March 2023: The Apartheid Week Exposed Campaign Returns to Campuses in the US, Canada, Israel and the UK

Newsletter – January/February 2023

CAMERA on Campus’s Apartheid Week Exposed campaign builds upon the success of the last two Apartheid Week Exposed campaigns combining digital, campus, and grassroots activism and arming Jewish and pro-Israel students with the facts to combat the dangerous narrative promoted on their respective campuses. We want to thank this year’s partners, Yoseph Hadad, Emily Schrader, Hananya Naftali, Adiel Cohen, NGO Monitor, and Palestinian Media Watch for contributing to our mission of promoting the truth and exposing the bigotry behind “Israeli Apartheid Week.” Sabrina Soffer, a sophomore at George Washington University and incoming 2023-2024 CAMERA Fellow will be tabling on campus for the Apartheid Week Exposed campaign and noted that “It is essential for campus community members to know the whole truth before making claims in the classroom, our public square, or social media—where anti-Zionist speech can become extremely dangerous, leading to more of the antisemitic violence and barriers to peace that we are seeing today. If we truly seek social justice, we must expose the whole truth and challenge the lies promoted by Students for Justice in Palestine.” In the United Kingdom, a delegation of Israeli students, including CAMERA on Campus Israel’s campus advisor, Tom Yohay have arrived to publicly table alongside British students on college and university campuses across the country, in part, to bring awareness to the Apartheid Week Exposed campaign. “As Israelis, we have a responsibility to share the truth about Israel. We are speaking to British students, answering their questions, and calling for dialogue, even if we are confronted with hostility and bigotry, our willingness to sit at the table sends an important message. We also want our British Zionist friends to know that they have our support.” said Yohay. Anyone interested in tabling on their respective campus can submit a request at cameraoncampus.org or visit the printable materials section of the Apartheid Week Exposed website.

Proving the Importance of Apartheid Week Exposed

On Friday, March 3rd, 2023, “Liberate KCL”, a far-left group at the King’s College, London called for a disturbance of a discussion hosted by the KCL Israel Society featuring two members of parliament. The event titled Israel and the House of Commons: Bipartisan Q&A was to take place on campus on March 7th, 2022. Liberate KCL’s social media posts also openly conflated Zionism with apartheid, a common antisemitic trope. “…Efforts by Liberate KCL, a far-left student group sanctioned by Kings College London to publicly conflate Zionism; the Jewish right to self-determination with white supremacy is further evidence that antisemitism remains a widespread problem in colleges and universities. This canard was a cornerstone of Nazi and Soviet propaganda that incited societal hostility toward Jews and justified atrocities committed against Jewish people across Europe,” – Aviva Rosenschein, CAMERA’s UK and Israel Campus Director. For CAMERA’s full statement, click here. Earlier this year, the University of Michigan students led by the anti-Israel student group, SAFE, protested a talk by Vice President Kamala Harris. Members of the group cycled through several chants: “intifada! intifada! Long live the intifada,” “There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” These chants are incontestably antisemitic as intifada is an explicit reference to two of the darkest chapters of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Between 1987-1993 and 2000-2005, Palestinian terror groups targeted and murdered thousands of Israelis, mostly civilians, through suicide bombings, stabbings, and shootings. Furthermore, as the maps on SAFE’s social media pages reveal, their chants for “Palestine to be free, from the river to the sea” are an unmistakable call for the elimination of the State of Israel. For CAMERA’s full statement, click here.

