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SJP Tag

We have posted many times about how the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement, through faculty and Students for Justice in Palestine branches, has turned campuses and classrooms into political battlefields in the worst way. When Northeastern University SJP marches to the chant of "Long Live the Intifada," they are celebrating the bloody suicide bombing campaign. When Vassar College SJP pickets a class and forces a professor to walk the guantlet just because the course involved a trip to Israel, and anti-Israel students jeer Jewish students who spoke up for Israel, they are sending a message of continued conflict -- so it was no surprise when Vassar SJP tweeted out a Nazi cartoon. When NYU SJP dorm storms and invades the privacy of students in their dorm rooms to leaflet against Israel, they bring the war into bedrooms. When the faculty members of American Studies Association bring the war to campus through an academic boycott of Israel led by people whose explicit goal is the destruction of Israel, it sends a message to students that to be pro-Israel is to be unacceptable in the classroom. When faculty are willing to destroy academic freedom for everyone in order to hurt Israel, yet play victim when their own academic freedom allegedly is impinged, the argument no longer is over principle but pure power. When conspiracy theories involving Jewish control of the media and the money are central to the arguments of BDS supporters who claim not to be anti-Semitic, anti-Semitism flourishes. When a central thesis of the student, faculty and off-campus leadership of the BDS movement on campuses is that Zionism is the cause of anti-Semitism, and even Naziism, anti-Semitism is rationalized. When stoking and exploiting racial tension is a common tactic used to increase hatred of Israel, and BDS refuses to allow Arab and Jewish students to interact for fear of "normalization," BDS tears campuses apart. When making it costly to be pro-Israel on campus is the major achievement of student BDS activists, discussion is impossible. When BDS banners and messages are at the front of Jew-baiting crowds in Europe, Boston and Miami, it's clear what BDS is about.

I know readers probably are skeptical when I constantly tell you how pathological the hatred of Israel is among many Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) supporters on campus. I am not exaggerating. At all. Israel hatred consumes their lives such that everything is politicized and used as an excuse to attack Israel. Even ordinary foodstuffs like hummus, coffee or couscous, are turned into political weapons. It's all about their politics -- they feel no compunction about dominating student government and trying to turn assembly and senate meetings into tools in the war against Israel, and to dominate campus discussion to the exclusion of all other issues. (language warning) (Related Post) They proudly proclaim that even when they lose a divestment vote, they won because they forced student government to spend hours or days talking about how bad Israel supposedly is. One of the most egregious examples was the student senate President -- yes, President -- at Ohio University, Megan Marzec, who used the ALS ice bucket challenge to bash Israel.

When I told you on July 16 that I was Expecting anti-Israel violence on campuses this fall, you might have thought I was needlessly worried. But I have observed over the past academic year the increasing fury and frustration of the campus BDS movement -- and that was before Gaza. So in my post I predicted:
Merely unhinged BDS on campus will be the good old days.
And it may already have come true, just as most universities are seeing students return to campus for the fall semester. Via Truth Revolt, Temple Univ. Jewish Student Punched In Face And Called ‘Kike’ In Anti-Semitic Attack:
A Jewish student on the campus of Temple University was assaulted on Wednesday afternoon and called “kike” and “baby killer” by members of the anti-Semitic student group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Daniel Vessal, a Camera on Campus fellow and a member of the Jewish fraternity AEPi, was punched in the face by a violent member of the anti-Israel organization SJP at “Templefest” which is organized for students on campus to gain new information about campus clubs a week before the start of classes. Vessal is a managing information systems major at the Fox School of Business at the university.....

