You’d think local government would stick to local issues. But if Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is active in your town, you might discover–as we did in Durham, NC–that your local politicians are suddenly taking on world affairs, and from an antiSemitic standpoint. JVP worked quietly behind the scenes for years to elect pro-BDS candidates, in order to promote their “Deadly Exchange” agenda. This antisemitic initiative absurdly and malevolently claims that training with Israel “helps the police terrorize Black and Brown communities here in the US.” The preexisting Jewish leadership reacted to this initiative with staid appeasement, and Durham became the first, and to date only, city in the USA to totally boycott Israeli police. JVP has targeted other cities too, with more limited goals. They do FOIA requests to find out which towns plan to send officers for police training with Israel. Once they know, they lobby local leaders to cancel the trip, based on hate-filled lies like the one above. Their efforts were successful in Northhampton, MA. Don’t let this happen to you!
In other cities such as Ann Arbor, MI, a very vocal group has pushed the city hard for a complete boycott of Israel. Fortunately, Anna Arbor’s leaders conducted solid due diligence. NCCI is pleased to have been able to assist Ann Arbor government officials in their successful efforts to defeat the boycott, using some of the Take Action tactics described below.
On the national level, we have seen grossly antisemitic, anti-Israel people elected to Congress, most notably Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. Omar falsely claimed that she was against BDS during her campaign, then promptly showed her support for it once she was elected.
