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Wednesday, July 29, 2015

This study is originally published by The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. The study is structured in four sections, which if read in conjunction with each other, draws a complete picture of the role of Palestinian activists and networks in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip in the global BDS campaign.

Omar Barghouti

Omar Barghouti (Masarat Center for Policy Research and Strategic Studies, February 5, 2015)

Omar Barghouti is a silver-tongued, anti-Israeli Palestinian propagandist and the most prominent among the Palestinian activists participating in the global BDS campaign. When interviewed by the media he represents himself as a Palestinian human rights activist and the cofounder of the BDS movement (he calls the campaign a “movement” to inflate its importance and significance).

Omar Barghouti was born in Qatar in 1964, grew up in Egypt and lived in the United States for 11 years. He studied at Columbia University. After his studies he moved to Ramallah. He is also a choreographer and accompanied the Ramallah based Al-Funoun Palestinian Dance Ensemble when it appeared in the United States. Today, according to an Israeli daily Yedioth Aharonot investigative report, he is married to an Israeli Arab woman from Acre named Safa Tamish, who has an MA from NYU. They live in the northern Israeli city of Acre.^[8]

Barghouti’s political activity is based in Ramallah, where he has been conducting intensive activity to promote the BDS campaign for more than a decade. Most of his activities are carried out in Western countries, mainly in academic institutions. In recent years he has become a sought-after guest by the Western and Arab media, sometimes including influential media. He customarily chooses sympathetic interviewers and Internet platforms that disseminate his anti-Israeli propaganda. By using such tactics he does to expose himself to inconvenient or difficult questions that could force him to reveal the campaign’s true objectives. In the past he appeared before Israeli Arabs and was interviewed by their media, but he has always been careful not to expose himself to the non-Arab Israeli public and does not give interviews to the Israeli media.^[9]

Omar Barghouti belongs to the Barghouti clan, originally from the village of Bayt Rima (and others) in the Ramallah region. He is distantly related to senior Fatah terrorist Marwan Barghouti (who is currently serving five consecutive life sentences for murder during the second intifada) and Mustafa Barghouti (a senior leftist Palestinian activist intensively involved in the campaign to boycott Israeli products and in the so-called “popular resistance” in Judea and Samaria). Omar Barghouti’s brother, Dr. Nasr Barghouti, lives in San Diego, California.

Barghouti has two degrees in electrical engineering from Columbia University. His English is fluent and he is an impressive speaker. He is deeply involved in the American academic scene and is very knowledgeable about events in the American human rights and civil organizations. His intensive activity to boycott Israel includes campaigns for cultural and academic boycotts,^[10] but that did not deter him from studying for and receiving an MA in philosophy from Tel Aviv University. His Master’s thesis advisor was Professor Marcelo Daskal,^[11] professor of philosophy at Tel Aviv University, who was Dean of the Faculty of Humanities from 1995 to 2000 (Wikipedia). Omar Barghouti wrote and participated in the writing of a book and articles about BDS and what he calls “Israeli apartheid.”

Left: Omar Barghouti participates with political figures in a workshop held at the Masarat Center for Policy Research and Strategic Studies in Al-Bireh (Masarat Center, February 5, 2014). Right: Omar Barghouti participates at a meeting for “apartheid week” in the northern Israeli village of A’rara (YouTube, March 15, 2015).

Omar Barghouti is a well-known, key figure among the Palestinian activists participating in the global BDS campaign. In 2004 he headed a group of academics and intellectuals in Ramallah who joined the BDS campaign in 2005 and founded the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). In 2007 Omar Barghouti was the moving spirit behind the founding of the BNC, an umbrella network established in Ramallah, which has pretensions to lead the BDS campaign. He often visits Western and Arab countries, especially the United States, to promote BDS activity against Israel. He makes extensive use of the Internet and the media in general to spread vicious anti-Israeli hate propaganda cloaked as activity to promote equality and human rights.

At the beginning of 2011 his book about the BDS campaign, Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights, was issued in the United States. It was published by Haymarket Books and sales began in April 2001. To promote the book and spread the BDS idea Barghouti visited a number of European countries (primarily Britain) and the United States, where he visited several of the leading universities.

An event to promote the sales of Barghouti’s book, held in a bookstore in London (Inminds.com). He exploited the opportunity to accuse Israel of “war crimes,” and called for it to be treated as a war criminal.