Stoking racial tension against Israel has been a foundation of the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement in the U.S. One pro-Israel student is having none of it. Chloé Simone Valdary is an outspoken pro-Israel student, who is a shining star in the fight against BDS on campus. She is so effective that, during a recent pro-Israel rally in Boston, Chloé was physically assaulted by a woman carrying a pro-BDS poster, who insisted that Jerusalem would be cleansed of Jews: It seems the example of leftist "tolerance" has not dampened Chloé's pro-Israel activism in the slightest. Chloé has  a brilliant and devastating piece in Tablet, which decries the misuse and distortions of the real, historical racism experienced by blacks in this country by pro-Palestinian student groups (via Tammy Bruce).
To the Students for Justice in Palestine, a Letter From an Angry Black Woman The student organization Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is prominent on many college campuses, preaching a mantra of “Freeing Palestine.” It masquerades as though it were a civil rights group when it is not. Indeed, as an African-American, I am highly insulted that my people’s legacy is being pilfered for such a repugnant agenda. It is thus high time to expose its agenda and lay bare some of the fallacies they peddle.

I graduated from Vassar College in May 2014.  I was the President of the Vassar Conservative Libertarian Union, and the anti-Israel fervor found me. Before we go into this sordid story, it gives us perspective on the times to remember that Vassar College was once a great friend of Israel. In 1975, "Students React Quickly to U.N. Zionism Vote" was a headline in the school paper:
"Concerned Vassar students gathered in the Chapel on a rainy Nov. 12 to protest the U.N. resolution condemning Zionism as racism. Chaplain George Williamson, Jewish Chaplain Derry Baker, Professor Benruy Kraut and two prominent Jewish community leaders, Rabbis Arnold and Zimmet spoke at the student organized rally."
It took thirty years, but what if I told you today that this same college community now views Zionism as the most insidious form of racism. Would it seem Orwellian? Two student groups, Students for Justice in Palestine and JStreetU, were formed last fall. Both liberal, SJP rallies against a two state solution while JStreetU claims to endorse one. At a glance they might seem different, but they share a lot in common when it comes to condemning attempts by me and my group to counter anti-Israel propaganda on campus. In December 2013, the American Studies Association released a resolution boycotting Israel. Reminiscent of students in 1975, the Vassar administration swiftly rejected this resolution right after New Years 2014. Soon-after the Vassar Jewish Union (VJU) became an Open Hillel, which means they welcome anti-Israel speakers. Thirty-nine Vassar faculty then wrote a letter condemning Vassar College's decision.  Students for Justice in Palestine proceeded to swoop down on pro-Israel and neutral students. They protested a class taking a trip to Israel inside an academic building and intimidated the professors. At a Vassar Open forum I attended in May 2014 shortly before graduation, Vassar College President Catharine Hill made clear that she never has condemned the picketing of the class, and any impressions otherwise are wrong: Following complaints about the picketing of the classroom, the Vassar Committee on Inclusion and Excellence organized an open forum led by Professor Kiese Laymon that de facto established any criticism of SJP was motivated by racism, civility was a "cardboard notion," and taking a trip to Israel was the equivalent of organizing an outing to Jim Crow Mississippi. Not surprisingly, the only acceptable thing to say on campus became the lie that Israel is a racist, apartheid state. In order to show the humanity of the perceived Israeli monster, I began innocuously posting images from the Facebook page “Humans of Tel Aviv” in a Vassar student group Facebook page, to show that Israeli cities are cosmopolitan, socially liberal places that resemble Vassar in some ways. This provoked a leader of SJP to tell me “the devil has enough advocates.” Weeds often grow in abandoned fields. Looking back, the first sign of weeds was an "Apartheid Wall" that sprang up in the College Center. This is a common BDS tactic which all follow a similar formula in demonizing the Israeli state. [caption id="attachment_82985" align="alignnone" width="640"]https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=648478308550930&set=pb.569630543102374.-2207520000.1396799191.&type=3&theater (Mock "Apartheid Wall" at Vassar College 2014)[/caption] I walked up to SJP and told them that I was raised in a Muslim family. They loosened up immediately and seemed eager to welcome me into their hate. There are not a lot of Arab and Middle Eastern students on campus. I remembered that a friend had told me about the Wall of Truth, pro-Israel murals that sometimes counters the apartheid walls.

