editorials
The Mapping Project Names Names
O ur community is already on edge
because of the alarming rise in
antisemitism, including direct attacks
on Jews in synagogues, at commercial
establishments and on neighborhood
streets. Last week, things got worse. The
Mapping Project, a pro-Palestinian
group in Boston, took things to a
new, disturbing level, with frighten-
ing implications.

The Mapping Project is an activ-
ist collective that is aligned with
the boycott, divestment and sanc-
tions movement. It believes there
are harmful connections between
Jewish and pro-Israel groups and
government, the police and the
media, that are responsible for a lot
of bad things. It posits that “institu-
tional support for the colonization of
Palestine is structurally tied to polic-
ing and systemic white supremacy
here where we live, and to US impe-
rialist projects in other countries.”
In other words, the Mapping Project
has recycled the hateful mantra of
antisemites everywhere that the
Zionist conspiracy is the root of all evil.

In furtherance of its point, the
Mapping Project created and pub-
lished an interactive state-wide map
designed to expose “local institu-
tional support for the colonization
of Palestine” and a litany of other
societal problems. The map shows
a web of connections linking hun-
dreds of Massachusetts Jewish
the organization’s address and, for
many, the names of lay and profes-
sional leadership of the organization.

While the Mapping Project doesn’t
call for specific action against the
identified organizations or their
members, the potential for harass-
ment and harm is clear, and is clearly
intended. Indeed, the Mapping
What is particularly upsetting is that
there is nothing that can be done to undo
the damage of the Mapping Project.

groups, schools, universities, politi-
cal groups and charities, with several
references to the amount of money
controlled by some of the entities,
and making no distinction between a
day school and a pro-Israel political
organization — or even between J
Street and the ZOA.

But it gets worse. The Mapping
Project names names — and provides
addresses. It lists the webpage for
each identified entity, which includes
Project tells its supporters: “Our goal
… [is] to reveal the local entities and
networks that enact devastation, so
that we can dismantle them. Every
entity has an address, every network
can be disrupted.” The invitation for
mischief could not be more explicit.

The Massachusetts Jewish com-
munity and communal, religious
and political leaders of all stripes
responded promptly and forcefully
to the Mapping Project’s outrageous
actions, with many expressing con-
cern about possible incitement to
violence. The Mapping Project itself
has been silent. And neither its web-
site nor its publications identify any
of its members.

What is particularly upsetting is
that there is nothing that can be done
to undo the damage of the Mapping
Project’s actions. The information
they have published cannot be with-
drawn. And the blatantly antisemitic
enemies list they have created puts
organizations and individuals at risk.

The Mapping Project will likely
invoke the questionable assertion
that “being anti-Zionist is not antise-
mitic.” And it will surely invoke the
First Amendment’s protection of
freedom of speech.

But neither argument cuts it
here. The ugliness of the Mapping
Project’s publication along with the
clear incitement to action is wrong,
dangerous and irresponsible. It’s also
antisemitic. The First Amendment
does not protect the right to incite
violence against Jews or anyone
else. JE
The Complexities of Biden’s Visit to
Saudi Arabia
W hy is President Joe Biden
going to Saudi Arabia next
month? During his presidential campaign
and for most of his first year in office,
Biden treated the kingdom’s impe-
rious and murderous Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman as a pariah.

But that was when the price of gas-
oline was around $2 a gallon. And it
was also at a time when the murder
and decapitation of journalist Jamal
Khashoggi, at the crown prince’s
direction, plus a ruinous Saudi-led
war in Yemen, were big problems for
the oil kingdom.

Now, however, the calculation is
different. With U.S. gasoline prices
rising well above $5 a gallon and
most of the western world refusing
to buy oil from Russia because of
10 Russian President Vladimir Putin’s
invasion of Ukraine, neither Saudi oil
nor the crown prince look as bad as
they once did.

So, Biden is making the trip. But
he won’t admit that he will embrace
Saudi Arabia and its autocratic lead-
ership in order to firm up world oil
availability. Instead, he claims that
his visit is driven more by security
concerns than the price of gasoline.

