Campus Battle Heats Up Over BDS
On April 14, the Doctoral Students Council (DSC) at the City University of New York Graduate Center passed a resolution endorsing the boycott of Israeli academic institutions. Citing Israeli-imposed barriers to Palestinians' right to education, the complicity of Israeli academic institutions in military research and technology, and the DSC's history of taking action on issues of justice and social change, the resolution passed with 42 votes, 19 opposed, and 9 abstentions.
The response is sure to be swift and fierce. Over the last several months, extremist pro-Israel organizations have escalated their campaign against advocates of Palestinian rights on CUNY campuses. In February, the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) sent a letter to the CUNY administration demanding an investigation into what they've framed as a pervasive problem of anti-Semitism at CUNY. ZOA singled out for attention the advocacy of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a decentralized campus-based group of activists for Palestinian rights.
Political pressure is mounting at both the state and city level on the CUNY administration to address the purported crisis of anti-Semitism on campus by punishing Palestinian rights activism. New York City Council's Jewish caucus, for instance, is preparing a resolution on combatting anti-Semitism at CUNY. The New York State Senate invoked CUNY's supposed failure to deal with anti-Semitism in part to rationalize a nearly $500 million dollar budget cut to the university system. Thirty-five New York state lawmakers, led by Assemblyman Dov Hikind, sent a letter to the CUNY administration calling for the suspension of Students for Justice in Palestine chapters on 23 CUNY campuses. Hikind is notorious for showing up in black face to a Purim party, calling for racial profiling on the New York City subway, and being a member of the Jewish Defense League, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has named as a violent extremist organization. Although ZOA has a clear political agenda, many of its allegations of anti-Semitism are unconnected to SJP, and its past efforts to file Title IV cases against Palestinian rights organizing have been dismissed due to lack of evidence, these allegations have brought to bear powerful forces against the freedom of speech for activists for Palestinian rights at CUNY.
What's happening at CUNY isn't an isolated case. At the University of California, hawkish pro-Israel organizations led by the AMCHA Initiative campaigned to get the UC Regents to adopt an expansive definition of anti-Semitism to include anti-Zionism and legitimate criticism of Israel. Pushback from Palestinian rights activists, civil rights groups, the graduate student union, academic freedom groups, faculty, and students resulted in the Regents ultimately passing a resolution that distinguishes (if vaguely) between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. As Rabbi Brant Rosen wrote in an op-ed opposing a draft of the policy in Haaretz, growing numbers of Jews identify as anti-Zionist, and "[f]ar from being discriminatory, their beliefs are motivated by values of equality and human rights for all human beings."
Over the past few years, shifting public opinion among key constituencies in the Democratic Party, including mainly young people and people of color, has helped to change the dynamics of the conversation about Israel/Palestine. Recent polling has found that 47% of Democrats consider Israel to be a racist state, and that nearly 49% support applying some kind of economic pressure on Israel on the issue of settlements.
Growing support for Palestinian rights--and to put economic pressure on Israel through boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns targeting companies complicit in human rights abuses and violations of international law in local municipalities, campus endowments, and churches--has provoked an intensive backlash from Israel's defenders. Jewish establishment organizations, Christian Zionist organizations, and other Israel lobby groups are competing for the millions of dollars that pro-Israel funders have mobilized to address what they see as a public relations problem. Rather than question the increasingly extremist policies of the Israel government and leveraging their power to change it, these organizations are deflecting well-deserved criticism of the Israeli state's policies with accusations of anti-Semitism.
Unable to defend Israel's increasingly repressive policies, advocates have turned to new tactics to shut down the conversation about Palestinian human rights. They have slipped anti-BDS amendments into federal trade legislation, pushed resolutions at the state level to condemn the BDS movement as anti-Semitic, supported legislation to prevent states from contracting with companies that boycott Israel or Israel's illegal settlements, and created blacklists of groups and companies that support economic pressure to change Israeli policies.
Israel advocacy groups have zeroed in on a much-criticized definition of anti-Semitism the State Department uses to monitor anti-Semitism globally to conflate criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism. The definition includes the so-called "3Ds"-- demonize, delegitimize, and apply a double-standard to Israel--that can and have been used to silence activism for Palestinian rights.
None of this is to say that incidents of anti-Semitism do not occur or that they should not be addressed and confronted when they do. But those whose political agenda is to silence legitimate criticism of Israeli policies and the subsequent treatment of Palestinians, both currently and historically, have been applying this expansive definition of anti-Semitism.
Despite this pressure, student activism for Palestinian rights is gaining momentum. Just this week the student government at the University of Chicago passed a divestment resolution, and the graduate student union at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst passed a resolution endorsing BDS. Given Israel's rightward shift and the stalled (and flawed) peace process, there is growing recognition that political and economic outside pressure will be necessary to bring about a semblance of justice and security for all people living in the region.
Urgent. It's never been this bad.
