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Blake Turner

Overview

Blake Turner [J. Blake Turner] is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement at Columbia University (Columbia), where he is an assistant professor of Psychiatry at the Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC).

In 2009, Turner signed a letter demonizing Israel at Columbia.

Turner was signatory to a letter defending Alison Weir, the founder and executive director of the anti-Semitic organization If Americans Knew (IAK).

Promoting BDS

In March of 2016, Turner signed a petition created by a Columbia student initiative to rebrand BDS at Columbia as Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD).

CUAD is comprised of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) members, who joined forces in February 2016. The group called on Columbia to divest its equity holdings and endowment funds from companies that — in CUAD’s words — “profit from the State of Israel’s ongoing system of settler colonialism, military occupation, and apartheid law.” 

CUAD lists eight target companies that it believes “*likely* to be invested in by a university like CU,” without knowing whether Columbia actually had holdings in the corporations.

Demonizing Israel at Columbia

In February of 2009, Turner signed a letter calling on Columbia President Lee Bollinger to “make public [his] opposition” to Israeli security measures in the West Bank and Gaza. The letter was sent one month after Israel’s Operation Cast Lead (OCL), which was launched to stop Hamas weapons smuggling and rocket fire from the Gaza strip targeting Israeli civilians.

Defending Alison Weir

Turner signed a letter to the “U.S. Campaign and other Activists for Justice in Palestine.” The letter was written as a response to attacks on Alison Weir

Weir is the founder and executive director of the anti-Semitic organization If Americans Knew (IAK). She has reportedly been “a repeat guest of white supremacist Clay Douglas on his hate radio show.” The Anti Defamation League (ADL) has exposed Weir’s propagation of numerous anti-Semitic and anti-Israel conspiracy theories.  


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.


Social Media and Weblinks

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/blake.turner.391

University Website:https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/profile/j-b-turner-phd

Blake Turner
Status:
Professor
University:
Columbia
Organizations:
BDS

Related Profiles:
Marianne Hirsch,

Last Modified:
06/23/2025

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