And he says, “I’m not going to meet
with MBS [the crown prince]. I’m
going to an international meeting,
and he’s going to be part of it.”
The president will start his trip
in Israel and will also meet with
Palestinian leaders. That will be the
easy part of the trip. It is when he
gets to Saudi Arabia that friends and
foes will be watching carefully to see
JUNE 23, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
whether Biden can pull off a Saudi
Arabian summit with so many built-in
contradictions. Israel welcomes the visit to the
kingdom as another step in the
Abraham Accords process in which
the United States has used its lever-
age to encourage Arab states to
establish formal ties with Israel.

Saudi Arabia would be the jewel in
the crown of the universally praised
Abraham Accords. Back home, how-
ever, the visit has been criticized by
a wide range of interests, including
democracy and human-rights advo-
cates, media figures, Republican pol-
iticians and even some of Biden’s
fellow Democrats. Each of the critics
raises significant policy or diplomatic
concerns that create a complicated
list of issues that need to be navi-
gated by the president in his Saudi
meetings. Thus, beyond the highly publicized
human rights concerns, Abraham
Accords issues and oil pricing and
production, there is the Saudi war
effort in Yemen, the Khashoggi mur-
der and Saudi concerns about a pos-
sible reentry of the U.S. into an Iran
nuclear deal. And, of course, there
are lingering questions about why
it is necessary for Biden to ask the
Saudis to produce more oil when the
United States, as the world’s largest
oil producer, should be able to do
that itself.

There are a lot of moving diplo-
matic and policy parts relating to
Biden’s Saudi visit. That’s a lot to
juggle. We hope the president is up
to it. JE



The Monstrous Origins
and Effects of ‘Israeli
Apartheid Week’
BY ABIGAIL DARWISH
E very year in the Diaspora, anti-Israel
activists on university campuses worldwide
unite to host “Israeli Apartheid Week.” This
event does not promote any productive — let
alone constructive — solution to the Arab-Israeli
conflict. Instead, it fosters a hardline, absolutist
approach that creates a hostile environment
for Jewish and Israeli students.

This approach is promoted quite effec-
tively by the boycott, divestment and sanc-
tions movement, which is at the forefront of
“Israeli Apartheid Week.” A self-proclaimed
“movement for freedom and equality,” BDS
purports to be modeled on the measures
taken against apartheid South Africa in the
late 20th century. But behind the façade
of a “just” social cause that seeks political
change, the movement is, in fact, deeply
rooted in antisemitism.

Over the last century, one way in which
antisemitism has manifested itself is through
boycotts of “Jewish goods” and “Zionist
goods” — which in practice have been more
or less the same thing. Indeed, the “Don’t
Buy” stickers plastered on Israeli products in
the Diaspora are disturbingly reminiscent of
Nazi Germany’s “Don’t buy from Jews” slo-
gan. This was the basis of the German par-
liament’s decision in 2019 to pass legislation
denouncing BDS as reminiscent of the most
“terrible chapter in German history.”
Alongside the Nazis’ boycotts in Europe
were those undertaken in the Arab world. In
1933, the Palestinians’ Arab Executive com-
mittee, headed by Nazi collaborator Haj Amin
al-Husseini, declared and enforced boycotts
of Jews in what was then British Mandatory
Palestine. In December 1945, the Arab League
organized the Arab Economic Boycott of
Jewish goods and industries — couched, of
course, in the language of “anti-Zionism.”
In this context, it is entirely reasonable
to ask whether BDS is simply another man-
ifestation of the long tradition of antisemitic
boycotts. Indeed, the very act of singling out Israel
as the “perpetrator of the world’s worst iniq-
uities,” as historian Simon Schama put it, to
the extent that a week every academic year
is dedicated to highlighting Israel’s alleged
illegitimacy, does tend to make one’s moral
compass — if one has a moral compass at
all — appear highly questionable.

Pro-Palestinian groups on campus have
exacerbated this issue by inviting anti-Israel
speakers who regularly engage in the most
vicious hate speech imaginable. This year, for
example, King’s College London’s Palestine
Society — along with 19 other Palestine
Societies nationwide — hosted the leader
of the BDS movement, Omar Barghouti.

Barghouti, despite having studied at Tel Aviv
University, has accused Israel of “apartheid,”
“ethnic cleansing” and “Nazi practices.”
In another case, 21 Palestine Societies
co-hosted Mohammad El-Kurd at an “Israeli
Apartheid Week” event. El-Kurd has com-
pared Israelis to Nazis, negated the historic
Jewish connection to the Land of Israel and
vilified Jews. He has also used his social
media platforms to spew gross and inflam-
matory statements, many of which employ
traditional antisemitic rhetoric.

