Virginia gubernatorial candidate says he supports BDS

Virginia Race

A pretty extraordinary thing happened last week. A candidate for Governor in Virginia said he supports the BDS movement.

The comments came during an online event hosted by a number of progressive groups, where gubernatorial hopefuls were asked a number of questions. Palestinian-American and DNC delegate Zeina Ashrawi Hutchison asked the candidates whether they intended to “discourage or criminalize” BDS if elected.

“No, I will never do that,” responded Lee Carter, who is currently a Virginia House delegate. “I’m a supporter of the BDS movement. I believe that the human rights abuses that are being inflicted upon the Palestinian people are among the worst currently ongoing in the world.”

Carter was the only candidate on the call who said he supported BDS, but none of the other candidates said that they’d target it. They all said that doing so would be a violation of the Constitution. State Senator Jennifer McClellan referenced the civil rights movement in her response. “As a child of parents who participated in the civil rights movement, I understand that boycotts and protests are critically important to advancing civil rights and I will not do anything, anything that will criminalize that behavior,” she said.

There was another notable aspect to the responses here. No one went out of their way to denounce BDS, declare it as an impediment to peace in the region, or smear it as antisemitic. Such qualifiers have become pretty standard for most Democrats. Just look at H.Res. 246, the infamous House resolution that almost every Dem voted for a couple summers ago. The text of that bill asserted that BDS targets Jews who support Israel, and denies Jewish people the right of self-determination. It also tagged BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti as an antisemite.. “It doesn’t explicitly call boycotts of Israel/settlements ‘anti-Semitic’ but..there is no way you could read this [resolution and] not conclude that the intent is to label boycotts/boycotters of Israel anti-Semites,” tweeted Foundation for Middle East Peace President Lara Friedman at the time.

There’s one caveat here. The only candidate not on the call was former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, who is running for the seat again. McAuliffe has a long pro-Israel record and is currently leading in the polls. There’s a caveat for that too though: nearly 50% of voters say they’re undecided.

The same week that Carter made his comments, Gallup released its annual polling on how Americans view the Israel/Palestine conflict. For the first time ever a majority of Democrats said U.S. pressure should be applied to Israel, not Palestine. 53% of Dems now believe that the pressure should be on Israel. In 2018 that number was 43%.

I interviewed Zeina Hutchison, who asked the Virginia candidates the BDS question, last fall. “If the Democratic Party as a whole wants to listen to the base, wants to incorporate more of the progressive voices into the party, activists have to be involved from the very beginning and grow with the leadership,” she told me. “There has to be a massive shift from the bottom up for the progressive movement, not just on Palestine, but as a whole. It’s a dangerous time for the Democratic Party because they are having to make decisions that could cost the party power, it could cost them influence, it could cost them elections. It could change the whole political discourse.”

Yang and BDS

It’s becoming increasingly clear that Andrew Yang does not know what BDS is. I have seen no evidence that the NYC mayoral candidate is interested in figuring it out, but this saga is becoming increasingly comical.

Let’s recap. Back in January, Yang wrote an op-ed for The Forward about his vision for NYC’s Jewish community. It contained a paragraph on BDS, where Yang equated it with the Nazi boycotts of Jewish businesses:

A Yang administration will push back against the BDS movement, which singles out Israel for unfair economic punishment. Not only is BDS rooted in antisemitic thought and history, hearkening back to fascist boycotts of Jewish businesses, it’s also a direct shot at New York City’s economy. Strong ties with Israel are essential for a global city such as ours, which boasts the highest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel. Our economy is struggling, and we should be looking for ways to bring back small businesses, not stop commerce.

Last month Yang attended a mayoral forum hosted by Muslim Democratic Club of New York, where Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour asked him about this stance. “My view on BDS is that because of its failure to disavow certain organizations that have expressed violent intentions toward Israel that I disagree with it but I have complete respect for people who have a very different point of view,” said Yang. He acknowledged that its possible his article “confused those two.”

It’s anyone’s guess what Yang is even referring to here, as BDS was founded as a nonviolent movement. Of course this hasn’t stopped pro-Israel forces from claiming it’s connected to terrorism, so maybe we can assume he’s just repeating something he heard or that his staff told him.

