The Anti-Defamation League has pointed to the radical, anti-Zionist Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organization as being responsible for some of the most severe incidents of vilification and demonization of Israel on US campuses in a new report released on Wednesday.
During the course of 2019, Jewish students frequently encountered allegations that Zionism is racist, a form of white supremacism, and akin to various other extremist ideologies by groups such as SJP, as well as others such as the hard left Jewish Voice for Peace group.
And college professors and lecturers were also been involved in the vilification of Israel and Zionism, contributing to Jewish students’ unease at times on their campuses.
The ADL report called on campus administrators and faculty to take a series of steps to address anti-Israel incidents and antisemitism on campus, including accurate charting of trends in the ways bias manifests on campus, establishing a reporting mechanism to assist administrators and campus leaders in preventing incidents that rise to the level of criminal or civilly liable behavior and programming to create a more equitable and inclusive campus.
The demonization of Zionism was one of the most common themes in anti-Israel incidents on college campuses during 2019.
In November 2019, SJP at California State University at Fullerton erected an “apartheid wall” exhibit that included a panel with a message reading “Zionism=racism.”
In April 2019, the New York University chapter of SJP compared Zionism to hateful ideologies, tweeting “We are UNITED against racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, Zionism, and Islamophobia.”
In another incident in April, Jewish Voice for Peace at Portland State University sold t-shirts during “Israel Apartheid Week” bearing the message “Israel is a garbage country that’s only loved by garbage people. It was founded on ethnic cleansing, apartheid and settler-colonialism. Its flag is a symbol of white supremacy.” Another t-shirt proclaimed, “All Zionists are racists. Every single one.”
And again in April, during a panel discussion at Harvard University organized by the Harvard College SJP affiliate, Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) and the Harvard African Students Association Professor Yamila Hussein of Boston College said Zionism was white supremacy.
“When you bring up white supremacy – because that’s what Zionism is. It’s a white supremacist, European, patriarchal, heterosexist, you name it, movement... when you read Zionism, it is white supremacy,” said Hussein
At an October student government meeting at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Jewish students were met with signs reading “Free Palestine F**k Zionists” as they argued against a resolution declaring that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism.
And in May, a pro-Israel Jewish student leader at San Francisco State University discovered a swastika with a Star of David scrawled in the middle and the words “Free Palestine” written inside it.
The ADL report pointed specifically to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF), which it said has provided significant funding to Jewish Voice for Peace, as well as to the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and the Institute for Middle East Understanding and Grassroots Jerusalem, “all of which have engaged in anti-Zionist rhetoric that has veered into extremism and/or antisemitism.”
The report also noted that the Westchester Peace Action Committee (WESPAC), has provided funding to Students for Justice in Palestine.
“Some of the more radical expressions of anti-Israel sentiment that we witnessed last year morphed into outright antisemitism,” said ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.
“Many of these manifestations left Jewish students feeling besieged and threatened. At a time when antisemitism in the US has spiked to historic levels and against the backdrop of COVID-19, which has revived old anti-Jewish conspiracies, college presidents and university administrators should take steps to prevent this prejudice from violating norms on campus and diminishing the educational experience of these students.”