Amith Gupta

Overview

Amith Gupta [Amith Ramachandra Gupta] has expressed support for terrorists, whitewashed anti-Semitism, spread hatred of Zionism and Israel, and participated in anti-Israel activism. Gupta was on the Steering Committee of National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) from 2014 to 2015.

Gupta was also an organizer with National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) from 2012 to 2013, a member of SJP at New York University School of Law (NYU Law) in 2014 and an organizer of the organization in 2015. He was an activist with NYU Law Students for Justice in Palestine (LSJP) in 2015.  

Gupta is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Gupta was a leading organizer of the 2012 Global March to Jerusalem (GMJ) and a volunteer for the organization in 2014.

Gupta founded and led a support chapter of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) at Bard College (Bard), reportedly from 2009 to 2012. He volunteered with ISM for a month in 2009 and was affiliated with ISM Northern California in 2015.

Gupta was reportedly a member of the Free Palestine Movement (FPM) in Berkeley, California.

Gupta was the 2015-2016 co-chair of the National Lawyers’ Guild (NLG), NYU chapter. 

Gupta received a Juris Doctor in 2020 at NYU Law, and was formerly an Institute for International Law and Justice Scholar there. He graduated from Bard with a bachelor’s degree in Political Studies and Middle Eastern Studies in 2012.

As of June 2022, Gupta was listed as a Staff Attorney at the Coalition for Civil Freedoms, based in Washington, D.C. He has been there since at least July 2020.

Also as of June 2022, Gupta was listed as an author at the anti-Israel news site Mondoweiss, and has been since 2017.

As of August 2021, Gupta’s website said he lived in Atlanta, Georgia.

Supporting Terrorists

On February 20, 2019, in an article published in Mondoweiss, Gupta criticized a journalist for “smearing Palestinian political activist Rasmea Odeh as a member of a ‘terrorist organization.’”

Odeh was a key military operative with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization. In 1969, she masterminded a PFLP supermarket bombing that killed two college students. She also attempted to bomb the British consulate in Jerusalem. Odeh later moved to the United States but was deported to Jordan in 2017 for immigration fraud.

Gupta signed an April 27, 2017 letter published by the NLG in support of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike. The letter referred to terrorist Marwan Barghouti as a “prominent Palestinian political leader.”


On April 20, 2017, Gupta published an article in Mondoweiss defending Barghouti. Gupta claimed that a byline by the New York Times (NYT) acknowledging Barghouti’s convictions “slanders him as a convicted terrorist and a murderer” and claimed the NYT had “decided to poison the well for Marwan Barghouti.”

On November 7, 2015, during the Knife Intifada, Gupta participated in an NYU LSJP vigil held to “show solidarity with Palestinian citizens in their ongoing struggle with Israel.” 

In October 2015, there was an upsurge in violence across Israel incited by Palestinian political and religious leaders. The wave of stabbings, known as the “Knife Intifada,” was characterized by young Palestinians throughout the country stabbing and attempting to stab Israeli civilians.

Gupta was quoted in a Washington Square News article about the vigil as saying: “I called for vigils like this after the aggressive response I and other students received for forwarding emails from the organization New York City Students for Justice in Palestine…The forwarded email showed solidarity with the Palestinians during their recent uprising against the Israeli occupation.” 

Whitewashing Anti-Semitism

On February 20, 2019, Gupta published an article in Mondoweiss defending U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar for comments she made that were condemned as anti-Semitic. Gupta wrote that Omar’s comments were “objectively true” and that “There was no reason she should have been expected to apologize by anyone.”

Ilhan Omar was elected to the U.S. Congress in 2018. In February 2019, top Congressional leaders denounced Omar for tweeting anti-Semitic remarks. 

Gupta claimed in the same article: “Jews in the United States have long ago overcome those shackles [of anti-Semitism] and achieved a position of significant privilege. But in the end this is irrelevant because their feigned concerns are not, and have never been about, antisemitism at all.”

On May 28, 2021, during Israel’s Operation Guardian of the Walls(OGW), Gupta published an article in Mondoweiss in which he criticized actor Mark Ruffalo, who apologized for accusing Israel of genocide in the wake of OGW. 

In May 2021, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists fired over 4,300 rockets from Gaza at major population centers in Israel. Israel responded by launching OGW, carrying out targeted military strikes in Gaza.

In the same article, Gupta criticized Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who had previously apologized for making anti-Semitic comments. Gupta referred to Omar’s comments as a “factually valid critique of the Israel lobby’s efforts to buy support in Congress.”

Referring to an increase in anti-Semitic attacks during OGW, Gupta noted that some Palestinian activists distanced themselves from violent attacks against Jews and wrote: “These apologies are not just unnecessary. They are harmful and constitute a form of racism.”

Hatred of Zionism and Israel

On November 12, 2015, Gupta participated in an event titled: “Million Student March,” which demanded the abolishment of tuition fees and cancellation of student debt.

Video footage showed Gupta and other protesters chanting [00:00:52]: “Zionists out of CUNY.” Students also chanted [00:00:57]: “There is only one solution, intifada revolution” and [00:00:14]: “Intifada, intifada, long live the intifada.”

A statement by NYC SJP promoting the march blamed rising tuition costs on CUNY’s “Zionist administration” and claimed that “CUNY aims to produce the next generation of professional Zionists.”

According to a report commissioned by CUNY in 2016, protesters also chanted “Jews Out of CUNY” and “Death to Jews.” The report also said: “When a pro-Israel student asked what Zionism had to do with tuition, someone in the crowd responded that ‘Jews control the government and the banks.’”