Notably, El-Kurd evoked the blood libel
in May 2021, tweeting that Zionists have
an “unquenchable thirst for Palestinian
blood” and that Zionism is “bloodthirsty.”
He has also employed Holocaust inversion,
stating that Israel is guilty of “lynching,”
“Kristallnachting” and “gassing” Palestinians.

It goes without saying that the presence
of this kind of rhetoric and activism creates
a hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli
students on campus, the vast majority of
whom consider the Jewish state an import-
ant part of their cultural, ethnic and religious
identity. Worse still, this environment is tol-
erated by the universities themselves, who
appear unconcerned about the safety and
security of their own students.

But more than anything else, the zero-sum
approach to the conflict advocated by events
like “Israeli Apartheid Week” makes construc-
tive dialogue, and thus peace, impossible. JE
opinions & letters
Gun Law Changes More Likely Than Second
Amendment Changes
As always, Jonathan Tobin’s Opinion Column (“The Only
Honest Discussion About Guns Rests on the Second
Amendment,” June 2) is straightforward and insightful. Tobin
argues that the Second Amendment is at the heart of our gun
issues, and thus should be at the heart of the gun debate.

He apparently believes that no meaningful solution to the
gun problem can occur without changes to or a repeal of the
Second Amendment.

The practical realities are that changes or repeal will
not happen. The principal process for amending the U.S.

Constitution requires an affirmative two-third vote of both
houses of Congress, and a three-fourths vote of the state
legislatures. There is no chance of that occurring on this issue.

Therefore, we must pursue those fixes that are politically
attainable, such as the Manchin-Toomey initiative still pending,
or the recommendations to come from the Murphy-Cornyn
efforts now underway. Voters must make politically attainable
and legally sustainable fixes a priority and make that priority
known to their representatives.

Steven Stone, Maple Glen
Op-ed a Bad Editorial Decision
I am writing in regards to an editorial decision that was made
to print an op-ed by Jonathan S. Tobin regarding gun con-
trol (“The Only Honest Discussion About Guns Rests on the
Second Amendment,” June 2).

Tobin is entitled to his opinion. It is misguided at best (and
out-and-out chillul Hashem at worst), but he is certainly enti-
tled to express it.

However, a line must be drawn when Tobin makes statements
that are false. For example, in part of his dismissal of com-
mon-sense gun laws, he states: “Efforts to ban certain kinds of
guns, like assault rifles, including the widely popular AR-15 that
has been used in mass shootings, ignore the fact that the differ-
ence between these weapons and others is largely cosmetic.”
That is an obviously false statement. An assault rifle is a mili-
tary-grade weapon that fires bullets in rapid succession, mow-
ing down many people at once. It hardly even needs to be
aimed to be deadly. There is a reason the AR-15 has been the
weapon of choice in many mass shootings. It is — obviously —
because this weapon is designed for … mass shootings.

Jewish Exponent editorial staff, please be responsible, and
do not publish an outright falsehood like this in your pages.

Carol Fleischman, Ardmore
Beth Sholom Article Hit the Spot
As a Beth Sholom congregant for the past 27 years, thank
you for Sasha Rogelberg’s nice piece on our shul and its
“storied roots” involving architect Frank Lloyd Wright (“Beth
Sholom Congregation Celebrates Storied Roots,” June 9).

Your wonderful article would be incomplete without
Abigail Darwish is a student at University mention of our “Minyanaires” — a group of devoted mem-
College London and a fellow for the U.K. bers who for the past 40-plus years meet each weekday at
CAMERA on Campus organization.

7:30 a.m. to daven Shachrit with intensity, pride and love
for Judaism and G-d. It is a rich tradition; it is the kindling
that keeps the flame of Beth Sholom burning so intensely
Letters should be related to articles that have run in the print or online editions of the JE, and may be edited for space and and a major inspiration in my life and the lives of so many
clarity prior to publication. Please include your first and last name, as well your town/neighborhood of residence. Send others. JE
letters to letters@jewishexponent.com.

Simon Rosen, Melrose Park
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