Caitlin Munchick

Overview

Caitlin Munchick is a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and supports the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movementat Vassar College (Vassar).

Munchick studies Sociology and Education at Vassar.

Slandering Israel

Munchick regularly shares anti-Israel posts on Facebook, linking to sites with rife anti-Zionist propaganda, including Electronic Intifada and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).

On October 15, 2015, Munchick shared on Facebook an anti-Israel disinformation video produced by AJ+ titled It's The Occupation which fraudulently blamed the Palestinian-Israel conflict on what AJ+ called "the Occupation" in 1967. The video disregarded the Palestinian rejection of peace with Israel and the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel. The production also falsely equated Israeli security measures and Palestinian acts of terrorist murder — excusing Palestinian terrorism.

On July 18, 2014, Munchick referred to Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza as "terror ... inflicted on Palestinian civilians." In the comment feed of her post, Munchick dismissed as “biased” and “propaganda” the fact that “Israel does everything in its power to avoid civilian casualties,” as well as Hamas’ tactic of using “human shields” to maximize civilian casualties.

On October 8, 2015, Munchick shared on Facebook an anti-Israel, history-inverting article by Naomi Dann, the media coordinator at JVP. The article blamed Israel — rather than Palestinian incitement — for the Palestinian camaign of terrorist murder that surged in late 2015.

On September 20, 2015, Munchick shared on Facebook a video advertisement for a protest organized by the South African University of Cape Town Palestine Solidarity Forum against Woolworths, for stocking Israeli products. She commented on the video that "i hope i know people that are going to this!!"

SJP Vassar - Honoring Human Shield

In November 2014, SJP Vassar co-sponsored a play with JVP Vassar honoring the memory of International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist Rachel Corrie.

ISM

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) was founded in 2001 and, according to the group’s website, is “resisting the long-entrenched and systematic oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian population, using non-violent, direct-action methods and principles.”

Despite this claim, the ISM has been accused of supporting terrorism and has encouraged its foreign volunteers to act “as human shields in cities, towns and refugee camps.” At least once, ISM facilities have been used in attempts to facilitate the escape of known terrorists from Israeli security forces.

ISM has encouraged its volunteers to break curfew and disregard Israeli directives prohibiting access to closed military zones. This policy resulted in the death of ISM operative Rachel Corrie, who was killed by a bulldozer while interfering with an Israeli military operation in 2003.

A wrongful death suit brought by Corrie’s family was dismissed when the judge ruled that Corrie unreasonably chose to put her own life in danger and found there to be no intent or negligence on the part of any Israelis involved in the incident.

Promoting Israel-hatred

March 2015, Munchick attended an event, co-sponsored by JVP Vassar and SJP Vassar, featuring Dr. Sa'ed Atshan, speaking on "resilience in Palestine." Atshan — a leading proponent of the BDS movement — wants the Jewish state to be dissolved in favor of another democratic state, but stripped of its Jewish majority.

In 2012, Atshan wrote an article accusing Israel of "ethnic cleansing" and “colonization” — and roundly condemning Native American poet Joy Harjo for rejecting Palestinian calls to boycott Israel. Harjo posted on her Facebook page from Tel Aviv, saying: “Now my social media pages and message boxes are filled with a campaign to force a boycott, with messages of polarization, as if there is one way to poetry, resistance or empowerment.” Harjo went on to mention “an atmosphere of censure now in the ultimatum that I am being given to boycott.”

SJP Vassar - Spreading Incitement

In February 2016, SJP Vassar’s Facebook page said that the group sought a “full decolonization of Palestinian lands,” a call to dismantle the state of Israel.

On October 21, 2013, SJP Vassar posted an article on Facebook alleging that Israel was carrying out a campaign to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The allegation that Jews “threaten” to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque has been a traditional pretext for Arab attacks on Jews long before the existence of the modern Jewish state.

Such propaganda served as the excuse for an upsurge in Palestinian violence that flared in the fall of 2015 and incited Palestinians to attempt mass casualty attacks on Israeli civilians in July 2016.

SJP Vassar - Support for Terror

In February 2016, SJP Vassar announced that they would be selling "sweet fucking antiZionist gear" at their future events, such as a T-shirt featuring gun-toting terrorist Leila Khaled.

Khaled was a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and participated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 840 in 1969 and El Al Flight 219 in 1970.

In a 2014 interview, Khaled opined that the Palestinian second intifada failed because it was not violent enough.

SJP Vassar also advertised the sale of “Existence is Resistance” T-shirts, which include various designs featuring the words “Straight Outta F**k Israel” a picture of a masked gunman, as well as the Leila Khaled T-shirt.

On October 6, 2015, SJP Vassar whitewashed Palestinian terrorist Fadi Aloon as a civilian who was shot while “run[ning] from a racist mob.”

Fadi Aloon was shot by Israeli security forces after he stabbed a 15-year-old Israeli boy. Several hours before the attack, Aloon posted “Either martyrdom or victory” on his Facebook page.

