Simon Wiesenthal Center: Anti-Semitism is what we say it is

Calling opposition to Israel's apartheid policies is just as anti-semetic as opposing America's war policies is anti-Christian.

Washington Examiner -  In its annual year-end survey of global anti-Semitism, the Simon Wiesenthal Center warned that the global effort to "demonize and delegitimize" Israel was gaining a foothold in U.S. academia.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center's social action director, told the Washington Examiner that colleges and universities were now part of the "front lines" in the struggle against anti-Semitism. Israel's critics "are trying to take a page out of the playbook used against South Africa in 1980s," Cooper said.

As evidence, the center's study, "2014 Top Ten Worst Global Anti-Semitic/Anti-Israel Incidents," pointed to a union, United Auto Workers Local 2865, which represents teaching assistants at the University of California at Berkeley. In December, the local voted to back the global movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel — the first-ever
 
Labor for Palestine, an activist group that has worked with Local 2865, called the center's charges "defamatory" in an email to the Examiner: "The Simon Wiesenthal Center's defamatory charge of 'anti-Semitism' against UAW 2865 members — many of them Jewish — who overwhelmingly supported their union's courageous BDS resolution proves just one thing: supporters of apartheid Israel have no legitimate defense against the growing worldwide movement for justice and equality in Palestine."