We have covered extensively the attempt by the UCLA branch of Students for Justice in Palestine to keep pro-Israel students off the student council by claiming that taking sponsored trips to Israel (and only Israel) creates a conflict of interest, UCLA testing ground for next generation of anti-Israel campus tactics. The hypocrisy was dripping, as theSJP-backed UCLA Student President-elect took sponsored trip to Israel, yet won by 31 votes slamming such trips. After a trial conducted by students, the Judicial Board of UCLA's student government found  by a 4-0-2 vote that former council members Sunny Singh and Lauren Rogers did not violate conflict of interest bylaws by accepting subsidized trips to Israel from the Anti-Defamation League and Project Interchange, and that their votes against BDS were "valid and legitimate." The decision is at the bottom of this post. While this is was a show trial in which no remedy was available, this sets an important precedent:  pro-Israel students at UCLA who associate with pro-Israel organizations need not fear being legally barred from holding office or voting on Israel-related issues.

I don't know much about Indian politics, so I haven't written about the election sweep which threw out the long-dominant Congress Party. I do know that successive Indian governments have had at times contradictory relations with with Israel; not as crazed anti-Israel as many, but not solidly on Israel's side either. Indian-born writer Vijeta Uniyal believes that the election signals a sea change both politically and economically, with India looking to Israel for technology and investment to jump start the moribund Indian economy, India’s PM-elect Narendra Modi: a friend of Israel:
Narendra Modi is the next Prime Minister of India. Modi’s NDA-Alliance won 336 out of 543 seats in the Indian parliament. He has routed the ruling Congress Party led by Rahul Gandhi, the 4th generation member of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty Modi is arguably one of the most capable administrators in India. As Chief Minister of Gujarat State (2002-14) he turned around the economy, created infrastructure and improved public services. With a population of 60 million, Gujarat’s per-capita GDP today is much higher than India’s average. A lot of ink has been spilled in the international press over this relatively unknown man now at the helm in New Delhi. However there is one story readers in Israel need to hear: Modi is a friend of Israel, the like of whom India has not seen before. This fact can be stated without any exaggeration or wishful thinking. All one needs to do is to look at Modi’s track record. Modi is the first Indian leader to have actually visited Israel. He has often expressed admiration for Israel’s achievements in research, technology and innovation; espacially in the field of agriculture and water resources. Every year more than 2000 farmers from Gujarat visit Israel to get trained in advance farming techniques – at their own expense. He welcomed Israeli Companies to enter water management and recycling sector in 50 cities of Gujarat; and invited Israel to be the guest country at Gujarat state’s flagship Agricultural Fair (Vibrant Gujarat Agro Tech Global Fair 2014).

On Thursday night, UCLA's student government judicial board heard Students for Justice in Palestine v. Singh and Students for Justice in Palestine v. Rogers, both alleging that members of UCLA's  student government (USAC) who are against the Boycott Sanction and Divest (BDS) movement  took inappropriate gifts from pro-Israel organizations and should have recused themselves from the anti-Israel Divestment vote, which lost 7-5. While on its face, this hearing concerned ethics rules, this case is the start of a national movement to make support for Israel costly or prohibited on college campuses, UCLA testing ground for next generation of anti-Israel campus tactics. Jared Sichel, a reporter for the Jewish Journal, Los Angeles' local Jewish newspaper, comments (as both Professor Jacobson and I have also noted in the past) that however the board rules, SJP has succeeded in  "making it costly to be pro-Israel at UCLA." Screenshot 2014-05-18 13.33.58 Now, everyone seeking office who goes on a trip to Israel or is associated with a pro-Israel organization may be accused of having a conflict of interest boxing them out of key positions that vote on divestment matters. SJP is building a chilling effect, showing that those who stand in their way will be subject to long hours of debate, protest, and even "legal" hearings.  Some may not agree with SJP, but consider it not worth the trouble to stand in their way.