Despite these perplexing assertions, some of Yang’s comments at the forum were actually encouraging. “I would be happy to sit with Palestinian leaders, activists, folks who are engaged,” he told Sarsour. “I am very eager to learn, I’m very open-minded and I would appreciate the opportunity.”

It actually seemed like Yang might have talked to some Palestinians between that night and March 18, when he attended a forum hosted by the group Emgage. The moderator was comedian Dean Obeidallah, who told Yang that his Forward op-ed had upset a number of Palestinians. Obeidallah also pointed out that his grandmother’s land had been stolen by Israeli settlers.

Here’s what Yang said in response:

“At the time that that statement was written I had seen materials that suggested that folks who are supportive of BDS had refused to disavow the activities of certain extremist elements that had adopted violent, or at least had not disavowed violent measures towards Israel, which I took as a line that I thought was inappropriate..since then, I’ve spoken to people who have made a different argument, along the lines of what you just expressed – which is that BDS is non-violent. I don’t think targeting Israel in this way is the right approach, but I certainly appreciate people who are standing up for what they believe in.”

If you’re trying to pressure Israel into abiding by its obligations under international law I am not sure how you could avoid targeting the country, but I digress. It seemed like Yang’s position on the movement was beginning to shift away from his initial stance.

Hours later, Yang effectively walked this confused statement back. It’s unclear what the big infraction was. The fact he spoke to Palestinians? The implication that BDS might be non-violent? Appreciating people standing up for what they believe in? Anyway, it was a bridge too far.

“BDS does not recognize the right of Israel to exist,” Yang told The Forward the next day. “Not recognizing Israel’s right to exist is antisemitic. I strongly oppose BDS, as I’ve said countless times.”

It didn’t stop there. Yang also said that he would reach out to Jewish leaders “to make sure they know what’s in my heart” and promised to travel to Israel to strengthen the economic ties between NYC and the country. Yang said he had “used a poor choice of words on BDS” during the event and “caused pain to many people.”

Think about this. Yang is lamenting the fact he caused pro-Israel individuals pain for not denouncing BDS vociferously enough. However, he’s never really apologized for asserting that Palestinian activists are akin to fascists. He seems fixated on the idea that BDS supporters might be sympathetic to violence, but has nothing to say about the Israeli violence that necessitated the need for BDS in the first place.

On the campaign trail Yang has been confronted by multiple New Yorkers over BDS. If someone sees him making the rounds, maybe they can ask him to identify the movement’s three demands? I think it’s safe to say he’ll be stumped.

Odds & Ends

🇸🇦  A senior Saudi official issued a death threat against the United Nations’ Agnès Callamard, who is investigating the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

💻 Nadia B. Ahmad has a piece at the site on censorship at the Daily Kos. The liberal website removed a post from Muslim DNC delegates opposing Susan Rice’s cabinet nomination after facing pressure from Biden allies.

🇮🇶 It’s been 18 years since the United States invaded Iraq. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) are in Foreign Policy calling for the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force to be repealed. “Repealing the 2002 AUMF is a starting point for more foreign-policy reform,” they write. “After doing away with the 2002 AUMF, we should consider how to address the 2001 AUMF—which was originally passed in the aftermath of 9/11 but has since been used as a carte blanche to justify a wide-ranging ‘war on terror’—and discuss sunsetting any future AUMFs. We cannot let another 18 years go by without addressing unchecked executive power to authorize military force. One of the many painful lessons of the Iraq War is how grave a threat poorly written AUMFs pose for future abuses.”

🇺🇸 This week State Department Spokesperson Jalina Porter was asked about Israel’s plan to demolish more homes in East Jerusalem. Her response was as bad as you’d expect:

QUESTION: Okay. I have a couple of follow-ups. Also the Israelis are set to demolish maybe 200 homes in the Sheikh Jarrah area, which is part of East Jerusalem, maybe displacing a few thousand Palestinians. Do you have a position on that?

MS PORTER: Well, I’ll just say that we believe it’s critical for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to refrain from unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions and undercut efforts to advance a negotiated two-state solution, such as annexation of territory, settlement activity, demolitions, incitement to violence, and providing compensation for individuals imprisoned for acts of terrorism.

Stay safe out there,

Michael

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