Ben Yumkas
Overview
Benjamin Yumkas has whitewashed violent protesters, spread hatred of Israel, demonized Zionists and shown support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Movement.Yumkas is a member of the anti-Israel, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) organization. He is also a member of IfNotNow (INN), an anti-Israel organization that seeks to end American Jewish support for the occupation.
As of May 2019, Yumkas’s LinkedIn page said that he graduated from Emerson College (Emerson) in 2018, with a bachelor’s degree in Media Arts Production and indicated that he was located In Boston, MA.
Whitewashing Violent Protesters
On June 2, 2018, Yumkas tweeted: “I haven’t seen an out-and-out lie repeated in mass media as bald-faced as ‘Hamas is behind right of return marches’ in a long time. Like I’m trying to remember the last time something that is so easily disprovable and transparently untrue just got repeated without question...one side is very clearly making s**t up to justify an ethnic cleansing.”On May 16, 2018, a Hamas senior official, Salah al-Bardawil, stated that 50 out of 62 protesters killed during the May 14 Gaza border protest were Hamas operatives. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) also claimed that three of its members were killed at the same protest.
Spreading Hatred of Israel
On May 1, 2019, Yumkas tweeted: “Israel has been too busy trying to find new ways of stripping citizenship from non-European jews to do iterally anything about anti-semitism abroad.”On December 2, 2018, Yumkas tweeted: “As Nethanyahu goes down, this is a gentle reminder that pretty much every prominent Israeli politician, right and left, thinks he doesn’t go far enough on Palestine. The options on the table right now are “continued but slightly more violent apartheid” and “genocide.”
On April 11, 2018, Yumkas tweeted: “I have never personally been comfortable with the existence of the state of Israel, but barring a time machine, eliminating it whole-cloth would result in catastrophe.”
On January 7, 2018, Yumkas tweeted: “Proud to be a dues paying member of @jvplive. Injustice and apartheid makes us all complicit, unless we act to oppose and defeat it.”
Yumkas indicated on Facebook that he“went” to a December 9, 2017 event called: “Emergency Rally for Palestine! Free Jerusalem, Free Gaza!,” hosted by the Boston Democratic Socialists of America.
The “right of return” is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel. International law mandates no absolute right of return and UN Resolution 194, which defined principles for “refugees wishing to return to their homes,” was unanimously rejected by Arab nations following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
Also on December 5, 2017, Yumkas tweeted: “Jesus Christ, is the US trying to cause an intifada so nethanyahu can justify committing genocide, or is it Tuesday.”
On October 11, 2017, Yumkas responded to a person condemning BDS and tweeted, referring to Israel: “Right but consider the fact that BDS isn’t committing apartheid against hundreds of thousands of people.”
On July 2, 2014, Yumkas tweeted: “It's not an anti-semitism issue, it's an anti-apartheid issue. Violent oppression is intolerable from any source. #JewsForPalestine.”
Demonizing Zionists
On December 3, 2018, Yumkas tweeted: “Genuine question: how do zionists remember to breathe.”On November 14, 2018, Yumkas tweeted: “Literally the only thing that the modern American Jewish establishment is good for is promoting white nationalism to silence critics, equivocating on their hipocrisy (sic) regarding Israel, and suppressing an entire angry generation demanding answers. Burn it down.”
On November 2, 2018, Yumkas tweeted: “If you’re a non-Jew who might seem confused as to why there are anti-Zionist Jews, it’s mainly because zionists fundamentally do not believe anyone outside of Israel is Jewish.”
On December 5, 2017, Yumkas tweeted: “You are going to spark another intifada for no other reason than to justify committing genocide against Palestinians. You do more for antisemitism than anyone ever could.”
Yumkas’s tweet was in response to a tweet by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) referring to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Support for BDS
On September 6, 2017, Yumkas tweeted: “I'm saying this as a Jew: opposing BDS is supporting apartheid. No it's, ands, or buts.”On April 7, 2018, Yumkas tweeted: “I’m both a former Zionist, a Jewish person, and a current member of BDS and Jewish Voice for Peace in the states.”
On June 11, 2018, Yumkas tweeted to INN: “Hey guys, you can take a position on BDS: it’s good.”
Yumkas’s tweet was responding to an INN tweet, that claimed they “do not take a position on BDS.”
JVP
JVP was founded in Berkeley, California in 1996, as an activist group with an emphasis on the “Jewish tradition” of peace, social justice and human rights. The organization is currently led by Rebecca Vilkomerson and its board members include Israel critics Naomi Klein, Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky and Tony Kushner.
JVP, which generally employs civil disobedience tactics to disrupt pro-Israel speakers and events, consists of American Jews and non-Jewish “allies” highly critical of Israeli policies. A staunch supporter of the BDS movement, JVP claims to aim its campaigns at companies that either support the Israeli military (Hewlett-Packard) or are active in the West Bank (SodaStream).
Although several Jewish groups critical of Israeli policies, like J Street and Partners for a Progressive Israel, make efforts to operate within the mainstream American Jewish community, JVP functions outside. The group is often criticized for serving as a tokenized Jewish voice for the pro-Palestinian camp and is widely regarded as the BDS movement’s “Jewish wing.”
JVP denies the notion of “Jewish peoplehood” and has even gone so far as to refer to its own Ashkenazi (Jews who spent the Diaspora in European countries) leadership as “white supremacy inside of JVP.”
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has accused JVP of being “the largest and most influential Jewish anti-Zionist group in the United States,” and said the group “exploits Jewish culture and rituals to reassure its own supporters that opposition to Israel not only does not contradict, but is actually consistent with, Jewish value.”
The ADL also claimed that “JVP consistently co-sponsors rallies to oppose Israeli military policy that are marked by signs and slogans comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, demonizing Jews and voicing support for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.”
According to the ADL website, JVP “uses its Jewish identity to shield the anti-Israel movement from allegations of anti-Semitism and provide it with a greater degree of legitimacy and credibility.”
IfNotNow (INN)
INN claims to be “young Jews angered by the overwhelmingly hawkish response of American Jewish institutions” to OPE. INN presents three demands on its website: “Stop the War on Gaza, End the Occupation, and Freedom and Dignity for All.”
INN defines “the Occupation as the military rule over Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza,” which is land Israel has controlled for nearly 50 years since the 1967 Six-Day War. However, INN leaders have made [00:34:32] the claim [00:13:49] at protests that the occupation is 70 years long, referring to Israel’s founding in 1948.
INN actions have aimed to demonize [00:38:13] Israel, harass [00:05:44] mainstream American Jewish organizations like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and decrease support for Israel among American Jews.
INN has used “public action and imaginative ritual” to achieve its goals, including disruptions where activists were arrested.
One of the high-profile arrests occurred at a May 2018 disruption at a U.S. Senator’s office in Washington, D.C. to protest legislation against the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
At the same incident, INN used [00:07:17] the Jewish ritual of the Mourner’s Kaddish prayer to mourn [00:09:10] protesters who were killed during the Hamas-organized and funded Great March of Return riots on the Israel-Gaza border.
INN activists have also staged and promoted walk-offs from Birthright Israel trips, a heritage trip to Israel for young Jewish adults from across the world.
INN claims to take no position on the BDS movement and that it is “open to any who seek to shift the American Jewish public away from the status quo that upholds the Occupation.” However, INN organizes with pro-BDS, anti-Israel organizations including American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).
BDS
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true.
One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”
Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”
In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”
The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.
BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.
The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.
Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.
BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.
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