Omar Barghouti’s Worldview

Omar Barghouti is in favor of a single “democratic” Palestinian state to replace the State of Israel and rejects the existence of Jewish nation-state. He strongly opposes the two-state concept also rejects a bi-national state in all the territory of “Palestine.” According to his concept the “right of return” should be implemented by the return of the millions of Palestinian refugees who fled in 1948 and of their descendants. He regards the implementation of the “right of return” and granting the returning Palestinians political rights as the core of the “solution” to the “Palestinian problem” and achieving “Palestinian rights.” According to Barghouti, after the millions of Palestinians “return” to the territory of the State of Israel they will found a single, secular, democratic state which will put an end to the existence of the Jewish national homeland and the Jews will “live in Palestine” as a minority.

As part of the campaign to delegitimize Israel, into which the BDS campaign is integrated, Barghouti often labels Israel as an “apartheid state,” accusing it of the “ethnic cleansing” of the Palestinian population. Speaking before Western audiences he extensively uses slogans acceptable to the Western worldview, such as “democracy,” “justice” and “restoring the rights of the Palestinians.” On the other hand, out of tactical considerations he blurs the BDS campaign’s true objectives, which are the destruction of the State of Israel as a Jewish state and the founding of a Palestinian state on its ruins, to which millions of Palestinian refugees will return.

A recent example of Omar Barghouti’s use of human rights slogans and vague rhetoric indirectly implying the destruction of the State of Israel was in his interview with Le Monde (July 2, 2015). He represented himself as a Palestinian human rights activist and the BDS as a non-violent human rights movement opposed to all forms of discrimination and racism. Politically, he claimed BDS was not limited to the withdrawal of Israel from the territories of 1967, but included the return of the Palestinians refugees who were expelled in 1948 and 1967.

Barghouti did not make it clear that the significance of the return of millions of descendants of the Palestinian refugees would mean changing the character of the State of Israel from the national homeland of the Jewish people to a Palestinian state dominating a Jewish minority. The interviewer was careful not to ask him inconvenient or questions that would expose what was hiding behind his rhetoric. The vagueness of statements made by Barghouti and others in the BDS campaign has been harshly criticized even by Jewish figures who strongly object to Israel’s policies, but are not ready to join a campaign seeking to destroy it.

During the Le Monde interview Barghouti explained that there was nothing wrong with the Jews turning into a minority in the Palestinian state after the return of the Palestinian refugees. He claimed that in a democratic state where the Jews were a tiny minority, as they were in the United States and Western Europe, they were thriving and successful. He claimed that the Israeli fear of the Jews turning into a minority in “historical Palestine” was illogical. He claimed it was an “irrational fear” because it “transfers what is clearly European history of anti-Semitic racism followed by slaughters into a completely different Arab context, where slaughter and pogroms against Jews never existed.” [Note: Barghouti does not hesitate to falsify and distort history to promote his own anti-Israeli propaganda. He conveniently forgot the slaughter of the Jews in countries such as Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Morocco.] He also did not mention that currently religious and sectarian minorities under Muslim rule in the Middle East are slaughtered, expelled and discriminated against.

Michael Deas

Michael Deas’ Facebook picture (June 26, 2013)

Michael Deas’ title is European Coordinator for the BNC. He is also its coordinator (in Britain) for the European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine (ECCP), the umbrella network for BDS supporters in Europe. The ECCP claims to operate in 22 countries and to have hundreds of members. Deas apparently lives in London. The BNC chose London as its base of operations because of the central role played by Britain (called “paradise” by Omar Barghouti in his interview with Le Monde) in the campaign to delegitimize Israel, to which BDS belongs.

Michael Deas provides very little personal information in media interviews or in his blog and Twitter account. He studied environmental policy at the London School of Economics beginning in 2006. During his studies he was involved in pro-Palestinian activities and identified with the left.

General information about Michael Deas (from his blog and twitter).

Michael Deas writes well and often publishes articles about BDS. He frequently speaks at BDS conferences, expressing himself fluently. He uses The Electric Intifada blog and his Twitter account to write about various boycott campaigns in Europe (such as the campaign in Ireland to boycott fruit imported from Israel and the campaign against a factory in Britain he claimed was allegedly connected to Elbit Systems, an Israel-based international defense electronics company). Most of his articles and speeches advocating various boycotts appear on websites affiliated with the BDS campaign, and they mostly preach to the choir. On occasion his name is mentioned in the British press (for instance by The Guardian).

The campaign in Ireland to boycott fruit from Israel. The picture is from Michael Deas’ blog (August 15, 2014).

During the first half of 2015 Michael Deas was involved in a demonstration held by British BDS activists at a factory in Shenstone, north of Birmingham, which allegedly manufactured UAV motors for Elbit Systems. The demonstration was exploited to condemn all British security connections with Israel (“UK: Stop arming Israel!”). On July 6, 2015, in preparation for the first anniversary of Operation Protective Edge, BDS activists launched a campaign to block access to a factory (Facebook page of Block the Factory, July 9, 2015). Michael Deas reported on the campaign extensively in his blog and Twitter account, and directed his readers to a Facebook page begun for the campaign. Michael Deas probably has ties to the campaign organizers, but the nature of those ties in unclear to the ITIC.

