In February, the Endowment Justice Collective (EJC) at Rutgers University, made up of student groups and community partners, petitioned the university’s Joint Committee on Investments (JCOI) to engage in broad ethical divestment from the military-industrial complex, prison industrial complex, fossil fuel industry, sweatshops, and “Israeli apartheid.” The petition portrays Israel as an oppressive regime,...
For IfNotNow, Coronavirus Just Another Hook For Anti-Israel Activism
Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Wikimedia Commons For many around the world, the coronavirus pandemic is understandably cause for grave concern. But while some worry about what COVID-19 could do to their community, others appear more interested in what it might do for their cause. These dogmatic activists look to seize on the scare by, essentially,...
How No-Platforming Suffocates Dialogue About Israel on Campus
Photo: Claudia Gabriela Marques Vieira/Wikimedia Commons In my time as the Israel and campaigns officer on the board of the University of Nottingham Jewish Society, I set out with a simple goal: to foster positive and constructive conversation about Israel. My aim was to present as much information to my...
Backgrounder: The Intrinsic Antisemitism Of BDS
The anti-Jewish bigotry that characterizes the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has become even more apparent as BDS leaders and members seize upon the Covid-19 pandemic to fuel anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism with libels against Jews and the Jewish state. Statements by BDS leaders have ranged from accusing Israel of...
Misunderstanding the Word ‘Apartheid’
Photo: US Embassy Jerusalem/Flickr Africans for Peace is an organization made up of student activists, many South African, who have experienced apartheid and adversity in their own countries and strive to make a difference in others. Their goal is to provide “an African lens to the global debate on peace...
At Occidental College, Anti-Israel Positions Are Venerated
Photo: Jeffrey Beall/Flickr Last November, a few members of the Occidental (Oxy) College football team posed for a picture with an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) flag, sharing it on their personal Instagram feeds. The pictures were captioned “@oxyfootball stands in solidarity with our Israeli brothers in their fights against terror @IDF” and...
So-Called ‘Human-Rights’ Activists Bend Facts During Pandemic
Photo: Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90 A global pandemic can teach us a lot about the priorities of a government. Take the Palestinian Authority. Even with the outbreak of COVID-19, the P.A. continues to prioritize payments to convicted terrorists and their families over the distribution of salaries to teachers and social-welfare recipients. Last...
There Is No ‘Moral Equivalency’ Between Israeli Soldiers and Palestinian Terrorists
During a seminar in my graduate program in Israel, a professor concluded a lecture on terrorism and political violence claiming: “The tears of a grieving Palestinian mother, whose son was responsible for carrying out a suicide attack are equal to the tears of an Israeli mother whose son fell in...
