BDS Activist and Media Favorite Uses Las Vegas Tragedy to Attack Israel

A prominent activist in the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) effort, Yousef Munayyer, used the Oct. 2, 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas to attack Israel. Munayyer is the executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, formerly known as the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, a pro-BDS organization.

As CAMERA has pointed out, BDS backers call for the end of the Jewish state of Israel and seek to delegitimize it (“More distortions on Israel, The Hill, May 19, 2015).

After news of the massacre broke, the Embassy of Israel tweeted, “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of the #LasVegasShooting and their families. Love and Solidarity from Israel.”

Munayyer quoted the tweet, and added one of his own: “Also from Israel, assault rifles into the U.S. market.” He provided a link to a February 2017 Daily Beast article, which said that the AK-47 assault rifle might one-day be made in Israel. But as Cornell law professor William Jacobson noted at the Legal Insurrection, a blog that focuses on antisemitism and other issues, AK-47s are currently “manufactured in many places, including the U.S.”

On Twitter, Yair Rosenberg, a journalist with Tablet magazine, elaborated: “American guns are overwhelmingly produced in America, but there is no atrocity that cannot and will not be blamed on the Jews or their state.”

Rosenberg even cited a list of the top “firearms imported into the United States by country of manufacture in 2016.” Israel, with 47,307, ranked fifteen in the amount of total firearms. By contrast, Austria imported 1,322,684 and Turkey imported ten times as many as Israel. But, as Rosenberg noted, Israel was the only Jewish country on the list. It was perhaps for this distinguishing feature that Munayyer chose to use a tragedy for his own political ends.

As CAMERA has detailed, Munayyer has a history of making misleading statements. For example, in a 2014 interview with CNN, Munayyer, refused to answer questions about why Hamas was ordering Gazans to stay inside of homes that Israel was telling them—in advance—would be bombed during the Jewish state’s 2014 war with the terror group. Hamas—a genocidal terrorist group that calls for Israel’s destruction—wanted to increase Palestinian civilian casualties for propaganda purposes. On CNN, Munayyer wanted to push his own propaganda; deflecting the interviewers question and minimizing Hamas’ crimes and objectives.

At a July 25, 2016 event held by the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, U.S. Congressman Hank Johnson compared Jewish settlers to insects; an age-old antisemitic trope (“U.S. Congressman Calls Jewish Settlers ‘Termites’—Media Silent,” July 27, 2016). As CAMERA highlighted, many major media outlets failed to report this event.

Munayyer, however, is a media favorite. His bio on the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights’ website proudly notes: “His writings have appeared in every major metropolitan newspaper in the United States and many others internationally as well as online. He has frequently appeared to comment on national and international media outlets including CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NBC, CBS, Al-Jazeera English, C-Span, and others many others.”