Left: Michael Deas at a BDS conference in Luxembourg (YouTube, June 23, 2014). Right: Michael Deas at a BDS conference in London to boycott the Israeli Veola water-trading company (RichardMillet’sBlog, November 23, 2011).

British BDS activists block the entrance to the factory north of Birmingham (Facebook page of Block the Factory, July 7, 2015).

Michael Deas’ Activities in Europe

Michael Deas is well connected to BDS activists and networks in Europe. He often leaves Britain for short periods to visit European countries and EU institutions. In November 2013 he appeared before the European Parliament and discussed the issue of European businesses dealing with the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. He claimed business deals had to be prevented with violators of international law and human rights, and presented ECCP recommendations (ECCP website, November 29, 2013). As BNC’s European coordinator, he often appears at local meetings of BDS supporters to make suggestions to participants and take ideas from them. According to the media, he has close ties with anti-Israeli networks in Germany participating in the BDS campaign.

Michael Deas at a BDS conference in Bonn (YouTube, March 20, 2015).

Michael Deas is an active partner in the BDS campaign, and provides operational tactics for European BDS activists. For example, on October 22, 2011 he participated in a workshop held by Der Deutsche Koordinationskreis Palästina Israel (KoPI), (a network of approximately 30 groups whose stated objective is to inform the German public and government of the need for Palestinian selfdetermination^[12]). Michael Deas explained several BDS tactics to his audience. He claimed BDS campaigns had to integrate local civil society activists, be flexible in the local context, use clear terminology and make its demands understood to the public (“think globally and behave like locals”). The campaigns also had to be planned thoroughly (he gave as examples the campaigns against Dexis, Agrexco and Veolia, which he claimed had been successful because they had been thoroughly planned).

Michael Deas at a KoPI workshop on the BDS campaign held in Germany on October 22, 2011 (YouTube, October 27, 2011).

At the KoPI workshop Michael Deas gave a number of examples of the BDS campaign’s tactical and verbal flexibility. In Holland, for instance the campaign is not called “BDS Holland” but rather “Together for Palestine.” That is because “boycott” sounds rude in Dutch and would make it difficult to introduce BDS into Holland’s mainstream. In the United States, where there is a clear pro-Israeli bias, Michael Deas believes in focusing on the issue of American military aid for Israel because “it is a campaign slogan people in America are willing to accept.” In Ireland, on the other hand, “there is no problem in standing in front of a supermarket and shouting ‘Boycott apartheid Israel!’ ” and getting very positive reactions.

Michael Deas has emphasized that it is very important to be flexible in defining the campaign’s objectives. He claims that if in certain countries it is impossible to reach an agreement to boycott all Israeli-produced goods, then agreement should be reached about companies importing products from the communities in Judea and Samaria (although the BDS campaign deals with boycotting the State of Israel and its economy, not products from Judea and Samaria). He said that using formulas and making demands that are more effective tactically and strategically does not contradict basic [BDS] ideology. Quite the opposite, he claims, they express a genuine determination to achieve solid results.

Mahmoud Nawajaa

Mahmoud Nawajaa, from his Facebook page (October 11, 2014)

Mahmoud Nawajaa is in his late twenties. His family is from Sussiya in Hebron. He has an MA in political science and international relations from the Palestinian Al-Quds University. For more than a year his title has been “the general coordinator of the BDS National Committee, BNC.” He began as general coordinator in May 2014, after having been applied for the position through an official tender offered by an umbrella organization of civil Palestinian networks and the campaign to boycott Israel.

Mahmoud Nawajaa’s role, as described by the tender, is to direct the BNC and coordinate between its members and organizations to extend the boycott of Israel in the international arena and the Arab world. The job includes the proper management of the BNC; monitoring its activities; aiding the promotion of the campaigns to boycott Israel; representing the BNC on television; managing the website and social media of the campaigns to boycott Israeli; organizing workshops and conferences; and liaising with foreign delegations and consuls, ambassadors and senior Palestinian figures. The job also includes liaising with BDS activists abroad and coordinating their activities as part of the campaign to boycott Israel.

