Our Emet for Israel group at the University of New Orleans, Allies of Israel, has launched a petition and poster campaign to tell students about corruption in the Palestinian Authority.
Chloe Valdary, the president of the organization and a consultant for CAMERA, posted on her Facebook about the campaign on the 17th of March:
Today was both mindblowing, awesome, and inspiring. It’s one thing to say we collected over 80 signatures from students at the University of New Orleans in all walks of life who signed agreeing that we should divest from the Palestinian Authority. It’s quite another to say that one student who WAS PALESTINIAN agreed so much with our premise he stayed with me for 3 HOURS to help me collect signatures.
That’s the power of people-to-people advocacy, baby.
#keepgoing
An article in a Louisiana-based paper, The Hayride, covered the story:
Across American university campuses, the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign has been pushing universities to divest their holdings in Israeli companies, ban Israeli goods on campus, and have an academic boycott of Israel. The movement has had varying degrees of success.
But at UNO, some pro-Israel students decided to turn the tables on the BDS crowd. They’re organizing an on-campus petition drive against the Palestinian Authority.
Breitbart recently covered the story as well, interviewing Chloe. The full piece is reproduced below.
Signs of a new twist on the divestment phenomenon have recently been popping up on the campus of the University of New Orleans. Unlike the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign that began infiltrating college campuses nearly a decade ago, this divestment campaign targets the Palestinian Authority.
Started by Allies of Israel, a self-described “grass roots college organization dedicated to the promotion of the Jewish state of Israel as a sovereign nation,” this campaign asks students to sign a petition that states:
“To raise awareness about the human rights abuses perpetrated by the Palestinian Authority against the Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank; to call for accountability in the foreign aid given to the Palestinian Authority and ensure it is not used to persecute Palestinians or Israelis.”
Campaign organizer and student activist Chloe Valdary released a statement to the Salomon Center:
In order to give expression to the Jewish struggle for freedom, my organization, Allies of Israel, has launched a campaign to symbolically divest from the Palestinian Authority. Because we understand many Palestinians are employed by the P.A., we do not wish to literally pull off the shelves products which are produced by the PA. However, we do seek to stand in solidarity with our Palestinian brothers and sisters who are imprisoned and persecuted by the P.A. This includes Palestinian women, gays, religious minorities and political dissidents. In addition, we stand in solidarity with Jews in Israel and around the world and call upon the P.A. to cease sponsoring, financing, and/or encouraging the lynching of Jews and the segregation of Jews from areas that are currently off limits to Jews in Israel.
The “DIVEST FROM THE P.A.” petition drive, currently a two-day event, March 17-18, is under consideration for taking the campaign online to expand awareness and draw attention to the persecution of Palestinians and Israelis by the Palestinian government, focusing on the human rights abuses perpetrated against women, gays and religious minorities.