In early April, The New York Daily News had a blistering Editorial regarding the anti-Israel Climate at Vassar College, Vassar’s miseducation, focusing on the anti-Israel climate we documented in Anti-Israel academic boycott turns ugly at Vassar. Today the Daily News has another devastating rebuke to Vassar, focusing on the reaction to my speech at Vassar which culminated in the now-infamous posting of a Nazi propaganda poster by Students for Justice in Palestine. I previously knew that the several academic departments which co-sponsored the anti-Israel Max Blumenthal and Ali Abunimah appearance the week before my appearance, would not sponsor me.  I did not previously know that college funds were used for the Blumenthal-Abunimah appearance. Read the whole thing.  Here's an excerpt from Vile at Vassar:
... Faculty members have joined the depravity. Thirty-nine professors protested after [Vassar President Catharine] Hill properly said in January that Vassar would not join the American Studies Association’s anti-Semitism-tinged call for boycotting Israeli universities. The 39 backed the boycott, with some asserting that Hill’s action “silenced discourse on campus,” as one put it. Duh, they claim they want dialogue while supporting a boycott against dialogue. Then it turned out that the 39 lacked the courage of their convictions. When Cornell University Law School professor Bill Jacobson challenged the entire group to debate the merits of boycotting Israel, they all ducked. So on May 5, Jacobson spoke — without fee — on campus at the invitation of the Vassar Conservative Libertarian Union, which is headed by a Muslim student. The libertarian union had sought co-sponsorships for Jacobson’s talk from numerous student groups and academic departments. All refused, a fact that demonstrates how strongly anti-Israel sentiment holds sway at Vassar, perhaps inducing a climate of fear among those who feel otherwise.

NOTE: Literally seconds after this went live I received a message that Vassar had taken down the Wall of Truth which is the subject of this post after it was defaced by anti-Israel students.  The title and text of the post has been adjusted accordingly. Vassar College has been a hotbed of anti-Israel agitation by Students for Justice in Palestine and supporters, as documented in the following prior posts: The situation is so bad that a self-avowed left-wing Daily Kos Diarist and Vassar alumna/us wrote a stinging rebuke, Anti-Semitic Times at Vassar College:
I graduated from Vassar two years ago and I am a proud left winger, but I just can't be down with the Students for Justice in Palestine group at my alma mater. The group is full of filthy anti-Semites, who are spectacularly ignorant about everything from Nazi propaganda to Israel's defense of itself..... At Vassar, even for me, the unhinged left wingers could be too much.... Vassar has become a reactionary, ignorant, illiberal place full of unlettered bigots. No longer will I aid those values with donations.
The Vassar Conservative-Libertarian Union (VCLU), which sponsored my speech at Vassar, decided that it was time to protest before students left campus for the summer. VCLU erected a Wall of Truth to counter the many defamatory and false allegations made against Israel. [caption id="attachment_86233" align="alignnone" width="547"](Wall of Truth at Vassar College, May 2014, feat. Alec Ferretti and Julian Hassan) (Wall of Truth at Vassar College, May 2014, feat. Alec Ferretti and Julian Hassan)[/caption] The Wall of Truth specifically was placed in the same location that Vassar SJP puts its misnomered "Apartheid Wall" during Israeli Apartheid Week:

In February and March 2014, Vassar witnessed ugly and racialized taunting of professors and students regarding a class trip to Israel, Anti-Israel academic boycott turns ugly at Vassar.  The administration took a hands-off approach. Starting shortly after my appearance at Vassar on May 5, to speak against academic BDS, Students for Justice in Palestine began a social media campaign focused on the race of the crowd as a means of denigrating my appearance as an old white Zionist alumni intrusion onto campus. SJP's social media then devolved further, into tweeting and posting of white nationalist and neo-Nazi anti-Zionist material: [caption id="attachment_86121" align="alignnone" width="549"]Vassar SJP Twitter Nazi Poster Screen Shot 2014-05-12 at 12.03.51 AM (Image via Prof. Rebecca Lesses)[/caption] The tweets and postings were documented by Ithaca College Professor Rebecca Lesses at her blog, Mystical Politics.  SJP initially defended the conduct at its Facebook, WordPress, Tumblr and Twitter accounts, but then apologized on Sunday, May 11 and again on Tuesday, May 13:

