Israel boycotter to address NSW Labor Conference

From The Australian, 28 June 2018, by Andrew Clennel:


Peter Manning will host an event for Labor Friends of Palestine on Saturday. 
Picture: AAP

A former senior ABC journalist who has advocated for boycotts of Israeli products is a speaker at a Fringe event at this weekend’s NSW Labor conference...

Peter Manning, who in 2009 signed off on a letter with fellow academics urging the boycott of Israeli institutions and who chaired forums in Marrickville for the “Boycott Divestment and Sanctions” group, is headlining an event for the “Labor Friends of Palestine”.

The web page for the conference says of Dr Manning’s involvement:

“In this event, we will discuss the evolution of Labor’s Foreign Policy and examine how we can navigate and profit from the challenges we face in a rapidly evolving and changing region.
“The event will be presented by Dr Peter Manning, the known Australian journalist, author, broadcaster, commentator and academic, followed by a Q&A session.”

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Vic Alhadeff said yesterday it was 

“appalling that an active proponent of boycotting Israel who accuses Israel of apartheid, colonialism and ethnic cleansing is accorded a platform at the State Labor conference... It’s an unequivocal repudiation of the sensible voices within Labor ...”.

...Dr Manning has previously chaired forums for the Marrickville BDS Group — the primary group that pushed BDS through Marrickville Council in 2011.

In 2009 he signed a letter that called for universities to 

“refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural co-operation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions”...

Editor's note:

The BDS campaign is aimed at destroying Israel, not promoting peace between Israel and its neighbours. 

It is a product of the NGO Forum held in parallel to the 2001 UN World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa , which was marked by repeated expressions of naked anti-Semitism and condemned as such by the United States government and  the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson.

The Forum’s final declaration described Israel as a state that was guilty of “racist crimes including war crimes, acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing.” The declaration established an action plan—the “Durban Strategy”—promoting “a policy of complete and total isolation of Israel . . . the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargoes, the full cessation of all links (diplomatic, economic, social, aid, military cooperation and training) between all states and Israel” 

The BDS movement deliberately draws a false parallel to South African apartheid . According to BDS proponents, if South Africa was worthy of a boycott and sanctions campaigns that eventually led to the downfall of that despicable system, “Israel should be subject to the same kind of attack, leading to the same kind of result.”