The first page of the tender for the role of BNC general coordinator (Job.ps website, May 13. 2014)

Most of Mahmoud Nawajaa’s activities to promote the boycott of Israel are focused in Ramallah (although he occasionally goes abroad), as opposed to Omar Barghouti. From his infrequent media appearances it can be concluded that he has little experience with television interviews and is not a practiced public speaker. For example:

1. Interviewed by a Saudi Arabian newspaper, he called for the condemnation of Israel and its delegitimization, which, he claimed, would bring about the end of the Israeli “apartheid regime” (Dunia al-Watan, June 7, 2015).
2. In April 2015 he used his Facebook page to attack the United States as a “war criminal” and “aggressor.” He also attacked American President Obama, whom he called “the biggest arms dealer in the world since the Second World War” (Facebook page of Mahmoud Nawajaa, April 27, 2015).
3. He called on all the trade unions in the world to boycott Israel (Al-Quds Al-Arabi, May 21, 2015).
4. He called on Egypt and Jordan to stop negotiations for a gas deal with Israel, which would only strengthen the Israeli economy (PACBI, March 4, 2015).
5. He congratulated and praised the government of Brazil after it decided to cancel a large arms deal with Israel’s Elbit Systems (Al-Sawasnah, December 9, 2014).

Twitter account of Mahmoud Nawajaa

At the beginning of June 2015 Nawajaa about the achievements of the BDS campaign boasted to the Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Ayyam. He claimed Israel and its leaders could not stop the movement and that it had scored many achievements during the past year. He claimed the escalation of the boycott was “the natural consequence of Israel’s racist apartheid policies against the Palestinians” (Al-Ayyam, June 4, 2015).

Zeid al-Shuaibi

Zeid al-Shuaibi (Alislah.ma, April 5, 2014)

Zeid al-Shuaibi is in his twenties. He spent the first half of his life in Saudi Arabia, and from there moved to his family in Ramallah, where he currently lives. He studied at Bir Zeit University and was involved in political activities but did not belong to any party or organization (Warincontext.org, January 4, 2012).

He was the general coordinator of the BNC until Mahmoud Nawajah was appointed to the post in May 2014. Today he is the BNC spokesman. He began as a young BDS activist and was then put in charge of BDS foreign relations in Palestine and the Arab countries, and is currently the BNC spokesman (BDS website).

On April 12, 2014, Zeid al-Shuaibi was detained by the PA police during a demonstration in Ramallah protesting the appearance of an Indian dance troupe after it had appeared in Tel Aviv (Human Rights website in Arabic, May 19, 2014). In the wake of his arrest Omar Barghouti accused the PA of fighting the campaign to boycott Israel (Ar.jamnews.ir, April 23, 2014). On November 30, 2013, Zeid al-Shuaibi was detained for a number of hours by the IDF during a Palestinian demonstration near Beit El against the Prawer Plan for resolving the Israeli Bedouin land dispute in the Negev (Watan, December 1, 2013).

Zeid al-Shuaibi demonstrates against a meeting or Israelis and Palestinians in Al-Bireh (YouTube, January 9, 2014).

The Contents of the Report

You can find the Introduction: Main findings and other sections here:

• Introduction: Main Findings. (Read here)
• Section One: The BDS Campaign and Its Roots. (Read here)
• Section Two: The BNC — Palestinian Umbrella Network Collaborating with the Global BDS Campaign. (Read here)
• Section Four: Comparison of PA and BDS Campaign Positions. (Read here)

Notes:

[8] From the investigative report of Guy Lieberman which appeared in the Yedioth Aharonot Saturday supplement on July 5, 2015. Even if Barghouti does live in Acre, which has not verified, he carries out most of his BDS activities in Ramallah.

[9] An Israeli journalist named Nirit Ben-Ari, who works for the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz, recently asked to interview Barghouti. He said he would be happy to be interviewed by a Jewish-Israeli reporter for the first time, but not an Israel newspaper [Haaretz]. She asked why he preferred Le Monde and he said, “I have no particular problem with Israeli journalists per se, but rather with the Israeli media. I have always refused to be interviewed by the Israeli media because they are trapped by the dominant discourse of the Zionist establishment. The [Israeli] media are used as propaganda tools, [although] clearly there are good, professional journalists” (Le Monde, July 2, 2015). As can be seen by reading the interview in Le Monde, Nirit Ben-Ari did not ask Barghouti difficult or annoying questions, even when they were called for, probably because of ideological identification with him.

[10] Interviewed by BDS-affiliated The Electronic Intifada on May 31, 2009, he called for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel. He also called for a boycott of Israel’s academic institutions, which, he claimed, were full partners in Israel’s military security establishment and supported the so-called “Israeli occupation.”

[11] Article by Guy Lieberman.

[12] The BDS does not seek Palestinian self-determination but rather the destruction of the State of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state on the ruins. BDS activists attempt to link themselves to networks critical of Israel but not necessarily seeking its destruction. To that end BDS activists camouflage and blur their genuine goals.