The anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (
BDS) movement always has used disruption and intimidation on campus as a tactic to initimidate Israeli and pro-Israel speakers and students on campus. Students for Justice in Palestine (
SJP) is a leader in this regard, but hardly alone.
There have been two developments in the past year or two.
First, using the intellectual pretext of "intersectionality," anti-Israel coalitions are build based upon (i) explicitly racial criteria of opposing "white settler colonialism," and (ii) co-opting unrelated social justice causes, such as
Black Lives Matter and even
rape crisis groups.
Second, as reflected in our reporting and a
recent study, disruption has become the preferred tactic, as divestment and other such efforts prove futile even when passed by student governments. Just today, for example, a boycott resolution which had passed the McGill University student assembly was voted down in an all-campus vote,
Anti-Israel Boycott Resolution goes down in flames at McGill University.