Screen shot of USA Today article that dupes BDS movement's press release.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel found itself a friend in major American newspaper USA Today recently, when a press release about its efforts to have Alicia Keys cancel her upcoming show in Israel appeared almost verbatim in an article on the newspaper’s website.

The American Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg first tweeted about the disturbing similarities Thursday, a day after the article appeared. “@USATODAY ran a BDS press release as a story. Here’s the newspaper piece Here’s the release” he wrote.

The article accuses Israel of “large-scale abuses of Palestinian rights” and also takes a quote from the press release from Andrew Kadi of the “U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation,” who accuses Israel of denying Palestinians health care and of torturing children.

A paragraph from the USA Today article reads, “The delegation met with staff at the organization, who explained that they were aware of the ongoing efforts to encourage Keys’ cancellation. Delegates passed along materials that included details of the global boycott campaign and reports from rights organizations documenting Israel’s violation of Palestinian children rights, which they confirmed was received by Peter Twyman, executive officer of Keep a Child Alive.”

And an almost identical paragraph from the BDS press release reads, “The delegation met with staff at the organization, who explained that they were aware of the ongoing efforts to encourage Keys’ cancellation. Delegates passed along materials that included details of the global boycott campaign and reports from rights organizations documenting Israel’s violation of Palestinian children rights, which they confirmed Keep a Child Alive’s Chief Executive Officer, Peter Twyman, received.”

Another paragraph from USA Today: “In response to Israel’s large-scale abuses of Palestinian rights, Palestinian Civil Society launched a call for a global campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel in 2005, modeled on the call by black South Africans for a boycott of apartheid South Africa that helped bring an end to the racist system. In response, numerous musicians, including Elvis Costello, Santana, The Pixies and others have canceled concerts or refrained from playing in Israel. In May, physicist Stephen Hawking canceled his planned participation in a conference in Israel, responding to Palestinian requests.”

And here is the same paragraph from the BDS press release almost verbatim: “In response to Israel’s large-scale abuses of Palestinian rights, Palestinian civil society launched a call for a global campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel in 2005, modeled on the call by black South Africans for a boycott of apartheid South Africa that helped bring an end to the racist system. In response, numerous musicians, including Elvis Costello, Santana, The Pixies, and others have cancelled concerts or refrained from playing in Israel. In May, physicist Stephen Hawking cancelled his planned participation in a conference in Israel, responding to Palestinian requests.”

The Algemeiner could not immediately reach the editor of the article for comment.

The BDS press release published as a news report by USA Today. Photo: Screenshot.