SJP UChicago BDS Campaign
In January 2023, SJP UChicago launched a Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign titled “#IsraeliMilitaryOffOurCampus.”
The campaign called for students to boycott a class being taught by retired Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and visiting lecturer General Meir Elran at the University of Chicago. The class, titled “Security, Counter Terrorism and Resilience, the Israeli Case,” was organized through an academic exchange program sponsored by the Israel Institute.
To see who was behind the campaign, see below
The nonprofit organization pairs colleges and universities with Israeli scholars who teach courses about the State of Israel. SJP UChicago launched the campaign to “oppose [Elran’s] presence (and the Israeli military’s) on our campus” and to “protest the university’s relationship with the Israel Institute.”
The boycott was part of a BDS campaign the group began in January 2022, which urged students to boycott “S**tty Zionist Classes.” The initiative included “classes on Israel or those taught by Israeli fellows.”
On January 5, 2023, SJP UChicago announced on Instagram that Elran’s course was “the s**ttiest, most racist class of them all … being offered this winter.”
In a statement that was linked on the group’s Instagram’s bio, SJP UChicago claimed, “Elran’s career has been defined by and dedicated to securing Israel's colonial project and crushing Palestinian resistance to it.”
SJP UChicago also described “the role Elran played in repressing the first intifada” as “particularly damning…”
The First Intifada, which lasted from 1987 to 1991, resulted in over 160 Israeli civilian casualties. Palestinian gunmen hijacked multiple buses and carried out shootings, stabbings and bombings against Israelis, including the bombing of the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem.
In the statement, SJP UChicago accused Israel of being “an expansionist apartheid state predicated on the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian land” and a “colonial enterprise” with “genocidal practices.” The statement concluded by urging students to sign a petition “against General Elran's course and the broader presence of the Israeli military on UChicago's campus.”
SJP UChicago also linked to another document in their Instagram bio titled “18 Reasons to Oppose General Elran's 'Counter-Terrorism' Course." In the document, SJP UChicago wrote, “What he really teaches and represents is militaristic racism.” The group then attempted to connect these accusations to tactics “used against racialized peoples in the U.S.”
In the same document, SJP UChicago wrote, “In fact, Israel is a foundationally racist colonial regime that must be dismantled, held accountable, and replaced by a truly just social order.”
On January 10, 2023, SJP UChicago published an op-ed in the UChicago student newspaper, the Chicago Maroon, titled: “Israeli Military Off Our Campus!”
The op-ed falsely accused Israel of “biological warfare against Palestinian civilians,” the “torture of Palestinian children” and “periodically massacring the Palestinians it holds captive in the Gaza Strip.”
SJP UChicago concluded the op-ed with its desire that “the University’s Palestinian students will no longer be forced to watch leading participants in their ongoing Nakba [catastrophe] be hired by their administration, welcomed on their campus, and handed positions of power in their classrooms.”
The term “Nakba” is generally translated as “catastrophe” in Arabic, referring to the outcome of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It is a term often used to delegitimize the creation of the State of Israel by defining it as a catastrophe.
On February 2, 2023, SJP UChicago held a protest outside Elran’s classroom to demand “#IsraeliMilitaryOffOurCampus” and honor nine Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists recently killed by Israeli counter-terror forces.
The terrorists, which opened fire on the Israeli forces, were members of a cell that was reportedly in the midst of planning a terrorist attack.
SJP UChicago Members Behind the Campaign
Yasmin Nimer is a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) (SJP UAB). Nimer also works as a teacher at the Islamic Academy of Alabama.
Kameel Khabez expressed support for a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) initiative launched by the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at the University of Chicago (SJP UChicago) in 2023.
Tala Malo expressed support for a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) initiative launched by the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at the University of Chicago (SJP UChicago) in 2023.
Hannah Brody expressed support for a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) initiative launched by the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at the University of Chicago.
Jeffrey Sun expressed support for a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) initiative launched by the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at the University of Chicago.
Kelly Hui [Kelly X. Hui] has expressed support for terrorists and spread hatred of Israel and Zionists.
Joshua Daniel Beirich expressed support for terrorists, spread hatred of Israel and engaged in anti-Israel activism. Beirich is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.