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission from the outset was simple. To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It’s never been this bad out there. And it’s never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed and doing some of its best and most important work, the threats we face are intensifying. Right now, with just four days to go in our Spring Campaign, we are not even halfway to our goal. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Can you make a gift right now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? There is no backup plan or rainy day fund. There is only you. —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
On April 14, the Doctoral Students Council (DSC) at the City University of New York Graduate Center passed a resolution endorsing the boycott of Israeli academic institutions. Citing Israeli-imposed barriers to Palestinians' right to education, the complicity of Israeli academic institutions in military research and technology, and the DSC's history of taking action on issues of justice and social change, the resolution passed with 42 votes, 19 opposed, and 9 abstentions.
The response is sure to be swift and fierce. Over the last several months, extremist pro-Israel organizations have escalated their campaign against advocates of Palestinian rights on CUNY campuses. In February, the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) sent a letter to the CUNY administration demanding an investigation into what they've framed as a pervasive problem of anti-Semitism at CUNY. ZOA singled out for attention the advocacy of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a decentralized campus-based group of activists for Palestinian rights.
Political pressure is mounting at both the state and city level on the CUNY administration to address the purported crisis of anti-Semitism on campus by punishing Palestinian rights activism. New York City Council's Jewish caucus, for instance, is preparing a resolution on combatting anti-Semitism at CUNY. The New York State Senate invoked CUNY's supposed failure to deal with anti-Semitism in part to rationalize a nearly $500 million dollar budget cut to the university system. Thirty-five New York state lawmakers, led by Assemblyman Dov Hikind, sent a letter to the CUNY administration calling for the suspension of Students for Justice in Palestine chapters on 23 CUNY campuses. Hikind is notorious for showing up in black face to a Purim party, calling for racial profiling on the New York City subway, and being a member of the Jewish Defense League, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has named as a violent extremist organization. Although ZOA has a clear political agenda, many of its allegations of anti-Semitism are unconnected to SJP, and its past efforts to file Title IV cases against Palestinian rights organizing have been dismissed due to lack of evidence, these allegations have brought to bear powerful forces against the freedom of speech for activists for Palestinian rights at CUNY.
What's happening at CUNY isn't an isolated case. At the University of California, hawkish pro-Israel organizations led by the AMCHA Initiative campaigned to get the UC Regents to adopt an expansive definition of anti-Semitism to include anti-Zionism and legitimate criticism of Israel. Pushback from Palestinian rights activists, civil rights groups, the graduate student union, academic freedom groups, faculty, and students resulted in the Regents ultimately passing a resolution that distinguishes (if vaguely) between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. As Rabbi Brant Rosen wrote in an op-ed opposing a draft of the policy in Haaretz, growing numbers of Jews identify as anti-Zionist, and "[f]ar from being discriminatory, their beliefs are motivated by values of equality and human rights for all human beings."
Over the past few years, shifting public opinion among key constituencies in the Democratic Party, including mainly young people and people of color, has helped to change the dynamics of the conversation about Israel/Palestine. Recent polling has found that 47% of Democrats consider Israel to be a racist state, and that nearly 49% support applying some kind of economic pressure on Israel on the issue of settlements.
Growing support for Palestinian rights--and to put economic pressure on Israel through boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns targeting companies complicit in human rights abuses and violations of international law in local municipalities, campus endowments, and churches--has provoked an intensive backlash from Israel's defenders. Jewish establishment organizations, Christian Zionist organizations, and other Israel lobby groups are competing for the millions of dollars that pro-Israel funders have mobilized to address what they see as a public relations problem. Rather than question the increasingly extremist policies of the Israel government and leveraging their power to change it, these organizations are deflecting well-deserved criticism of the Israeli state's policies with accusations of anti-Semitism.
Unable to defend Israel's increasingly repressive policies, advocates have turned to new tactics to shut down the conversation about Palestinian human rights. They have slipped anti-BDS amendments into federal trade legislation, pushed resolutions at the state level to condemn the BDS movement as anti-Semitic, supported legislation to prevent states from contracting with companies that boycott Israel or Israel's illegal settlements, and created blacklists of groups and companies that support economic pressure to change Israeli policies.
Israel advocacy groups have zeroed in on a much-criticized definition of anti-Semitism the State Department uses to monitor anti-Semitism globally to conflate criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism. The definition includes the so-called "3Ds"-- demonize, delegitimize, and apply a double-standard to Israel--that can and have been used to silence activism for Palestinian rights.
None of this is to say that incidents of anti-Semitism do not occur or that they should not be addressed and confronted when they do. But those whose political agenda is to silence legitimate criticism of Israeli policies and the subsequent treatment of Palestinians, both currently and historically, have been applying this expansive definition of anti-Semitism.
Despite this pressure, student activism for Palestinian rights is gaining momentum. Just this week the student government at the University of Chicago passed a divestment resolution, and the graduate student union at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst passed a resolution endorsing BDS. Given Israel's rightward shift and the stalled (and flawed) peace process, there is growing recognition that political and economic outside pressure will be necessary to bring about a semblance of justice and security for all people living in the region.