In a January 15, 2019 Mondoweiss article, Gupta wrote: “Zionism is a right-wing movement dedicated to racial separatism and the mass expulsion and containment of large numbers of people based on their ethnicity, through the use of brutal — and illegal — military force sponsored by American tax dollars.”

Zionism is the belief that Jews have the right to self-determination in their own national home, and the right to develop their national culture.

In the same article, Gupta accused Israel of “the indiscriminate mass shootings of fleeing Palestinian protesters at the Gaza border.” 

In a November 13, 2020 Mondoweiss article, Gupta called pro-Israel groups “perpetual handmaidens of the far-right” and claimed that “Zionism has no place in a progressive society, other than to destroy it.”

Anti-Israel Activism

On June 19, 2021, Gupta was the scheduled speaker at a session titled: “The Forgotten Prisoners: Targeting Palestinian Activism in the US,” at the Second International Conference on Palestine by Istanbul Zaim University’s (IZU) Center for Islam and Global Affairs.

The theme of the conference was “Challenging Apartheid in Palestine: Reclaiming the Narrative, Formulating A Vision.” Other speakers included anti-Israel activists Rabab Abdulhadi, Osama Abuirshaid, Lamis Deek (Lamis Jamal Alayan), Huwaida Arraf, Richard Falk, Nerdeen Kiswani, Rami Khouri, Josh Ruebner, Joseph Massad and Omar Shakir.

On September 22, 2014, Gupta and several other activists protested a speech by Mahmoud Abbas in New York. The protesters held signs that denounced Abbas for “taking too soft a stance in talks with Israel.” 

Gupta wrote in an article about the protest that the activists were calling on Abbas “to end his complicity and collaboration with the State of Israel,” to “abolish the Palestinian Authority for its collaboration with Israel” and to “send Israeli officials to the International Criminal Court.”

In the article, Gupta also criticized the group Seeds of Peace for bringing Palestinian and Israeli youths together to learn about peace and dialogue “while removing the pressure of international or domestic opposition demanding human rights as a prerequisite for engagement.”

Gupta was a leading organizer of the 2012 GMJ and a volunteer for the organization in 2014.

GMJ

The Global March to Jerusalem (GMJ) is an initiative calling for the international community to march annually on Jerusalem in order “to end the Zionist policies of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and Judaisation, which all harm the people, land and sanctity of Jerusalem.”

GMJ insists that archeology showing Judaism’s ancient and consistent connection to Jerusalem is a “dangerous plot” and that Jewish residence in East Jerusalem is nefarious.

On February 2, 2012, Gupta co-authored an article promoting GMJ’s “struggle to liberate the holy city of Jerusalem from illegal Zionist occupation” because “Zionist efforts to ‘Judaize’ the city have quickened pace, erasing Jerusalem’s physical, cultural and spiritual characteristics.”

Gupta founded [page 6] and led a support chapter of the ISM at Bard reportedly from 2009 to 2012. He volunteered with ISM for a month in 2009.

In 2009, ISM Bard trained fifteen students who were planning to participate in the 2009 Gaza Freedom March to enter Gaza through Egypt and approach the Erez crossing from Gaza into Israel. The Egyptian government announced it would not allow the activists to cross into Gaza from Egypt.

SJP Activism

On April 12, 2021, Gupta was a scheduled speaker for an online event titled: “Legacies Of Liberation: Lessons from the U.S. and Palestine Prisoners Movement,” which was co-hosted by anti-Israel groups including SJP at the University of Houston and SJP at the University of Texas in Dallas.

On April 2, 2019, Gupta was a scheduled speaker for an Israel Apartheid Week event at Georgia State SJP.

Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) is presented as “an international series of events that seek to raise awareness of Israel’s settler-colonial project and apartheid system over the Palestinian people” and build support for the BDS movement.

On April 2, 2015, Gupta published an article in NYU’s student newspaper titled: “Why NYU-SJP held Israeli Apartheid Week.” In the article, Gupta accused Israel of apartheid and claimed that Palestinians “live under Israeli military occupation, under the perpetual threat of indiscriminate attack, torture, land theft and other crimes.”

In the same article, Gupta promoted anti-Israel events where speakers claimed Israel targeted hospitals and schools in Gaza, accused Israel of collective punishment of Palestinians and claimed that officers of the Ferguson, Missouri police department were trained by Israel as well as deploying collective punishment and using tear gas from Israel.

On November 8, 2012, Gupta published an article commending the National SJP conference’s theme of “refusal to collaborate with any attempt to stymie Palestinian rights through the rhetoric of ‘dialogue’ and normalization,” and claimed that “normalization efforts remain a well-funded obstacle to the call for justice in Palestine.”

In the article, Gupta also accused Israel of “indiscriminate acts of violence against Palestinian civilians” and“ongoing theft of Palestinian land.”

BDS Activism

Gupta signed a March 2021 US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel letter urging recording artist Stevie Wonder to reject Israel's Wolf Prize that he was awarded. The letter said: “Say No to this ‘Prize’, say No to the normalization of Israeli Apartheid…”

In April 2019, Gupta co-authored an amicus brief challenging the Arkansas anti-BDS law. The case was “remanded for further findings” by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in February 2021, and in June 2022 the court ultimately upheld the original anti-BDS ruling.

On April 2, 2015, Gupta promoted NYU SJP’s BDS campaigns in an article in NYU’s student newspaper.

On January 5, 2014, Gupta published an article in his “Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist,” blog in which he described approaching Bard officials in 2012 about divestment. Gupta criticized their “refusal to boycott Israel and/or institutions and corporations that enable its crimes against Palestinians,” as well as Bard President Leon Botstein’s condemnation of “the ASA [American Studies Association] boycott while citing the influence of ‘Jewish’ [sic] (read: pro-Israel) donors.”