Pro-Israel Student 1, BDS Activists 0

Joshua Nass, a senior at Brandeis University, has scored a victory over the anti-Israel “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions” (BDS) movement, which tried to use his image to burnish their propaganda during “Israel Apartheid Week.” Nass had appeared on the Fox Business Channel to represent Voices of Conservative Youth and argue against an effort by the American Studies Association to boycott Israeli universities. As he later told Algemeiner, BDS selectively edited his remarks in their own video to make it appear as if he supported such boycotts.

In early January, Nass had the following exchange with Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney:

Varney: Now, I understand that this is a big deal in Europe–thy’v been part of this boycott for a long, long time. 

Nass: [Nods]

Varney: But this is the first time I’ve seen it come to America.

Varney: …I’m just astonished that 5,000 American academics should vote to boycott Israel. I mean, I find that absolutely incomprehensible.

Nass: It is astounding. 

Varney: It is the only democracy of any sort in the Middle East, by a long way…

A video posted (and since removed) by Israel Apartheid Week organizers included only the footage of Varney speaking and Nass nodding, cutting out before Nass’s criticism of the boycott, or indeed before Varney’s own.

A version of the video still survives on another YouTube account:

Nass took to social media to complain, and decided to challenge the organizers, as reported by The Jewish Press: “He offered $5000 of his own money to them if they would: one, reveal themselves; two, remove his clip from their promotional trailer; three, apologize; and four, agree to debate him in the public square about the comparison of Israel to Apartheid South Africa.”

The organizers did not take up the offer, but Nass discovered late last week that they had removed the video. Subsequently, they replaced it with a nearly identical video–with the footage of Nass nodding removed.

Nass told Breitbart News he believed his experience “should serve as a source of motivation and encouragement to pro-Israel students and activists nationwide who have been the subject of such bullying by the BDS folks.”

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