On April 14, the Doctoral Students Council (DSC) at the City University of New York Graduate Center passed a resolution endorsing the boycott of Israeli academic institutions. Citing Israeli-imposed barriers to Palestinians' right to education, the complicity of Israeli academic institutions in military research and technology, and the DSC's history of taking action on issues of justice and social change, the resolution passed with 42 votes, 19 opposed, and 9 abstentions.
The response is sure to be swift and fierce. Over the last several months, extremist pro-Israel organizations have escalated their campaign against advocates of Palestinian rights on CUNY campuses. In February, the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) sent a letter to the CUNY administration demanding an investigation into what they've framed as a pervasive problem of anti-Semitism at CUNY. ZOA singled out for attention the advocacy of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a decentralized campus-based group of activists for Palestinian rights.
Political pressure is mounting at both the state and city level on the CUNY administration to address the purported crisis of anti-Semitism on campus by punishing Palestinian rights activism. New York City Council's Jewish caucus, for instance, is preparing a resolution on combatting anti-Semitism at CUNY. The New York State Senate invoked CUNY's supposed failure to deal with anti-Semitism in part to rationalize a nearly $500 million dollar budget cut to the university system. Thirty-five New York state lawmakers, led by Assemblyman Dov Hikind, sent a letter to the CUNY administration calling for the suspension of Students for Justice in Palestine chapters on 23 CUNY campuses. Hikind is notorious for showing up in black face to a Purim party, calling for racial profiling on the New York City subway, and being a member of the Jewish Defense League, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has named as a violent extremist organization. Although ZOA has a clear political agenda, many of its allegations of anti-Semitism are unconnected to SJP, and its past efforts to file Title IV cases against Palestinian rights organizing have been dismissed due to lack of evidence, these allegations have brought to bear powerful forces against the freedom of speech for activists for Palestinian rights at CUNY.
What's happening at CUNY isn't an isolated case. At the University of California, hawkish pro-Israel organizations led by the AMCHA Initiative campaigned to get the UC Regents to adopt an expansive definition of anti-Semitism to include anti-Zionism and legitimate criticism of Israel. Pushback from Palestinian rights activists, civil rights groups, the graduate student union, academic freedom groups, faculty, and students resulted in the Regents ultimately passing a resolution that distinguishes (if vaguely) between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. As Rabbi Brant Rosen wrote in an op-ed opposing a draft of the policy in Haaretz, growing numbers of Jews identify as anti-Zionist, and "[f]ar from being discriminatory, their beliefs are motivated by values of equality and human rights for all human beings."
Over the past few years, shifting public opinion among key constituencies in the Democratic Party, including mainly young people and people of color, has helped to change the dynamics of the conversation about Israel/Palestine. Recent polling has found that 47% of Democrats consider Israel to be a racist state, and that nearly 49% support applying some kind of economic pressure on Israel on the issue of settlements.
Growing support for Palestinian rights--and to put economic pressure on Israel through boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns targeting companies complicit in human rights abuses and violations of international law in local municipalities, campus endowments, and churches--has provoked an intensive backlash from Israel's defenders. Jewish establishment organizations, Christian Zionist organizations, and other Israel lobby groups are competing for the millions of dollars that pro-Israel funders have mobilized to address what they see as a public relations problem. Rather than question the increasingly extremist policies of the Israel government and leveraging their power to change it, these organizations are deflecting well-deserved criticism of the Israeli state's policies with accusations of anti-Semitism.
Unable to defend Israel's increasingly repressive policies, advocates have turned to new tactics to shut down the conversation about Palestinian human rights. They have slipped anti-BDS amendments into federal trade legislation, pushed resolutions at the state level to condemn the BDS movement as anti-Semitic, supported legislation to prevent states from contracting with companies that boycott Israel or Israel's illegal settlements, and created blacklists of groups and companies that support economic pressure to change Israeli policies.
Israel advocacy groups have zeroed in on a much-criticized definition of anti-Semitism the State Department uses to monitor anti-Semitism globally to conflate criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism. The definition includes the so-called "3Ds"-- demonize, delegitimize, and apply a double-standard to Israel--that can and have been used to silence activism for Palestinian rights.
None of this is to say that incidents of anti-Semitism do not occur or that they should not be addressed and confronted when they do. But those whose political agenda is to silence legitimate criticism of Israeli policies and the subsequent treatment of Palestinians, both currently and historically, have been applying this expansive definition of anti-Semitism.
Despite this pressure, student activism for Palestinian rights is gaining momentum. Just this week the student government at the University of Chicago passed a divestment resolution, and the graduate student union at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst passed a resolution endorsing BDS. Given Israel's rightward shift and the stalled (and flawed) peace process, there is growing recognition that political and economic outside pressure will be necessary to bring about a semblance of justice and security for all people living in the region.