Legal Insurrection has learned that Students for Justice in Palestine-backed UCLA student president-elect Devin Murphy, whose supporters accused his anti-divestment opponent of corruption and conflict of interest for taking a sponsored trip to Israel from a pro-Israel organization, took a sponsored trip to Israel from a pro-Israel group in January 2013. Murphy, who defeated anti-BDS candidate Sunny Singh by a mere 31 votes in an election with 8,200 cast, went to Israel on a California Student Leaders  trip sponsored by the American Jewish Committee’s Project Interchange. http://youtu.be/jUGZwLb2XiE?t=3m15s That Murphy went on such a sponsored trip but is pro-divestment, shows that such trips are merely educational, and do not dictate a particular pro- or anti-divestment result. SJP filed a judicial board conflict of interest complaint not only against Singh for going on a trip sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, but also against Lauren Rogers, another anti-BDS council member who also went on a Project Interchange Trip. Murphy also signed a letter pledging not to take sponsored trips to Israel from various groups, which accused numerous pro-Israel organizations of promoting bigotry against Muslims, Blacks, and Armenians. Questioned about his trip (video clip here, and embedded below), Murphy claimed that he had no conflict of interest because he was not a member of the council at the time.  He also did not indicate that he would recuse himself from related matters while on council.

Two months ago, after a contentious meeting that lasted until dawn, UCLA’s student government (USAC) defeated a BDS resolution on a 7-5, essentially party-line vote.  The hard work of hundreds of students and alumni, aided by numerous pro-Israel organizations, secured a hard-fought victory. But Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and their allies dried their tears, regrouped, and returned for another round.  Their strategy was two-fold:  Cut off the vital supply lines between campus activists and the real world, then use the morally-backwards campus environment to wield the myriad "anti-racist" tools as weapons against Israel and Jews. [caption id="attachment_85855" align="aligncenter" width="475"]Screenshot 2014-05-11 20.44.54 Students gather to hear USAC election results at UCLA on Friday afternoon[/caption]

Campus Lawfare As Political Tool

As reported here last week, SJP filed a case with USAC’s judicial board, claiming two anti-BDS-voting council members, Sunny Singh and Lauren Rodgers, had violated conflict of interest rules by receiving a free educational trips to Israel.

Soon after the defeat of anti-Israel divestment resolutions at U. Michigan and UCLA, I began to see anti-Israel advocates single out pro-Israel students who had gone on trips to Israel sponsored by pro-Israel groups, or had received advocacy training from pro-Israel groups. These trips and advocacy training are critical because some campuses have become openly hostile to pro-Israel students as a result of "direct action" and other intimidation by relatively small but highly coordinated anti-Israel groups like Students for Justice in Palestine. Professors actively participate in demonizing pro-Israel students.     So I was not completely surprised when I learned from reader emails over the past several days that there is an attempt at UCLA to disqualify any student who received pro-Israel training or trips from being on the Student Council. Because of my trip to Vassar and follow up, I didn't have time to write it up. So I'm glad that two others have done so. Jonathan Tobin at Commentary writes, The Next Step in the Campus War on Jews:

One of the beauties -- and sometimes nightmares -- of Twitter is that sometimes people tell you how they really feel without filters. Such as the NYU Dorm Stormers at Students for Justice in Palestine, who sent out the tweet in the featured image above. That tweet puts the lie to the claims of SJP and similar anti-Israel groups on campus that they do not seek the destruction of Israel, and merely want to have Israel leave Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank). http://youtu.be/TQxzojmhWW0?t=53s There are naïve followers of these groups who actually believe that spin, but that's not what the groups are about. When they say "Justice in Palestine," what they really mean is that Israel has no right even to exist. NYU SJP was called out on the tweet at Truth Revolt: Truth Revolt NYU SJP denies Israel's right to exist A funny thing then happened. The tweet was deleted, rendering this image at the Truth Revolt post: