RUTHFULLY YOURS

On college campuses across America, hatred and bigotry directed against Jews is at an all-time high. It is now almost commonplace for swastikas to appear in university halls and restrooms or scrawled on Jewish fraternity houses. Hundreds of chapters of the Hamas-funded terrorist support group, Students for Justice in Palestine, hold events promoting anti-Semitic speakers who spread terrorist propaganda, describing Israel – created the same way Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq were created—as a “settler-colonial state” that engages in “ethnic cleansing.” Under the influence of these terrorist-supporting hate groups, university departments have lined up to endorse statements incorporating the same genocidal lies.

Under pressure from Students for Justice in Palestine and other campus groups including the Muslim Brotherhood-created Muslim Students Association, student governments across the nation are promoting the Hamas-created Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel and its sister movement, the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, efforts reminiscent of the Nazi boycotts of the past. The goal of these boycotts is to isolate and economically strangle the world’s only Jewish state and the Middle East’s only democracy.

In the rare instances when pro-Israel speakers are invited to campus, they are met by mobs shouting slogans such as “Intifada!”—a call for a new violent uprising against Israel—or “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free”—a call to destroy the entirety of the Jewish homeland. America’s universities have become a new fount of Jew hatred which then leeches into the broader culture.

Members of SJP and other campus anti-Israel groups will attempt to deny that their goals and rhetoric are anti-Semitic and claim that they are targeting Israel’s alleged atrocities—while of course ignoring the never-ending terror campaign perpetrated by the Palestine Authority and Hamas against the Jewish people.

In 2016, the U.S. State Department, along with 30 other nations that comprise the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) adopted a “working definition” of anti-Semitism that illuminates multiple ways in which SJP and their allies openly promote Jew hatred.

The member nations of the IHRA defined anti-Semitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

Examples of anti-Semitism were presented “to guide IHRA in its work.” These examples include “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” and “Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.”

Other examples of anti-Semitism included are: “Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation,” “Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis,” and “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis,” among others.

This latter libel is particularly ironic since the Muslim Brotherhood translated Hitler’s Mein Kampf in the 1930’s, and the George Washington of Palestinian nationalism – the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini – was a Nazi who spent the war years in Berlin organizing an Arab legion for Hitler and planning an Auschwitz for the Middle East.

Israeli politician Natan Sharansky encompasses many of the IHRA points in his equally illuminating but more succinct definition of anti-Semitism known as the “Three D’s” – Delegitimization, Demonization, and Double Standards.

In Sharansky’s definition, criticism of Israel crosses the line into anti-Semitism when it delegitimizes Israel as a Jewish state by claiming that its founding by the UN was illegitimate or racist, when Jews or Israelis are demonized as evil or portrayed as bloodthirsty, and when double standards are applied to criticize Israel for its foreign policy and record on human rights while avoiding scrutiny of other nations.

It is no coincidence that Jewish students and organizations on many campuses have sought to have their universities adopt the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, and also no coincidence that their efforts have been universally and violently opposed by members of Students for Justice in Palestine and other anti-Jewish campus hate groups. SJP knows that they openly and flagrantly participate in and promote Jew hatred on a daily basis.

The report that follows exposes the pervasive Jew hatred that exists at ten prominent American universities. This hatred is not limited to individuals, but thrives on an apparatus of support within these universities including student organizations, faculty members, student governments, university departments, and even administrators. While we believe these ten campuses to be the worst of the worst, the sad truth is that Jew hatred exists and is increasing on hundreds if not thousands of campuses across America. We must name it, before it accomplishes its genocidal goals. And we must take measures to de-fund it and stop it.

The campus terrorist movement is led by Students for Justice in Palestine and the Muslim Students Association. Over a dozen former members of the Muslim Students Association—including several former chapter presidents—have gone on to hold positions in terrorist organizations in the Middle East and elsewhere. The most famous of these was Anwar al-Awlaki, a leader of al Qaeda in Yemen who was president of the Colorado State Muslim Students Association, and eventually killed in a drone strike during the Obama administration.

Students for Justice in Palestine and other campus purveyors of Jew hatred are officially recognized by their university administrations. This means they are given privileges denied to non-officially recognized groups, receive funding for their campus events, and are given coveted student offices to conduct their student business. They receive all these benefits despite the fact that they violate official “community principles” which insist on respect for other students and campus diversity.

If officially-sanctioned university organizations and departments directed this sort of rabid hate at any other group on campus—blacks or transgender students for instance—they would be stripped of their university recognition, campus privileges, student offices and university funding, and their leaders would probably be expelled.

Yet groups devoted to spreading Jew hatred continue to receive official recognition, support, and funding from American universities, even as they call for a genocide of the Jews.

We call on the universities catalogued in this report and all institutions of higher learning to shut down the Jew hatred infecting their campuses. If they should fail to do so, we urge Congress to withhold all federal funding until they are willing to support the principles of diversity, inclusion and fairness which represent the heart of the American system.

The Top Ten:

University of Chicago
San Francisco State University
Arizona State University
Rutgers University
University of Michigan
University of California-Los Angeles
University of Houston
University of Minnesota
Florida State University
Boston University

(Universities are not ranked within the top ten)

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago has become one of the most ardent promoters of Jew hatred among American campuses. The campus chapter of the terrorist-funded hate group, Students for Justice in Palestine, published an art zine titled “Cheers to Intifada,” referring to the violent Palestinian uprisings during which Jewish citizens of Israel were slaughtered because they were Jews. The student government at Chicago also published a statement promoting the anti-Semitic BDS movement against Israel and used genocidal language calling to “free” Palestine “from the river to the sea,” a call to annihilate the entire state of Israel along with its Jewish citizens. The Center for Middle East Studies at Chicago has also held multiple events featuring anti-Semitic speakers such as Rashid Khalidi and Michelle Hartman who demonized Israel and endorsed BDS.

Evidence:

In April 2022, the Viewpoints Head Editors of The Chicago Maroon removed an op-ed written by Jewish students titled “We Must Condemn the SJP’s Online Anti-Semitism” and published an apology for printing it in the first place. The apology claimed that the op-ed was removed because it spread “factual inaccuracies,” promoted “Zionist and racist sentiments that relied on oversimplified narratives,” and “perpetuated hate toward UChicago’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP UChicago), Palestinian students, and those on campus who support the Palestinian liberation struggle.”

In February 2022, a member of SJP published an opinion piece in The Chicago Maroon titled “We Should Join SJP’s Boycott of Zionist Classes.” The piece promoted the academic boycott of Israel, an offshoot of the Hamas-inspired BDS movement against Israel. The piece also demonized Israel, stating that “Classes that normalize the foundation of an apartheid regime on the exclusionary basis of other ethnicities and identities are racist. Calling out these classes is not.”

In January 2022, SJP’s chapter at the University of Chicago posted on Instagram encouraging students to “support the Palestinian liberation by boycotting classes on Israel or those taught by Israeli fellows.” The header for the post used obscene language to characterize supporters of Israel, stating, “Don’t Take Sh*tty Zionist Classes.” The content of the post also demonized Israel, claiming that it is an “apartheid state” which “dehumanize[s] indigenous populations and justif[ies] their violent seizure of land.”

In November 2021, SJP at U. Chicago published an art zine titled “Cheers to Intifada.”  The zine promoted terrorism against Israel and contained violent imagery including a graphic of two lit Molotov cocktails raised in a toast under the heading “Cheers to Intifada.” The zine was also rife with anti-Semitism including an image of a pig wearing a policeman’s hat with a Jewish star on it. Poems in the publication promoted ancient blood libel tropes against Jews such as one describing a Jewish teenager who held Palestinians captive and had “animalistic lust yearning to rape bodies.”

In October 2021, U. Chicago SJP promoted the genocidal BDS movement against Israel by posting support for an academic boycott of Israel on Instagram. The post demonized Israel as a practitioner of “blatant apartheid” – Israel is almost the only country in the Middle East that is not an apartheid state—and urged American universities to cut ties with their counterparts in Israel.

In June 2021, SJP published a lengthy statement calling on the College Council to “vote ‘NO’ on the resolution to retract [the University Student Government’s] statement of solidarity and support for Palestine.” SJP’s statement promoted Jew hatred and demonized Israel, calling campus supporters of the Jewish state “student body apartheid apologists,” and denying Israel’s self-determination by calling for the “abolition of a violent political state [of Israel].”

In June 2021, the Center for Middle East Studies at U. Chicago held an event titled “Language, Translation, and Politics of Solidarity with Palestine” featuring McGill University professor Michelle Hartman. During her address, Hartman demonized Israel as being founded on “settler colonialism” and promoted the genocidal and terrorist-funded BDS movement against Israel.

In May 2021, the student government at the University of Chicago published a statement claiming to “stand against the ideology of Zionism” and using genocidal language against the Jewish people, stating “from the river to the sea, USG supports a Palestine that is free.” The statement additionally demonized Israel, claiming that the “ideology of Zionism” has been “used as a justification for murder, displacement and traumatization of Palestinian people,” and openly supported the terrorist-inspired BDS movement against the Jewish state. Jewish groups on campus later noted that a Jewish student government representative and Jewish groups on campus were excluded from discussions on the resolution before it passed, as a result of SJP’s insistence that if they were allowed to participate in the discussions, they would “view this [Israel] as religious conflict, not apartheid.”

The statement was endorsed by nearly 30 faculty members of the University. On the night the statement was released, a group of Jewish students returning from a religious service was threatened by a passing motorist who “repeatedly yelled out ‘F*ck Jews.'”

In March 2021, The U. Chicago Center for Middle East Studies and the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) held an event on “COVID-19 and Access to Essential Drugs in Gaza.” Speakers at the event demonized Israel by accusing it of “medical apartheid” and having “weaponized COVID” with respect to the Palestinians.

In December 2020, The Center for Middle Eastern Studies held an event titled, “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.” Featured speakers at the event included anti-Semitic Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi. During his address, Khalidi demonized Israel, accusing the Jewish state of “settler colonialism” and “occupation,” and claiming falsely that Israel attempts to terrify the Palestinians to achieve dominance rather than to ensure the nation’s safety: “I don’t think it’s security [for Israel that] fully describes accurately what is at stake here. What is at stake is actually dominance and hegemony when Israeli soldiers are kicking down doors and scaring children in the night… They’re making people afraid of them and that’s the objective. The objective is not really to make a child in [name of Israeli town] secure by making a child in Nablus wet his bed or her bed because soldiers are kicking down the door.”

San Francisco State University

San Francisco State University has a well-earned reputation as perhaps the most anti-Semitic university in the nation, and Professor Rabab Abdulhadi serves as the public face of its Jew hatred. Abdulhadi is a rabidly anti-Semitic professor of Ethnic Studies who also heads SFSU’s Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Initiative (AMED). AMED has sponsored an event at which posters asserted, “My Heroes Have Always Killed Colonizers,” referring to Israel’s Jews. Abdulhadi has glorified anti-Israel terrorism in public talks and served as faculty advisor to SFSU’s chapter of the General Union of Palestinian Students, an SJP surrogate group, during the time when its leader posted pictures of himself wielding a knife and threatening Jews on social media and was investigated for terrorism by the FBI. More recently, Abdulhadi has hosted online events featuring Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled, whom Abdulhadi reveres as a hero. Abdulhadi does not stand alone in promoting Jew hatred among SFSU faculty. Numerous academic departments have held events featuring known anti-Semitic speakers and endorsed statements demonizing and delegitimizing the Jewish state and AMED continues to post anti-Semitic statements and rhetoric on its official university social media accounts.

Evidence:

In March 2022, SFSU professors Rabab Abdulhadi and Tomomi Kinukawa urged supporters to attend a “grievance hearing” after an online event they held featuring convicted PFLP terrorist Leila Khaled was removed from YouTube for violating their community standards. National SJP quoted SFSU Professor Kinukawa who said of SFSU, “We urgently need to resist Islamophobia, Orientalism, and settler-colonialism including yellow washing and pink washing [as] these settler colonial and racist structures have been instrumentalized by neo-liberalized ethnic, queer and women’s and gender studies, to systematically justify their complicity with Zionism.”

In November 2021, a multitude of campus and community groups including the Palestine Action Network, US Palestinian Community Network, Al-Awda San Francisco, NorCal Friends of Sabeel and Palestinian Youth Movement held a “SAVE AMED – Press Conference & Community Speak Out” in the SFSU Quad. AMED is the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Initiative which is led by notorious anti-Semite SFSU Professor Rabab Abdulhadi. The advertisement for the event demonized Israel as an “apartheid” state and invited anti-Semitic conspiracy theories by claiming that Abdulhadi and her students have suffered “attacks on their freedom of speech and academic freedom from corporate and Zionist outside forces.” Speakers at the event also promoted Jew hatred. Alexi Folger, an SFSU alum and member of the anti-Semitic hate group Jewish Voice for Peace led the audience in a chant of “Zionism is racism, Zionism is racism, Zionism is racism, free Palestine!” while Tomomi Kinukawa, a lecturer in the Department of Women and Gender Studies at SFSU, claimed that SFSU “President Mahoney refuses to acknowledge and end SFSU’s collusion with Zionists and their racist Islamophobic attacks on Dr. Abdulhadi, AMED and teaching Palestine…” and that the “SFSU administration rejects join[ing] the anti-colonial and anti-apartheid movements for justice in and for Palestine.” Suzanne a member of the Palestinian Youth Movement, declared “Zionism is racism. Zionism upholds the tenets of white supremacy.”

In June 2021, AMED at SFSU and The People’s Forum co-sponsored an event titled, “Justice for Palestine – A Call to Action from Indigenous and Women of Color Feminists, A Report Card 10 Years Later.” Numerous speakers at the event engaged in speech that demonized and delegitimized Israel and also expressed support for the genocidal and Hamas-inspired BDS movement.  Dr. Premilla Nadasen, a Professor of History at Barnard College/Columbia University, claimed that “[T]he walls, the structures of apartheid in Palestine, were designed to isolate, were designed to undermine unity, were designed to divide. It was about the diversion of water resources, it was about the theft of land, it was about ethnic cleansing.” Dr. Angela Davis, a professor emeritus at UC-Santa Cruz and a notorious communist and conspirator with the Black Panthers, quoted activist June Jordan stating, “I was born a black woman and now I have become Palestinian against the relentless laughter of evil.” One speaker reportedly exclaimed “all empires collapse… Israel will fall as well, and that for me is a source of hope and inspiration.”

In May 2021, the Department of Women & Gender Studies at SFSU signed the statement “Gender Studies Departments in Solidarity with Palestinian Feminist Collective.” The statement demonized Israel as “using violent force, punitive bureaucracy, and the legal system to expel Palestinians from their rightful homes and to remove Palestinian people from their land” and denied self-determination to the Jewish people.

In April 2021, AMED at SFSU co-sponsored the event “#FreeThemAll – In Sumoud and Solidarity from the United States to Palestine.” Speakers at the event demonized Israel and promoted the genocidal and Hamas-funded BDS movement against Israel. AMED senior scholar Prof. Rabab Abdulhadi appeared to celebrate terrorists by declaring that “as is the case in Palestine, we always start all events by honoring the martyrs, the fallen, who have fallen in the struggle for justice, for freedom, for all our communities, for humanity, for all of us.” She also invited the audience to a future webinar with convicted Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled.

In April 2021, the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) at SFSU and Bears for Palestine at UC Berkeley co-hosted an “Israeli Apartheid Week,” an anti-Semitic hatefest that promotes Hamas propaganda. The week included an event promoting the Palestinian “right of return” which would annihilate Israel as a Jewish state.

The official Facebook page for AMED Studies at SFSU promoted “Israeli Apartheid Week” at a Canadian University including a speech by AMED Director Rabab Abdulhadi on “Anything but Random – Defeating Zionist and Corporatized Systematic Erasure of Palestine.”

In March 2021, AMED Studies joined Samidoun – Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network for an event featuring Rabab Abdulhadi and Steve Zeltzer who both demonized Israel and promoted anti-Jewish conspiracy theories. Abdulhadi declared that “Today, a perennial Zionist right-wing and white supremacist campaign is threatening to recolonize the California ethnic studies curriculum, silence Palestine [and] police and suppress campus activism and privatize our public education.”

In February 2021, a multitude of academic departments at SFSU including Africana Studies, Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Studies, Asian American Studies and Edison Uno Institute of Nikkei and Uchinanchu Studies, held an event titled “2021 Day of Remembrance,” where a pair of SFSU faculty members demonized and delegitimized Israel and appeared to condone anti-Israel terrorism.

Miho Kim, a lecturer in Asian American Studies at SFSU claimed that Zoom’s decision to censor an “education” presentation featuring a convicted Palestinian terrorist amounts to “branding a freedom fighter resisting an illegal and racist colonial occupation of Palestine by Israel a staunch US ally in the region as a terrorist.” She equated this determination to “how people of Japanese ancestry were once branded enemy aliens during World War II.”

Dr. Tomomi Kinukawa lauded “revolutionaries” who “taught me how to set our own narratives” and referred to Israel as “Zionist Israel of settler colonialism in Palestine…”

In December 2020, the official Facebook page for AMED posted a quote from AMED director and notorious anti-Semite Rabab Abdulhadi that demonized Israel and equated it to white supremacy. The quote read in part, “Palestine Writes – WE UNDERSTAND THAT ISRAEL’S SETTLER COLONIAL PROJECT IS BUILT UPON THE ERASURE OF #PALESTINE AND PALESTINIANS, but the tide is turning and we must press forward. ‘Zionists and white supremacists have long sought to muzzle me. Now they are widening their nets considerably….”

In September 2020, AMED Studies and the Women and Gender Studies Departments co-hosted an event titled, “Whose Narratives – Gender, Justice, & Resistance: A conversation with Leila Khaled.” Speakers at the event openly promoted Jew hatred and condoned anti-Israel terrorism. Speaking about convicted terrorist Leila Khaled, Abdulhadi stated, “Leila Khaled is not an exception but she is a model to be followed. Leila Khaled represents the strength, the defiance, and also the resistance to islamophobic orientalists and colonialist discourses.” YouTube shut the event down after 22 minutes for violating its community standards.

Arizona State University

Arizona State University is home to an extremist chapter of the Hamas-funded hate group Students for Justice in Palestine which has bragged about disrupting pro-Israel events on campus and called for a violent uprising or “Intifada” against Israel. Other campus organizations have labeled campus Jewish groups as “Fascist Groups on Campus” and have joined with SJP to call for ASU to support the Hamas-funded BDS movement against Israel and denigrated the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) as Nazis, a common form of anti-Semitism. SJP and allied campus groups have repeatedly introduced resolutions supporting BDS on campus and have issued press releases and statements demonizing and delegitimizing the Jewish state.

Evidence:

In November 2021, antisemitic flyers were found posted on the Arizona State University campus that stated “Who Controls the World? Jews Do” over an image of a hook-nosed individual dressed as a vampire and a Star of David. The words “Jews Do” were written in a red font meant to depict blood.

In October 2021, the campus organization, Students for Socialism at ASU, created a Facebook post listing allegedly “Fascist Groups on Campus” which attacked Jewish organizations and demonized the Jewish state.  The post claimed that the campus chapter of Students Supporting Israel “[l]iterally only exists to support the genocidal apartheid state of Israel” and alleged that the group’s “Executive members have harassed BIPOC students, including Palestinian and Muslim students.” The post also stated that another campus Jewish group, J Street ASU, “[l]iterally only exists to support the genocidal apartheid state of Israel and the ‘two-state solution.'”

In June 2021, SJP at ASU co-hosted an Instagram Live event together with other pro-Palestinian organizations. An advertisement for the event urged participants to “Join us and our friends at this page on IG live Tuesday night cuz we gonna talk sh*t on zios [Zionists].”

In May 2021, SJP at ASU, The Palestine Cultural Club at ASU and the Arizona Palestine Solidarity Alliance together authored an email to ASU President Michael Crow promoting the genocidal and terrorist-funded academic BDS movement against Israel. The email urged the president to put an end to students’ ability to study abroad in Israel and also to prohibit the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) from coming to campus.  The email also demonized and delegitimized Israel by claiming that it perpetrates “ethnic cleansing” and exists on “occupied land.” It also invoked Jew-hating blood libel tropes by claiming that the IDF “have the blood of our families on their hands.”

In May 2021, SJP at ASU held an off-campus rally where the group displayed signs that demonized and delegitimized Israel including “Stop United States Aid to Apartheid Israel,” “End Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,” “Jerusalem is the Capital of Palestine,” “Stop Genocide, Free Palestine” and “We can’t breathe since 1948.”

During a student government meeting on April 13, 2021, the vice president of the campus chapter of SJP demonized Israel and called the members of the student senate “cowards” for “not speaking up about apartheid and one of the biggest human rights violations that is going on in our time.” She also objected to a 2019 visit during which IDF soldiers were invited to campus and argued that it was a reason to restrict funding to pro-Israel groups: “As USG oversees funding to organizations, I don’t think that funding should be given to organizations that invite apartheid forces that make me feel unsafe [and] I’m disappointed in you and you are elected officials… BDS is not going away.”

In April 2021, SJP together with other student groups introduced “A Resolution to Support Palestinian Students” in the ASU student government. The resolution promoted the terrorist-sponsored BDS movement against Israel and also demonized and delegitimized the Jewish state.  “Whereas the Israeli economy is built on and currently complicit with colonization, exclusion and apartheid, so this resolution targets specific companies and brands in order to concentrate its efforts,” it read. The student government president later removed the resolution from consideration stating that it was beyond the purview of the body.

In November 2019, several pro-Israel and Jewish groups on campus jointly held an event featuring injured veterans of the IDF titled “Courage and Sacrifice – Israeli Soldiers Speak on Campus.” Protestors holding signs promoting “Intifada” disrupted the event, forcing it to be moved to a new location, and then harassing students as they left the new location.

ASU Hillel issued a statement, noting, “When Hillel staff and students came to prepare the room, it was covered in Palestinian flags and approximately 80 protesters blocked the entrance. We were offered another room in the Memorial Union and able to continue the event; ASU Police escorted all event attendees out of the Memorial Union at its conclusion. Unfortunately, the protests caused many students to feel intimidated, ultimately choosing not to attend. ASU Hillel believes strongly that these actions of intimidation are antithetical to our campus values, as they disrespect our students’ and our guests’ right to free expression.” SJP at ASU later shared a statement on social media from the ASU Students for Socialism bragging about shutting down the event.

A Jewish student wrote an article describing the incident which involved “a group of 50 students chanting and heading toward the room Hillel had reserved” armed with posters stating “Long live the intifada” as well as other statements demonizing Israel. “I called my roommates to walk me home because I didn’t feel safe on campus by myself,” the student testified.

In response to the IDF event, an SJP-formed coalition called ‘Human Rights Activism Coalition of ASU’ held a press conference on campus during which student speakers demonized and delegitimized Israel and promoted the terrorist-funded BDS movement. “We support BDS and we disrupted the IDF event because of the injustices and genocide being perpetrated against Palestinians by Israel, which has been happening for more than 50 years,” claimed the President of SJP at ASU. The President of the Black Graduate Students Association also likened the IDF to Nazis, saying “We need ASU to stop trying to play both sides, you need to say do you support us or not. Because if you support us [then] Nazis and white supremacists cannot be allowed on campus and that includes ICE and IDF.”

Rutgers University

Rutgers University has a well-deserved reputation as a locus of Jew hatred in the northeast. The institution is the academic home of antisemitic professor Noura Erakat who has repeatedly attempted to whitewash Palestinian terrorism against Israel and has declared that Israel is so steeped in evil, that it cannot be reformed, only destroyed.  The campus chapter of the Hamas-funded hate group Students for Justice in Palestine has repeatedly held events that demonize and delegitimize Israel and which promote the terrorist-funded BDS movement against the Jewish state. Official university centers and departments including the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the Center for Security, Race and Rights have also publicly endorsed anti-Semitic statements and videos. Jewish students on campus have been victim to a number of hate crimes including an incident where eggs were thrown at the house of Alpha Epsilon Pi—a Jewish fraternity— during an event commemorating Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) during which the names of Holocaust victims were being read aloud.

Evidence:

In February 2022, Rutgers History Professor Whitney Strubs sent and published a letter to Rutgers President Holloway endorsing an academic boycott of Israel, an offshoot of the genocidal and Hamas-funded BDS movement against Israel. The letter demonized Israel, calling it an “apartheid state,” and arguing that an agreement Rutgers has with Tel Aviv University is “impossible to reconcile…with any kind of moral excellence.”

In January 2022, the campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine—a Hamas-funded anti-Israel hate group—at the New Brunswick and Newark campuses of the university sent a letter to Rutgers President Holloway and the university administration urging them to cancel a research partnership with Tel Aviv University. The letter demonized Israel as guilty of apartheid and ethnic cleansing and demanded that President Holloway apologize for a recent visit to Israel, an example of SJP’s refusal to “normalize” relations with Israel or its supporters. “To collaborate with an Israeli university, business, or organization is to legitimize and sustain Israeli apartheid and the ongoing settler-colonization of Palestine,” SJP’s letter claimed. A letter repeating the same accusations garnered over 3,700 signatures.

During an online presentation in December 2021, Rutgers University professor Noura Erakat, who has long been known for her promotion of Jew hatred, repeatedly demonized and delegitimized Israel, stating that Zionism is “in and of itself is racist” and a “supremacist ideology.” She also claimed that Israel participates in “forced population transfer” by denying the “right of return” to descendants of the Arabs who fled Israel during its founding—a step that if taken would eliminate Israel as a Jewish state. Erakat claimed that Israel is so evil that it is an “illusion that Israel’s regime of discrimination can be remedied through reform, inclusion and formal equality” and argued that these alleged crimes can only be solved by its destruction. The professor also whitewashed anti-Israel terrorism, claiming that supporters of Israel have falsely “cast Palestinian resistance in all of its forms—BDS, mass protest, the Gaza march of return, legal advocacy—as terroristic.”

In November 2021, Rutgers SJP at the New Brunswick campus held an event called “Palestine 101.” The advertisement for the event demonized and delegitimized Israel, stating that attendees would learn about “the history of Palestine, the fundamentals of colonialism, Rutgers’ role in Israeli Apartheid, and how we as students can take action against it.”

In October 2021, the Rutgers Center for Security, Race and Rights posted a “Fact Sheet on Palestine” on the department’s official social media sites. The fact sheet included a hashtag for “apartheid,” demonizing the Jewish state by implying that it is engaging in apartheid.

In August 2021, the Rutgers Center for Security, Race and Rights posted a video on the official department Facebook page which demonized Israel with numerous hashtags including “#FreePalestine #Palestine #SaveSheikhJarrah #SaveSilwan #Gaza #WestBank #alquds #Jerusalem #Israel #apartheid #nojusticenopeace #endtheoccupation #colonization #whitesupremacy #zionism.” The video referred to the Israeli Defense Forces which seek to protect Israel from omnipresent Palestinian terrorism as the “IOF” – the Israeli Occupation Forces and referred to Israel’s capital as “the occupied city of Jerusalem.”

In June 2021, the executive board of a local chapter of the AAUP-AFT for part-time lecturers at Rutgers released a “Statement in Solidarity with the Palestinian People” that demonized Israel by calling it “a regime of legalized racial discrimination against the Palestinian people” as well as an “apartheid” state and called on the AFT and the U.S. government to divest from all financial relations with and support for Israel.

In June 2021, the Rutgers Center for Security, Race and Rights responded to recent attacks on Israel by Hamas by promoting a quote condoning Palestinian terrorism on its official Facebook page: “[R]esistance, broadly speaking, is not only the ability to fight back against a militarily more powerful oppressor, but also the ability to creatively resist the colonisation of one’s land.”

In May 2021, Rutgers Hillel noted disturbing incidents of Jew hatred on campus, and were quoted as stating that “identifiably Jewish students have been verbally assaulted, some report having their car tires slashed” and that they were also subjected to a “social media pogrom” amounting to a “torrent of hatred.”

In May 2021, in the wake of numerous anti-Semitic incidents on campus, the Rutgers administration released a statement condemning anti-Semitism. After numerous campus groups and outlets criticized the statement while demonizing Israel and supporting BDS, the Rutgers administration apologized for their initial statement criticizing anti-Semitism, because it “failed to communicate support for our Palestinian community members.” SJP at Rutgers responded by condemning the apology, and again demonizing Israel and promoting the Hamas-funded BDS movement.

Also in May 2021, The Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University signed a “Statement In Solidarity With The People Of Palestine” promoted by the Agitate Journal. The statement denied Jews self-determination, demonized the Jewish state, and urged Rutgers to “divest from Israel, and support the call by Palestinian civil society for BDS”—thereby promoting the genocidal BDS movement against Israel.

In April 2021, eggs were thrown at the house of Alpha Epsilon Pi—a Jewish fraternity— during an event commemorating Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) during which the names of Holocaust victims were read for 24 hours.

In April 2021, Rutgers SJP held an “Israeli Apartheid Week” on campus, a genocidal event promoting Jew hatred and the extinction of the Jewish state.

In March 2021, an anonymous student at Rutgers posted on Instagram that “In a class about Race Relations, the professor brought up a slide discussing groups that ‘used’ to face discrimination. Jews were given as an example, labeled on the side in bold letters as having ‘no stigma.'” In fact, according to FBI statistics, Jews face more hate crimes in America than any other religious group.

University of Michigan

Few schools in the nation have demonstrated more animus toward the Jewish people than the University of Michigan, whose student government passed an anti-Semitic resolution by an overwhelming vote of 17-3 which demonized Israel and condemned the United States for “complicity” in Israel’s defensive response to violent Palestinian terrorism which the resolution labeled “violent attacks on Gaza.” Michigan is also home to an anti-Israel hate group called Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) which has publicly demonized Israel, repeated blood libels against the Jewish people, and promoted the Hamas-funded BDS movement which aims to economically isolate and destroy the Jewish state. The campus Hillel has repeatedly been the target of anti-Semitic harassment and vandalism including an incident in which red handprints meant to represent blood were painted on the Hillel building and the message “F*** Israel” was painted on a rock nearby.

Evidence:

In September 2021, The Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies at Michigan co-hosted an event titled “Palestinian Freedom, Israeli Apartheid, and Transnational Solidarity with anti-Semitic Rutgers professor Noura Erakat. During her address, Erakat demonized Israel, comparing the Israeli treatment of Palestinians to Jim Crow laws in the American south, and declared that Israel is an “apartheid” regime.

In June 2021, the student government at the University of Michigan passed a resolution by a 17-3 vote which demonized Israel and called on the university administration “to recognize and condemn the system of apartheid instituted by the Israeli government.” The resolution was titled, “A Resolution Condemning the Israeli System of Apartheid and its State-Sanctioned Violence against the Palestinian People.”  It cited propaganda from anti-Israel groups to claim that “recognition of the system of apartheid and ethnic supremacy in Israel and Palestine that has the purpose of ‘perpetuating the supremacy of one group – Jews – over another – Palestinians,’ (in reference to Jewish Israelis).” The resolution further declared that both the university and the United States have “complicity” in “violent attacks on Gaza and the Israeli system of apartheid” because “we as US residents contribute to the military aid sent to the IDF by paying taxes and we as a university engage in research and development for weapons manufacturers that sell arms to the IDF…”

In June 2021, the executive board of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE)—an anti-Israel campus hate group—released an open letter to the campus community which claimed to “confront the University of Michigan’s failure to condemn Israeli state-sanctioned violence against Palestinians in recent weeks.” The letter demonized Israel, repeated blood libels against the Jewish people, and promoted the Hamas-funded BDS movement which aims to economically isolate and destroy the Jewish state. The letter claimed “that the Nakba never ended, and that settler colonialism, occupation, and ethnic cleansing in Palestine persist” and that “Israeli violence escalated in Jerusalem in an effort to continue a centuries’ old ethnic cleansing campaign.” It also urged the administration to “End all University-sponsored trips to Israel,” a form of academic BDS. The letter was signed by 23 student organizations and hundreds of individual students.

In June 2021, students and community members at the University of Michigan held an on-campus vigil for Palestinians who were killed in Gaza. Numerous students interviewed by the Michigan Daily used the occasion to demonize Israel and spread lies and Hamas propaganda about the Jewish state, including accusing Israel of “settler colonialism,” “ethnic genocide,” and “murder.” “I’m exhausted from people trying to minimize and deny the ethnic genocide placed onto the Palestinian people, and Israeli sanctioned apartheid. I’m overall exhausted from witnessing Palestinian bodies pile up in numbers, only for Zionists to then later try to justify us being murdered,” commented one student.

In June 2021, multiple incidents of anti-Semitic harassment and vandalism occurred targeting the campus chapter of Hillel. “On Friday, we discovered red handprints painted in front of our Hillel building. On Saturday morning, we were alerted to hateful messaging, “F*** Israel” in bold letters, painted on the side of the rock facing Hillel. These incidents are anti-Israel, antisemitic, and intended to target our Hillel community,” Hillel reported in a social media post. The red handprints were thought to signify Jews having blood on their hands.

In May 2021, students and alumni at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan released a “Statement of Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” which demonized Israel as an “apartheid system” that is utilizing “brutal tools of colonization, occupation and ethnic cleansing” and argued that attempts to halt the Hamas-funded BDS movement to destroy Israel are preventing “discussions of structural racism.”

In May 2021, reports surfaced about a Jewish student at the University of Michigan who faced harassment and bullying for defending Israel. The student painted over anti-Semitic commentary in a campus free-art area that demonized Israel with the messages “Stop Jewish Hate” and “Israel wants Peace.” The sentiment “F-ck Israel” was then painted over her sentiments. After again attempting to paint over these attacks, bystanders accused her of supporting “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” and she later received death threats and anti-Israel slurs.

In May 2021, numerous campus groups and university organizations including The Middle Eastern and North African Law Students Association, the Muslim Law Students Association and the Michigan Chapter of the International Refugee Assistance Project, as well as the The Graduate Employees Organization 3550, released statements demonizing Israel and urging measures that would lead to its destruction.

In May 2021, the University of Michigan student government issued a press release that was signed by SAFE as well as the Arab Student Association and the Muslim Students Association titled “To our Palestinian friends and the U-M community at large.” The press release demonized Israel by echoing Hamas propaganda and promoting the Hamas-funded BDS movement. The release claimed that “the actions of the Israeli occupying forces throughout Palestine are inhumane, international war crimes” and that “This is not a ‘conflict,’ but emblematic of Israeli settler- colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid.”

Jewish students who criticized this one-sided student government statement were met with anti-Semitic slurs including “nose check,” “Zionist pigs” and “Israel apologists.”

When the student government held a “Community Concerns” meeting to allow discussion on the statement demonizing Israel, student senators made anti-Semitic statements and attempted to deny Jewish students their right to free speech. “I have no interest in representing Pro-Zionist student voices, as long as you hold these stances, you’re not welcome to sit at the table of liberation,” said one senator. Another student declared, “I’m not here to make the colonizers feel comfortable when the mainstream media decides to broadcast broken windows of an Israeli building rather than thousands of innocent Palestinians killed. If you only like to talk about the reaction of the oppressed, rather than the cause of the oppression, congratulations —you play a vital role in keeping colonialism and genocide.”

In October 2020, Romance, Language and Literatures and the Jewish-Muslim Research Network co-hosted an event titled “Why Race Still Matters.” During the event, speaker Alana Lentin demonized and delegitimized Israel, stating falsely that those who claim the Jews are indigenous to Israel are “quite ridiculous.”

In September 2020, The Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures held an event which featured well-known anti-Semitic professor Sa’ed Atshan on a panel. Atshan predictably lived up to his reputation by demonizing Israel as “right-wing racist militaristic violent Israeli state” and also invoking the Holocaust in his criticism of Israel—another common tactic of Jew haters.

University of California-Los Angeles

UCLA is well-deserving of its notorious reputation for Jew hatred. The UCLA student government unanimously passed a resolution declaring Israel to be guilty of “ethnic cleansing in Palestine” without giving Jewish students or Hillel the opportunity to voice their objections first. Numerous campus departments including the Department of English, the Asian-American Studies Department and the Department of Gender Studies have endorsed statements demonizing and delegitimizing Israel or have invited speakers that did the same. UCLA is home to a chapter of the Hamas-funded campus hate group Students for Justice in Palestine which has promoted the genocidal BDS movement against Israel. Many among the UCLA faculty hold similar views, with 50 faculty members attacking an administrative statement opposing anti-Semitism because it did not explicitly express support for the terrorist Palestinian regime.

Evidence: 

In February 2022, the UCLA chapter of the Hamas-funded campus hate group Students for Justice in Palestine urged its supporters to “tell the university why you are supporting our boycott and why you reject all Zionist sources of funding at UCLA.” The campaign was to promote a boycott of “the UCLA Public Affairs program’s Zionist-funded Congresswoman Lynn Schenk scholarship.”

In February 2022, former UCLA philosophy lecturer Matthew Harris threatened to perpetrate a mass shooting on campus, forcing classes online. He released an 803 page manifesto which promoted Jew hatred and anti-white racism with statements such as “Whites and Jews shall die” and “Violence against Jews should happen. Retaliation and retribution for what they have stolen is legitimate and a good thing.”

In December 2021, the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy co-hosted an event titled “Deadlock in Israel-Palestine – How to Imagine a Better Future? (Part Two).” One of the speakers at the event, Areej Sabbagh-Khoury, used the occasion to demonize Israel, claiming that “[T]he majority of the Palestinians live under enduring colonial occupation that operates through the rule of emergency and devastate their mere existence.”

In October 2021, the Department of English at UCLA held an event titled “Literature and Political Activism” during which two UCLA English faculty members, Yogita Goyal and Saree Makdisi, demonized and delegitimized Israel. Goyal accused Israel of engaging in “vaccine apartheid,” “vaccine imperialism,” or “vaccine genocide” against the Palestinians in distributing the Covid-19 vaccine, a form of rhetoric that echoes ancient Jewish blood libels. Makdisi argued that liberals who support Israel are being hypocrites and asked “What are the mechanisms that enable their support for ethnic cleansing [in Palestine] and home demolition and uprooting people and this kind of thing?”

In June 2021, The Daily Bruin published a student op-ed titled “UCLA must stop repressing pro-Palestinian counter-narratives.” The article demonized Israel as promoting a “draconian legal system [that] systematically erases indigenous Palestinians and normalizes occupation, the very definition of a settler colonial state.” It also endorsed the genocidal and Hamas-funded BDS movement against Israel.

In June 2021, fifty UCLA faculty members published an open letter directed to Chancellor Block and Vice Chancellor Bradley that demonized Israel and scolded the campus administration for condemning anti-Semitism while failing to express support for the Palestinians: “Your letter [against antisemitism] addressed itself, however, to violence and hatred directed against one community in particular, not to all communities on campus, including at least one community that is still mourning and counting its dead…”

In May 2021, the UCLA student government went ahead with a meeting to discuss a
resolution “voicing solidarity with Palestinian students” which demonized Israel and declared the Jewish state guilty of ethnic cleansing, settler-colonialism, and apartheid. Representatives from Hillel and the Jewish community at UCLA, who had objected to the resolution, were invited to offer public comment a mere 45 minutes before the meeting started, effectively silencing their objections. The resolution that ultimately passed included an endorsement of the genocidal and Hamas-funded BDS movement against Israel and a call to divest from the “ethnic cleansing in Palestine by the Israeli government.”

In May 2021, the Asian American Studies Department at UCLA released a “Statement of Solidarity with Palestine” that demonized and delegitimized Israel as guilty of “seventy-three years of settler colonialism, racial apartheid, and occupation.” The statement also accused Israel of “yellow-washing” by highlighting its “support of Asian and Asian American individuals as proof of multicultural democracy.”

In May 2021, The Department of Gender Studies and the Center for the Study of Women at UCLA both signed a statement titled “Gender Studies Departments in Solidarity with Palestinian Feminist Collective” that demonized Israel, claiming falsely that the Jewish state “is using violent force, punitive bureaucracy, and the legal system to expel Palestinians from their rightful homes and to remove Palestinian people from their land.”

In March 2021, the UCLA student government unanimously passed “A Resolution Calling for the UC to Divest from War” which referred to “ethnic cleansing in Palestine by the Israeli government.” Jewish students and Hillel objected not only to the language in the resolution which demonized Israel and supported the genocidal BDS movement, but also to the fact that they were given no opportunity to express their views before the resolution’s passage.

In May 2019, SFSU Professor Rabab Abdulhadi gave a guest lecture to an anthropology class at UCLA in which she likened Zionism to white supremacy and proclaimed that “pro-Israeli groups…[and] white supremacists are very much in alliance” in promoting an “Islamophobic Zionism agenda.” When a Jewish student in class objected to Abdulhadi’s tirade, the professor responded that “Jews come in all sorts of stripes and colors and backgrounds and so on. I align myself with the Jews who are opposing Israel’s settler colonialism and I ask people who are Jewish, it’s their choice, you can decide what you want to actually stop the alliances with white supremacy and do a different alliance… I don’t agree with you and I believe it [Israel] is part of white supremacy. I’m sorry if you feel that way but maybe you need to kind of check this and look into it more.” At the end of Abdulhadi’s lecture, the course instructor, Associate Professor Kyeyoung Park, told the class, “I agree with this speaker. That’s why I brought her.” One student in the class characterized Abdulhadi’s address as “hate speech” and added that “Watching an educator belittle a student to tears with such blatant ignorance leaves me to question the values UCLA wishes to uphold.”

University of Houston

The University of Houston is home to an extremist chapter of the Hamas-funded campus hate group Students for Justice in Palestine which has repeatedly hosted events and protests promoting anti-Semitic propaganda and urging the suspension of normal relations with Israel—an attempt to isolate and destroy the Jewish state. The student government at Houston recently passed a resolution allegedly for the “Protection and Support of Pro-Palestine Students and Activism” which demonized Israel and delegitimized it as a Jewish state.  Other incidents of anti-Semitism have occurred at Houston including the “Zoombombing” of a virtual lecture by an Israeli professor who was interrupted by loud noises and chants of “Heil Hitler.”

Evidence:

In February 2022, a virtual lecture by Israeli professor Sason Shaik, who teaches at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, was “Zoombombed” by individuals who disrupted the event with loud noises and chants of “Heil Hitler.” The event was co-organized by faculty from the University of Houston and the University of California-Davis. Anti-Semitic messages were also posted in the group chat for the event.

In January 2022, SJP at the University of Houston co-hosted a protest titled “Hands off Palestine” which was held off-campus. A social media post advertising the event demonized Israel by claiming that Palestinian families “have been terrorized by Israeli settlers and military” and by referring to Israel as “occupied Palestine.” Following the event, SJP posted an image of a sign from the event reading “Israel Murders, USA Pays” on their Instagram account.

In November 2021, SJP hosted an event titled “Nothing Normal About Occupation – Teach-In on Normalization with Israel.” A social media post about the event claimed that “There can be no ‘peace’ without freedom, justice, liberation and return for Palestinians” and urged people to “identify and fight against [normalization] in our daily life.” The anti-normalization movement, like the BDS movement, is an attempt to isolate Israel and make it a pariah among nations.

In July 2021, the student government at Houston passed a resolution allegedly for the “Protection and Support of Pro-Palestine Students and Activism” which demonized Israel and delegitimized it as a Jewish state.  The resolution called Zionism a “system of oppression defined by its victims as a ‘settler colonial movement whose goal was the establishment of a Jewish state on the ruins and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.'” It also claimed, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that pro-Palestinian activism is not associated with anti-Semitism and that “The University of Houston Student Government Association unequivocally rejects the debasement of Palestinian activism through the false conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism.”

In May 2021, an officer of Houston Students for Justice in Palestine—a Hamas-funded hate group—was quoted in the campus newspaper, The Daily Cougar, minimizing terrorism against Israel and demonizing the Jewish state by claiming that recent incidents of violence in Gaza are not “occurring in a vacuum but are connected to 70 years of Israeli ethnic cleansing,” and that “Palestinians will still be under illegal military occupations without freedom of movement under a fascist and racist system of apartheid.”

During April 2021, Houston SJP joined other anti-Israel groups in Texas in celebrating “Israeli Apartheid Week,” an anti-Semitic hate-fest dedicated to destroying the Jewish state. The theme of the event was “Imagining Liberation Through Persecution.”

In October 2019, SJP held an event on “Palestine and US Electoral Politics” where both the student moderator and invited speaker Mohammed Nabulsi demonized Israel. Nabulsi claimed that Israel is “protected by the U.S.” despite awareness that “Israel’s violating human rights” and “is committing atrocities or killing civilians or whatever…”

University of Minnesota

The University of Minnesota has in recent years become a locus of Jew hatred in the Midwest. It is home to a chapter of the Hamas-funded campus hate group, Students for Justice in Palestine, which has participated in the international hatefest known as “Israeli Apartheid Week” and invited speakers including Mohammed El-Kurd, a vehement anti-Semite who has called for the release of Palestinian murderers and terrorists, to speak on campus. Several official university departments including the Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies (GWSS) and the department of Race, Indigeneity, Gender & Sexuality Studies (RIGS) have also signed statements promoting Jew hatred and demonizing the Jewish state.

Evidence:

In March 2022, the Hamas-funded campus hate group Students for Justice in Palestine co-hosted an event with other student groups as part of the genocidal hatefest known as “Israeli Apartheid Week.” The event is titled “Minneapolis to Palestine: Solidarity Against State Terror.” An online announcement for the event displays an image of two policemen from the U.S. and Israel restraining a small child.

In January 2022, UMN SJP hosted an event with Palestinian journalist and organizer Mohammed El-Kurd. El-Kurd is a vehement anti-Semite who has called for Israel to release all Palestinian prisoners included those convicted of murder and terrorism and has openly celebrated the escape of Palestinian terrorists convicted of attacking innocent Israeli civilians. He has claimed that “Hamas has a right to exist under international law, [which] doesn’t mean I agree or disagree with them.”

In November 2021, the campus newspaper, The Minnesota Daily, published an article which urged the university to rescind a program which allowed students to study abroad in Israel. The article demonized and delegitimized Israel, calling it “Occupied Palestine.”

In October 2021, SJP held an event titled “Palestine 101.” An online announcement for the event demonized Israel and accused it of “ongoing settler colonialism.”

In October 2021, SJP urged students and faculty to sign on to a public letter urging the university to halt a study abroad program with Technion-Israel, an Israel Institute of Technology. The letter demonized and delegitimized Israel, referring to it as “Occupied Palestine” and accused Israel of “the violent occupation of the Palestinian homeland, and the eradication and ethnic cleansing of its people by use of force.”

In June 2021, SJP issued a public letter urging Minnesota President Joan Gabel and the Board of Regents to divest from Israeli companies, thereby promoting the Hamas-funded Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. The letter demonized and delegitimized Israel by referring to it only in lowercase letters (israel) and by labeling it “Occupied Palestine.” The letter repeated the false Hamas propaganda claims that Israel engages in “racist violence” and “genocide” against Palestinians. SJP urged community members to sign their names to this letter.

In May 2021, the Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies (GWSS) and the department of Race, Indigeneity, Gender & Sexuality Studies (RIGS) in addition to the Imagining Transnational Solidarities Research Circle (ITSRC) and other faculty members and student groups at Minnesota all signed on to the Agitate Journal’s “Statement In Solidarity With The People Of Palestine.” That statement promotes the genocidal and Hamas-funded BDS movement against Israel and also demonizes Israel and denies Jews the right of self-determination. The statement falsely claims that Israel is guilty of “brutal settler colonial violence and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians…”

The Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at University of Minnesota also signed a statement on “Gender Studies Departments in Solidarity with Palestinian Feminist Collective” which demonized Israel, claiming that the Jewish state uses “violent force, punitive bureaucracy, and the legal system to expel Palestinians from their rightful homes and to remove Palestinian people from their land” and equating the creation of Israel to “ethnic cleansing.”

In March 2021, a coalition of pro-Palestinian students drafted an open letter to “Oppose Minnesota Hillel’s referendum to adopt the IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism,” which claimed falsely that “[The] IHRA definition suppresses free speech, a First Amendment right…”  Over 180 community members signed the letter.

In February 2021, SJP at UMN held a “BDS Movement Presentation” to promote the genocidal and terrorist-funded BDS effort to economically strangle the Jewish state.

Florida State University:

Florida State University hosts an extremist chapter of the Hamas-funded campus hate group Students for Justice in Palestine which has ludicrously equated the Russian military invasion of Ukraine with Israel’s alleged “occupation” of Palestine and has also repeatedly defended FSU Senate President Ahmad Daraldik who launched an anti-Semitic website and demeaned Jews on social media. When pro-Israel speaker Ben Shapiro was scheduled to speak on campus, members of SJP and other groups urged the university to cancel and then protested his speech with genocidal and demonizing slogans including, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free,” “End the Occupation,” “Israel is an Apartheid State,” and “Israel is a Terrorist State.”

Evidence:

In March 2022, the FSU chapter of the Hamas-funded campus hate group Students for Justice in Palestine held an event during which they outrageously equated Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine to Israel’s alleged “occupation” of Palestine. The graphic for the event shows the Ukrainian and Palestinian flags side-by-side and states “From Ukraine to Palestine, we must oppose violence and war.”

In February 2022, the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity held a hazing event during which pledges had swastikas drawn on their “shirts or body parts.” Images of the students were later circulated on social media. Liora Rez, executive director of StopAntiSemitism.org, reported “that a Jewish student who was pledging at Pi Kappa Phi had a swastika painted on his head, was paraded around, and then further humiliated with his image circulated on social media.” FSU officials responded by suspending the fraternity for hazing and alcohol violations.

In November 2021, Students for a Democratic Society at FSU issued a statement urging the university to cancel an upcoming event featuring conservative, pro-Israel speaker Ben Shapiro. The statement called Shapiro a “racist” and demonized Israel by claiming falsely that it is a “settler-colonial Israeli apartheid state, which has been engaged in the displacement and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians for decades.” It also attempted to limit open discourse by declaring “No fascists on our campus,” referring to Shapiro.

When the university did not cancel Shapiro’s speech, the campus chapter of the Hamas-funded hate group Students for Justice in Palestine organized a protest of the event. Students chanted genocidal slogans which delegitimized and demonized Israel including, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free,” “End the Occupation,” “Israel is an Apartheid State,” and “Israel is a Terrorist State.”

In June 2021, SJP at FSU held a “BDS Organizing Meeting” to support the genocidal and Hamas-inspired Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement to economically strangle the Jewish state.

In January 2021, a student senator at FSU who is known for making anti-Semitic statements, introduced a resolution to support the genocidal BDS movement against Israel and urging the university to divest from companies that do business with Israel.

In August 2020, after FSU President John Thrasher endorsed the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, SJP at FSU published an “Open Letter from Students for Justice in Palestine at Florida State University” which condemned Thrasher’s decision and expressed support for the Student Government President, Ahmad Daraldik, who had made anti-Semitic statements in the past on social media.  Numerous other campus organizations and individuals endorsed the letter.

In August 2020, SJP at FSU held an event titled “Summer Book Club: Freedom is a Constant Struggle” which featured numerous speakers who made anti-Semitic comments and demonized Israel. Speaker Dana Alhasan claimed that “there’s no room for Zionism in feminism because Zionism is an inherently racist ideology” and “Talking about the IDF, they’re called the Israeli Defense Forces, but I always make a point to say IOF, Israeli Occupying Forces ‘cuz they’re not defending anything, they’re occupying.” Another speaker, Shelby Shoup, accused Israel of “occupation and apartheid and home demolition and settlement expansion.”

In July 2020, SJP at FSU distributed a “Call to Action Toolkit” to supporters to counter a student government resolution to adopt the IHRA working definition of anti-Semitism. The toolkit demonized Israel, claiming that the resolution would redefine “criticism of racist Israeli settler-colonialism, apartheid and occupation as an example of antisemitism…”

In June 2020, shortly after he ascended to the Senate Presidency of the Student Government Association at FSU, it was revealed that Ahmad Daraldik had created an anti-Semitic website while in high school which promoted anti-Semitic tropes claiming that Israel performs medical experiments on Palestinians and compared Israel to Nazi Germany. Daraldik had also shared additional anti-Semitic content on social media, including a staged, fake photograph of an IDF soldier pointing a gun at a Palestinian child which he captioned “Stupid Jew thinks he is cool.” Despite calls for his removal, Daraldik was able to retain his position after a vote by the student senate. Instead of condemning Daraldik’s remarks, SJP at FSU instead expressed unmitigated support for him and claimed that the calls to remove him from his position were “racially and politically motivated to smear and silence Palestinian students and critics of the state of Israel” and “rooted in anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia.” Even in the midst of the controversy, Daraldik continued to share Jew-hatred on social media. BDS Report notes that in July 2020 he had “just shared a new video on his Instagram story claiming that the problem with Jews is they make everything about themselves.”

Boston University

In recent years, Boston University has witnessed a disturbing and increasing incidence of Jew hatred on campus. The university fosters a chapter of the Hamas-funded campus hate group Students for Justice in Palestine that has taken extreme action to promote its noxious views including dropping an enormous banner, featuring an image of an Israeli shooting a Palestinian woman, from a campus building and painting the campus rock with the pro-terrorist slogan “Long live the Intifada!” The Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at the university signed a statement demonizing Israel and at least ten other faculty members have signed statements supporting the academic boycott of Israel, part of the genocidal and Hamas-funded BDS movement against the Jewish state.

Evidence:

In March 2022, the Boston University chapter of the Hamas-funded campus hate group Students for Justice in Palestine participated in the anti-Israel hatefest known as “Israeli Apartheid Week.” Members of the group erected a mock “apartheid wall” meant to mimic the security fence erected along the Gaza border to deter Palestinian terror attacks on Israeli civilians. One panel of the wall quoted the genocidal slogan “From the river to the sea” with an image of the entirety of Israel, suggesting that the entirety of Israel should be destroyed. Another enormous banner depicting an Israeli soldier shooting a Palestinian woman was also dropped from the roof of the College of Arts and Sciences on the BU campus. The banner urged “End the Deadly Exchange Free Palestine,” but clearly sought to demonize Israel for the conflict.

In December 2021, SJP at BU painted the BU rock on campus with the slogan “Long Live the Intifada,” thus celebrating the deadly outpouring of Palestinian terrorism against Jews and Israel. SJP then posted an image of the rock on social media with a message stating, “The Intifada is an action that lives within the Palestinian people everyday, and exists as a permanent source of inspiration against Israeli occupation and apartheid.”

In September 2021, BU SJP held an event promoting the genocidal and Hamas-funded Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, an attempt to socially and economically isolate the Jewish state.

In May 2021, the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at BU signed on to the statement “Gender Studies Departments in Solidarity with Palestinian Feminist Collective.” That statement demonized and delegitimized Israel, claiming that “Israel is using violent force, punitive bureaucracy, and the legal system to expel Palestinians from their rightful homes and to remove Palestinian people from their land,” in addition to numerous other statements.

In May 2021, BU SJP released a statement that repeatedly demonized Israel, claiming that “The Zionist occupation stands on pillars of terror, racism and lies. It is anti-democratic to the core. It is threatened and frightened by the righteous resistance to the Palestinian people to the program of ethnic cleansing and apartheid that Israel has pursued since its inception.” The statement also accused BU of complicity in “Israel’s oppression of Palestinians” because “BU’s endowment is undoubtedly invested in numerous companies which aid the occupation, it offers an Israeli study abroad program to Haifa, and has even sent BU police officers on trips to Israel for IDF-led ‘Counter-Terrorism’ training.”

In September 2020, SJP held a protest off-campus at the Consulate General for the United Arab Emirates to urge the message “NO to Normalization with Israel,” an attempt to make Israel, a democratic nation with an excellent record on human rights, a worldwide pariah. An ad for the protest demonized Israel, claiming that, “The normalization of ties with Israel by the UAE and later Bahrain has shown the world that Israeli aggression, colonization, and apartheid are worth more to the ruling cliques of those countries than the lives and rights of Palestinians to freedom and self-determination… Normalization with Israel means normalizing settler-colonialism and apartheid. We must come together to reject this!”

In March 2019, as part of Israeli Apartheid Week, SJP at BU held an event titled “Celebrate the March of Return/Demand BU Reject Israeli Apartheid.” Promotions for the event demonized Israel and promoted anti-Semitic tropes of blood libel against Jews by falsely claiming that “the Israeli ‘Defense’ Forces respond each time with massacres… Israeli snipers purposefully shoot Palestinians in the legs (with bullets which expand once they enter the body and are banned under international law) leaving Palestinians crippled for life, without access to medical care in Gaza.” The statement also demanded that BU shut down the study abroad program with Israel.