National Union of Students UK Welcomes Everyone Except Jews

The National Union of Students (NUS) in the UK has a documented history of antisemitic incidents. Following an independent investigation by Rebecca Tuck KC that began in May 2022, the NUS announced on 12 January 2023 that it will take measures to address antisemitism in an action plan. On 26th January, 2023 CAMERA UK and CAMERA on Campus UK with support from numerous partners and community members published an open letter calling for the NUS to consider additional measures that are imperative to addressing the problem of antisemitism within the organisation. The Jewish Chronicle covered CAMERA UK’s request for an additional measure by NUS noting that “The recommendations drafted by the Zionist non-profit Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis UK (CAMERA UK) and the UK branch of their university programs organisation CAMERA on Campus, have been endorsed by a string of high-profile signatories. Supporters include Jewish service body B’nai B’rith UK, pro-Israel association UK Lawyers For Israel Charitable Trust, the National Jewish Assembly leadership body, and Harif, a British charity promoting the history and culture of Jews from North Africa and the Middle East. Crossbench peer and former Principal of St Anne’s College, Oxford Baroness Deech, Chair of the Birmingham and West Midlands Jewish Representative Council, Laurence Julius, and the University of Roehampton’s Jewish Resource Centre Chair, Judy Weleminsky were among the individual signatories. Separately, CAMERA on Campus UK’s Campus Advisor, Jasmine San, published for the Algemeiner an in-depth article showcasing some of the most problematic examples of NUS’ antisemitic past. One such example included that, “The NUS also has a track record of inadequately responding to antisemitic incidents, often promoting antisemitism in their “condemnations.” For example, in 2021, an NUS statement read, “We are deeply concerned to hear of a spike in antisemitism on campuses as a result of Israeli forces’ violent attacks on Palestinians.” The statement featured a grave mischaracterization of the Gaza-Israel War of 2021, where Hamas, a militant terror group, fired thousands of rockets into Israel’s population centers over 11 days. This forced Israel to defend its civilians, a fact that is well-documented.“

Click Here to Support Students

Remembering Victims of Terror

The violent attacks against Israel’s civilian population have not been ignored by CAMERA on Campus’s Coalition members. Tikvah: Students for Israel at UC Berkeley held a vigil for the seven innocent victims who were murdered by Palestinian terrorists while welcoming in Shabbat in Neve Yaakov in Jerusalem. While we mourn the victims of terror, students abroad are also forced to defend themselves against the outright discrimination targeting of Jewish students at public and private universities. UC Berkeley CAMERA Fellow, Ron Belman wrote for the Algemeiner on the need for UC Berkeley to stand with its Jewish students. Boston University CAMERA Fellow, Yonatan Manor, exposed in BU’s Daily Free Press how the “Mapping Projects” antisemitic rhetoric and actions are a threat to its students. While North American and British students are forced to condemn and rebut extreme lies against Israel alongside blatant support for Palestinian violence, Israeli universities are continuing to support terror. Tel Aviv University CAMERA Fellow, Miriam Blum described for the Algemeiner how Bezalel’s Art School has been inciting violence and supporting terrorism.

CAMERA Staff Supporting Our Students

From Texas to Florida to London to Jerusalem, CAMERA staff have been busy this month participating in conferences for the Israel American Council, Regional Hillel International Summits, Club Z, and the Global Coalition for Israel. CAMERA staff participated in presentations on the media and provided training to prepare Israeli delegations going abroad to North America and the UK. In addition to their meetings with Zionist students, they have also attended and reported on events and conferences geared towards sewing hate against Israel and its supporters. For JNS, CAMERA on Campus Advisors Aaron Goren and Walter Holzberg exposed the antisemitism that was propagated by American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) at Rutgers University. Later that month, Walter Holzberg wrote another piece for the Algemeiner that took apart the many lies that a Dartmouth University student tried to promote as the truth while slandering Birthright.

Exclusive CAMERA Fellowship Event with Israeli Journalist Haviv Gur

Throughout the academic school year, CAMERA will be providing exclusive webinars for CAMERA Fellows, allowing them to engage in in-depth conversations with some of the most renowned scholars on Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict. In preparation for the upcoming annual Apartheid Week Exposed campaign, the 2022-2023 CAMERA Fellowship cohort had an intimate conversation with Haviv Gur, a veteran Israeli journalist who serves as a senior analyst for The Times of Israel. Haviv helped the students answer some of the most pressing questions to enable them to most effectively respond to “Israeli Apartheid Week” and the most false rhetoric surrounding its anti-Israel events.

Apply to Attend CAMERA on Campus Annual International Student Leadership Conference!

Click here to hear from CAMERA Fellow Alumnus, Seth Mendel, on what makes our International Student Leadership Conference so great — from opportunities to meet and have real-world conversations with fellow Zionists, to strategizing about the best methods of argumentation in order to call truth to power. Apply for the CAMERA Fellowship or to become a member of the CAMERA on Coalition for the chance to attend our conference:

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“Zionism is a dream to be a free people in our free homeland and Israel is that dream realized – a home where exiles who were scattered to the four corners can return.”Thank you to Dr. Brandy Shufutinsky! @socalgirl1976

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With Thanks from the CAMERA on Campus Team