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February 8, 2017 10:45 am
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Groups Involved in BDS Campaign on Illinois Campus Use Israeli Tech for Their Websites

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avatar by Rachel Frommer

MECHa's site, built by Wix, references the Israeli company in the right-hand corner and at the bottom of the page. Photo: Screenshot.

MEChA’s site, built by Wix, references the Israeli company in the right-hand corner and at the bottom of the page. Photo: Screenshot.

Student groups co-sponsoring a new Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel at an Illinois university used Israeli software to build their websites, The Algemeiner has learned.

Mexican organization Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán and Persian art collective Gharbzadegi — part of a coalition created last week at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign to pressure the school’s Board of Trustees into divesting from companies the do business with Israel — used technology from the Tel Aviv-based company Wix to create their sites.

As The Algemeiner previously reported, groups involved in the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement have been found to be using Israel’s Wix technology on multiple occasions, according to a 2013 report by the UK’s Zionist Federation (ZF).

At that time, ZF chairman Paul Charney told The Algemeiner that BDS activists “find that living without the benefits of the Start-up Nation might not be as easy as they’d hoped.”

Last year, as well, three anti-Israel groups were called out for using Wix to build websites that included pleas for academic boycotts of Israel; accused the Jewish state of “ethnic cleaning;” and raised money for anti-Israel activities.

Neither Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán nor Gharbzadegi responded to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment.

UPDATE: Following the publication of this article, MEChA’s Wix website appears to have been taken down.

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