discussed. 

The curriculum itself was fostered among other places, at the Ontario Institute for Educational Studies (OISE) a radicalized institution with programs that have a declared activist agenda. Many OISE courses and instructors actively promote anti-Capitalist, pro-Marxist, anti-Israel, and racist and/or raced based radical activism and the proposed curriculum reflects that approach.

The McGuinty government in Ontario itself seems conflicted about the issue, having conveyed mixed and obfuscating messages about its intentions about introducing it in schools. Clearly the issue and the range of opinions about it are important parts of public discourse.

Under pressure from activist groups, Mars Canada/Uncle Ben's has withdrawn advertising from Sun News as a result of its allowing the ad and discussion about this important matter of public policy. Mars was clear in saying that it withdrew its advertising because of Sun's coverage of this issue, saying to a blogger:

Dear Mr. Murphy,

Based on feedback from consumers such as yourself, UNCLE BEN'S will not be advertising on Sun TV in 2012. 

We thank you for taking the time to contact us with your concerns and for your loyalty towards the UNCLE BEN'S brand. 

Rather than simply removing its advertising from Sun TV without comment, by taking this action in concert with the public statement, Mars Canada has effectively taken a position against the free exchange of ideas and links itself with advocates for a sexualized classroom agenda.

As a private concern, Mars Canada is at liberty to associate itself or not associate itself with any organization it chooses.

Mars Canada should be aware that as consumers, we have that same right.

As long as Mars Canada effectively takes a political stand that effectively punishes a news network for addressing an important public issue and continues to boycott Sun TV, I will cease to purchase Uncle Ben's products and  use the many alternatives that Mars’ competitors offer.

If you agree with what you're read, you can copy and send it to Mars Canada at this link, or feel free to make any changes you wish

Communist fanatics at Canada's most biased, bigoted media outlet want a boycott of Sun News because of its baises.

This should work wonders.

The "strategy" a hysterical rabble.ca writer wants to employ is to have his fellow communists find a particular auto dealer to boycott it if it continues to advertise in Sun papers.

David C. Climenhaga, a regular rabble.ca columnist, was terribly offended that Ezra Levant ended a broadcast encouraging a counter-boycot of Chiquita bananas for their proposed boycott of Alberta tar sands oil with the Spanish phrase "Chinga tu madre!" (F**k your mother).

I never knew the halfwits at rabble.ca were so sensitive about profanity. It's not unpredictable. The perpetually aggrieved hatemongers who are the "official" media sponsors of Israeli Apartheid Week are always on the lookout for something to offend their delicate sensibilities and give their rasion  d'etre of being able to call themselves activists a jolt.

Here's a tip for the geniuses at rabble: their strategy only works if they bought cars from that dealer in the past. Boycotting someone you've never purchased from before in your life isn't really a boycott.

A car dealer may not be the best choice. Rabble.ca is almost completely funded by public service unions and the NDP-linked advocacy organizations The Council of Canadians and The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. A hotbed of mindless radicalism published by NDP House Leader Libby Davies' spouse Kim Elliott, it could never survive on its own without those subsidies.

According to online ratings site Alexa.com, rabble's audience is primarily made up of women over the age of 65 who have some college education, but not degrees.

Rabble "readers" should try something a little more realistic. Do makers of support hose or organic health food stores advertise on Sun News?

Chiquita's Epic Marketing Fail

By trying to suck up to environmentalists and paid protesters of a small group called Forest Ethics by saying they'd avoid Canadian tar sands oil, Chiqita has managed to alienate virtually all of Canada. Forest Ethics' campaign managed to get less than 650 YouTube views in over three months.  Now, because of the Chiqita's overreaction to it,  there are nation wide calls for Canadians to boycott all Chiqita products. This could go down in history as one of the all time bad marketing moves.






h/t that fine blogging husband and wife duo Blazing Cat Fur and Five Feet of Fury

Vancouver Public Library lends its support to the destruction of Israel

A seminar called "Beyond the Palestinian Statehood Initiative -Freeing Palestine and Delegitimizing Israel" is planned to occur at the Vancouver Public Library at  350 West Georgia Street on Sunday September 18.

The purpose of the event is not one of information, but an opportunity for coordination by people who seek to eliminate the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. In fact, one of the speakers, Charlotte Kates, has, according to Front Page Magazine  reportedly said that Israeli children are "legitimate" targets for suicide bombing and has called for the destruction of Israel "by any means necessary."

Included within the seminar are sessions entitled "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions: Global Solidarity for Palestine" and  "Canada and Israel: Settler-Colonial United Front" suggesting these people are the same sort of vapid hypocrites who declared that Canada and Israel are both apartheid states, yet many of whom are involved in movements that advocate for the most repressive state sponsor of terror in the world.

It's probably no coincidence that this meeting is being held in a public library on the doorstep of  Libby Davies' East Vancouver riding. Davies, the NDP Member of Parliament for the riding with the highest per capita ratio of crackheads and junkies in Canada has endorsed a boycott of Israel, the only liberal democracy in its region, and has boasted of attendance at a rally featuring a French politician who was tried for anti-Semitism.

In their hatred for Israel, the fanatics who plan to gather in a publicly financed library are more extreme than the leadership of the Palestinian Authority. As they put it:

Saeb Erekat of the PA recently stressed that the PA has no desire to "delegitimize Israel," using the same term as the organized Zionist movement in denouncing the "delegitimization of Israel." In fact, delegitimizing the illegitimate is precisely the struggle of the Palestinian movement for liberation - and exactly the goal of BDS.

The mayor of Vancouver is Gregor Robertson. For the sake of decency, he has an obligation to speak out against an abuse of city facilities for the purpose of spreading bigotry and hatred.

His email is: gregor.robertson@vancouver.ca


UPDATE: Mike Krebs, one of the presenters at the hate-fest, has a very weird history and relationship with his fellow travellers, which is detailed here and here

Help Lush Cosmetics ruin the Canadian economy and vilify Israel

In another example of loony radicals biting the hand that feeds it, British cosmetic manufacturer and retailer, Lush, which has branches all over the world, including Canada, wants to hurt Canada's economy with its campaign to stop the Alberta Tar Sands development.

As Ezra Levant's book Ethical Oil outlines, the Alberta Tar sands is one of the most ethical producers of fossil fuel in the world. Despite the pretense to "ethics" by Lush, they have no problem operating a branch in Saudi Arabia, where oil revenues have been used to finance international terrorism and the oppression of women.

Lush is also involved in a dishonest, fanatical campaign to vilify the only liberal democracy in the middle east, while pocketing money from repressive states, including one that killed more people who were part of an ethnic independence movement in one year than the total number of Palestinian fatalities since Israel conquered the West Bank and Gaza in 1967.

Hypocrisy is an expected facet of these types of fanatics, but Canadians should know better than to finance their destructive campaigns.

There are Lush stores across Canada, including Alberta, a province whose economy they are trying to devastate. Canadians would do well to buy their cosmetics elsewhere.

Kiss' Gene Simmons calls Israel boycotters "fools"

Kiss' Israeli-born frontman, Gene Simmons, is shouting out loud at the string of musicians who refuse to perform in his homeland. "They're fools," the legendary bassist told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday, on his first return to Israel since leaving the country as a child more than 50 years ago.

Read the rest at ABC News

If you thought the anti-Israel flashmobs look like idiots when you see them..

they look like even bigger idiots in their rehearsals. Although it's hard to believe anything that stupid looking is rehearsed.



h/t Israellycool