SJP Vassar - Spreading Hate

In May 2014, SJP Vassar was forced to issue an apology for posting a Nazi-style, anti-Semitic cartoon on its Tumblr account. Vassar’s President, Catharine Hill, announced a review of SJP Vassar’s status as a student group, and said that Vassar would probe use of the image “as a bias incident under college regulations.”

In late February 2014, SJP Vassar staged a protest against a proposed class trip to Israel, outside the classroom of the professor leading the trip. The belligerent behavior of the SJP Vassar members left the professor and her students feeling harassed and intimidated.

On March 3, 2014, Vassar held an open forum to discuss the “ethics” of the class trip to Israel. SJP Vassar members turned out to picket the event. Reports from attendees were that “Jewish kids who spoke were heckled” and drowned out with a finger snapping noise and loudly laughed at” and that “rage against Israel was the theme.”

In February 2014, SJP Vassar shared a video called “This Divestment Hurts my Feelings.”

On March 4, 2014, SJP Vassar mocked pro-Israel students on Facebook who felt “attacked” and “vulnerable” after receiving fake eviction notices in their dorm rooms.

In April 2014, the group posted on Facebook a cartoon ridiculing pro-Israel college students for feeling attacked and unsafe.

SJP Vassar - Demonizing Israel

In February 2014, SJP Vassar brought Israeli Apartheid Week to Vassar’s campus. SJP Vassar erected a mock separation barrier, which the group called the "Wall of Apartheid," and misrepresented Israel’s security fence as being “made of cement ... 26-feet high, and 275 miles long.”

On March 27, 2014 SJP Vassar doubled down, likening Israel’s security fence to the Berlin Wall. In May 2014, the Vassar Conservative-Libertarian Union erected a "Wall of Truth" to counter SJP Vassar’s disinformation; this wall was immediately defaced with profanities and defamatory allegations against Israel.

JVP Vassar - Demonizing Israel

In March 2015, JVP Vassar and SJP Vassar co-sponsored an event featuring Dr. Sa'ed Atshan, speaking on “resistance in Palestine.” Atshan, a leading proponent of BDS, wants the Jewish state to be dissolved in favor of another democratic state, but stripped of its Jewish majority.

On November 19, 2015, JVP Vassar promoted an initiative called “Renounce Birthright,” calling on Jews aged 18-26 to renounce a free trip to Israel provided by Birthright. The Renounce Birthright initiative states “We are young Jews living in the diaspora committed to mobilizing for the abolition of Birthright.”

According to the site, anybody that visits Israel on Birthright is “willfully taking advantage of [his or her] racial privilege” and “complicit in sustaining the occupation.”

On November 17, 2015 JVP Vassar shared an article on Facebook titled “The way for Americans to take on the Islamic state is to end support for Jewish nationalism.” commenting “We are Jewish, we stand against the oppressive Israeli state, and we will not be ignored.”

Promoting BDS at Vassar

On February 1, 2016 JVP Vassar and SJP Vassar partnered to form the Vassar Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (VBDS) Coalition, which sought to pass a resolution that would be considered by the Vassar Student Association (VSA) on March 6, 2016.

The resolution, which was co-authored by Rosen, demanded that Vassar “boycott and divest from the main colonizing force in Israel/Palestine, Zionism." The resolution also aimed to prohibit using student funds to purchase goods from 11 companies that had ties to Israel, such as Ben & Jerry’s and Sabra Hummus.

VBDS organized over a month and a half of anti-Israel events, culminating in Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), to advocate for the divestment resolution’s passage.

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 Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. IAW has been re-named Palestine Awareness Week.

VBDS Promoting Hate-Speech

On February 3, 2016, VBDS’ promoted an event that featured anti-Israel professor Jasbir Puar, speaking on “Inhumanist Biopolitics: How Palestine Matters.”

Puar began her speech by calling for armed struggle against Israel. She went on to demonize Israel, suggesting that Israelis harvest the organs of dead Palestinians. Puar also claimed that Israel was maiming and “stunting” Palestinians via food restrictions.

Puar also opined that the reason Israeli Jews have not killed Palestinians is “[t]hey need the Palestinians alive in order to keep the kind of rationalization for their victimhood and their militarized economy.”

SJP

SJP is a student organization engaged in anti-Israel activity on North American college and university campuses.

The first chapter of SJP was founded in 2001 at the University of California at Berkeley by Professor Hatem Bazian. Bazian has spread classic anti-Semitism, reportedly promoted religious anti-Semitism and defended the Hamas terror group. In 2004, Bazian called for “intifada” in America.

SJP organizes anti-Israel campaigns, including running annual Israel Apartheid Weeks, often in collaboration with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Muslim Students Association (MSA) campus chapters.

SJP has been a major force in pushing the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement on campuses. Chapters have initiated dozens of BDS resolutions in student governments, which have been proposed on or around Jewish holidays, a time when many Jewish students are off-campus.

SJP activists have reportedly physically assaulted, intimidated and harassed Jewish students, disrupted pro-Israel campus events and demonized pro-Israel campus organizations.

Chapters have often endorsed and campaigned for numerous terrorists and whitewashed terrorism.

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.