From a recent article by Stephen Lendeman:

"Cultural and Academic Boycott

On April 6, 2002, UK professors Steven and Hilary Rose first presented the idea in an open letter to the London Guardian, saying:

"Despite widespread international condemnation for its policy of violent repression against the Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories, the Israeli government appears impervious to moral appeals from world leaders. (For its part, America) seems reluctant to act. However, there are ways of exerting pressure from within Europe....many national and European cultural and research institutions....regard Israel as a European state for the purposes of awarding grants and contracts. Would it not therefore be timely (for a pan-European moratorium of all further support) unless and until Israel abides by UN resolutions and opens serious peace negotiations with the Palestinians (along the lines of proposed) peace plans."

By July, 700 signatures were registered, including from 10 Israeli academics. Other initiatives followed despite start-and-stop efforts and enormous opposition. They remain viable and have spread globally.

On February 1, 2009 in Occupied Palestine, the Jerusalem-based Al-Quds University said it no longer would cooperate with Israeli academic institutions to:

"pressur(e) Israel to abide by a solution that ends the occupation, a solution that has been needed for far too long and that the international community has stopped demanding."

It followed Israel's Gaza attack and addressed decades of occupation and continued efforts to subvert peace and negotiations to achieve Palestinian self-determination.

Earlier in October 2003, Palestinian academics and intellectuals called on their colleagues in the international community to resist repression and injustice by boycotting Israeli academic institutions. In April 2004, the campaign was consolidated by PACBI's founding (the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel).

Palestinian academics and intellectuals launched it by "buil(ding) on the Palestinian call for a comprehensive economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel issued in August 2002 (followed by further calls) in October 2003."

Its statement of principles read:

-- "to comprehensively and consistently boycott all Israeli academic and cultural institutions until Israel withdraws from all lands occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem;

-- removes all its colonies in those lands;

-- agrees to United Nations resolutions relevant to the restitution of Palestinian refugee rights; and

-- dismantles its system of apartheid."

PACBI's call got wide support from Palestinian academia and civil society."

http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=15702

Sports I would gather falls under this heading. See the entire article for the full scope of BDS activity.

PS: You also have to understand that there is another side to this story.

Israeli professor Ilan Pappes, who published an historical study called, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, was harassed to such an extent at his university, that he had to leave the country, and went to another university in England, I believe.

Recently, Israeli Professor E. Gordon wrote an article which promoted an international boycott against Israel as a solution that he was publically threatened with expulsion from his university. I don't know the outcome of that situation.

So it is only academics who promote Apartheid who become the subject of protests and boycotts.

this is inappropriate.  She just wants to play tennis.

What on earth are you talking about?  This is a straight news story.

You will never read this paragraph on a Fox News site, which should have clued you into the liberal/human rights nature of the diary. People can disagree about BDS, but this is true:

"There has always been controversy over whether culture, academia, and sports should ever be included in boycott and protest campaigns, this one against Israel's occupation, its ongoing colonization all the Palestinian territories, and the Apartheid situation that has resulted. The inhumane (Jimmy Carter) siege of Gaza also continues just one year after Israel's brutal attack on Gaza in which 1,400 mostly civilian residents, including over 300 children, died."

What you seem to be saying is that Israelis (conflated by you to Jews) are not more guilty of human rights abuses than the Chinese, the Russians, Muslims, and even New Zealanders. Because none of these other groups are protested at the Australian Open, it must be an anti-Semitic protest.

I don't know the roster for this Open. Are there Chinese, Russians, Muslims, and even New Zealanders competing? And if so, are any of these countries or peoples engaging in a military occupation and colonization of another people's lands? Hey, why not add America. We still do not protect gays and lesbians under our equal rights laws.

I'd say equally so, compared to China.

On the other hand, I haven't heard of China, at least recently, killing 1,400 mostly civilian people they were starving under a siege (UN reports), including over 300 children. I don't know the history of China's takeover of Tibet very well. Did the Chinese kill that many Tibetans, or even 8,000 civilians, the number of Palestinians killed since 2000, including over 1,000 children? Did China demolish over 18,000 homes since 1967, the number experienced by Palestinians during the Israeli colonization (that continues before our eyes)?

Boy, I could go on. But here we are just talking about human rights abuses, so I would say that Israel is equally guilty to China, the claims to democracy notwithstanding. Democracy is never an excuse of human rights abuses. How many linchings of Black southerners occurred before the 1964 Civil Rights Act?

I'd say equally so, compared to China.

On the other hand, I haven't heard of China, at least recently, killing 1,400 mostly civilian people they were starving under a siege (UN reports), including over 300 children. I don't know the history of China's takeover of Tibet very well. Did the Chinese kill that many Tibetans, or even 8,000 civilians, the number of Palestinians killed since 2000, including over 1,000 children? Did China demolish over 18,000 homes since 1967, the number experienced by Palestinians during the Israeli colonization (that continues before our eyes)?

Boy, I could go on. But here we are just talking about human rights abuses, so I would say that Israel is equally guilty to China, the claims to democracy notwithstanding. Democracy is never an excuse of human rights abuses. How many linchings of Black southerners occurred before the 1964 Civil Rights Act?

There are, of course, many Muslim states, not to mention Christian states, and the idea that you can't have democracy without separation of church and state is nothing more than your own political preference.