Bassem Eid is a Palestinian who once worked as an investigator for B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights group which plays an important role in documenting the occupation of Palestinian territory & human rights crimes by the Israeli military. Somewhere along the way, our man went sour–maybe partially because he felt slighted in recognition & partially because he saw fortune lied with Israeli apartheid. We only speculate because it’s an old story with a cliched plot: man gets wounded ego; man seeks revenge by making an ass of himself.
He formed his own group in 1996 with the misnomer, Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, specifically so he could go after Palestinians for human rights crimes, but it folded in 2011, ostensibly for lack of funds & probably because he couldn’t get anybody to work for him.
Now Eid has aligned himself with the Gatestone Institute in the US run by Elie Wiesel (a Zionist ideologue & big fat liar), John Bolton (US official under Bush), Nina Rosenwald (a notorious Islamophobe), & James Woolsey (former CIA director). Gatestone publishes writings by Alan Dershowitz to give an idea of its low intellectual caliber.
Eid is now touring campuses in the US & Canada, racking up honorifics all over the place by calling himself a Palestinian human rights activist & campaigning against BDS. He associates with Avi Posnick, the managing director of Stand With Us New York, a rightwing Zionist group that got the New York State Assembly to pass a resolution last year condemning BDS. The strategy is to get the NYS Assembly to follow up with a bill that goes beyond condemnation of BDS to outlawing New York from investing in companies that participate in BDS. The resolution was supported by both Democrats & Republicans. Of course.
Last Tuesday, Posnick brought Eid to the NYS Assembly to lecture lawmakers about the perils of BDS & was then publicly thanked by the assembled politicians. The photo is a dour Posnick & a smug, sorry-assed Eid standing while the assembled politicians give the dog a bone.
Make Bassem Eid’s fame a fleeting one. Build & honor the economic, cultural, & academic boycott of Israel (BDS). Buy nothing with barcode beginning 729.
(Photo is screen shot from video of regrettable moment:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_pLDGNrhKs)