Chase Carter
Overview
Chase Carter has expressed support for banning Jewish symbols at the 2019 D.C. Dyke March, as well as for activists who disrupted an event celebrating Israel. He has also glorified violent protesters and spread hatred of Israel.He has promoted the anti-Israel organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)’s Deadly Exchange campaign, praised an anti-Israel agitator and condemned the Birthright Jewish heritage tour.
As of June 2019, Carter’s LinkedIn page listed him as the “Communications & Outreach Chair, Steering Committee” with JVP in the Washington-DC Metro chapter. He was also reportedly a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) while at Tufts University (Tufts).
Carter is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
As of June 2019, Carter’s LinkedIn page also said he was a 2015 graduate of Tufts University, School of the Museum of Fine Arts ( SMFA at Tufts) with a degree in Fine and Studio Arts.
It also lists Carter as an operations associate at Jews United for Justice and an associate registrar at International Arts & Artists.
Banning Jewish Symbols
On June 7, 2019, Chase posted on Facebook “Jewish Voice for Peace - DC Metro’s statement in solidarity with the DC Dyke March.”The statement said that JVP “stands in solidarity with the DC Dyke March as they face attacks from much of the pro-Israel Jewish community” and that “while a Star of David is not exclusively a symbol of the State of Israel, its association with violence, displacement, and racism for so many—particularly many Palestinians—serves as a stark reminder of the destructive impact of Zionism’s use of Jewish symbols.”
The post referred to the banning of the Jewish Pride flag from the Washington DC Dyke March for its resemblance to an Israeli flag, while also explicitly welcoming Palestinian flags.
Supporting Disruptors
On June 5, 2017, Carter shared on Twitter a JVP tweet that said: “100 JVP members and allies disrupted @CelebrateIsrael multiple times. 7 arrested..” Carter wrote: “*This* is my Jewish community.”The JVP activists specifically targeted a group of LGBTQ Jewish youth who were marching in the parade. They initially infiltrated the group and then marched with them before unplugging their sound system, linking arms to block the others marching and chanted about “apartheid.”
Glorifying Violent Protesters
On May 16, 2018, Carter signed a JVP-written petition called “Speak Out For Gaza”
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.
The petition posited that while the US celebrate moving its embassy to Israel’s capital in Jerusalem: “just 40 miles away over a thousand protesters demanding their freedom were shot by Israeli snipers” and “so many politicians and generals are speaking in the name of all Jews to justify the massacre of innocent people.”
The petition concluded by saying that “US and Israeli attacks on Palestinians don’t represent American Jews or our allies” and mentioned that it was the “70th commemoration Nakba Day.”
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.
Spreading Hatred of Israel
On June 18, 2019, Carter encouraged his mayor to cancel a forthcoming trip to Israel and tweeted: “At @JVPDCMetro/@jvplive, we know that our safety cannot come at the expense of anyone else’s. That is why I stand strongly against @MayorBowser looking toward Israel, a serial abuser of human and civil rights, as a model for DC. #OccupationFreeDC http://bit.ly/bowsertrip.”On May 21, 2019, Carter tweeted: “...Israel is dominated by systems of white supremacy, colonialism, and racism, just like the rest of the world.”
On May 14, 2018, Carter tweeted: “While I acknowledge both the US and Israel's existence, I don't support the states - which since their beginnings have sought to uphold white supremacy through violent means. Their foundations are exclusionary by design, and therefore not something to ‘support.’"
That same day, Carter tweeted: “Zionism reinforces and needs antisemitism to thrive as it is more concerned with upholding white supremacy than ensuring Jewish safety. We will only achieve liberation from white supremacy when we denounce the ethno-nationalism of Zionism and stand in solidarity with each other.”
On January 23, 2018, Carter tweeted: “If this is 2018 Israel, its (sic) only natural that 2020 Israel will honor antisemites Richard Spencer, Hal Lindsay, and John Hagee as righteous gentiles among the nations for their unflinching commitment to Zionism.”
On September 21, 2017, Carter tweeted: “You don't get to promote antisemitism, then use the Jew card. That's reserved for @Netanyahu and @StephenMillerAL.”
On April 12, 2017, Carter tweeted a photo of JVP activists with the caption: “Fighting against occupation and ethnic cleansing in Palestine.”
Carter’s senior thesis, dated April 24, 2015, had the title: “On Jewish Nationalism.” In the thesis, Carter complained: “there is a strong conflation between Jewish people and the state of Israel. Israel perpetuates this incomplete and often dangerous association by zealously defining itself as ‘the Jewish state’ and therefore as representing all Jews.”
Carter offered that for Zionists, the Jewish claim to Israel had “mythical origins” and referred to Zionism as “a simultaneously nationalist and colonialist movement.”
Carter quoted anti-Israel professor Rashid Khalidi, formerly the spokesperson of the PLO under Yasir Arafat, who “reflects upon how the term ‘Eretz Israel’ intrinsically perpetuates Zionists' eternal claim to the Holy Land for Jews.”
Carter’s paper included from Khalidi that: “Zionism takes Jewish history and appropriates it as every nationalmovement does, and it turns it into a seamless whole - ending with the Holocaust, the establishment of Israel.”
Carter also said that Israel was “Regarding Palestinian Arabs as subhuman, or nonhuman” in order to legitimize “any and all violence committed against them” and that “Zionism’s act of dehumanizing Palestinian Arabs simultaneously strengthens Israeli national identity.”
Carter claimed: “Zionism ultimately found it beneficial to include the Holocaust as part of the Zionist narrative” and that “Israel continues to use these narratives to legitimize their violent acts as ‘self-defense.’”
Promoting the Deadly Exchange
In a June 9, 2019 article for Salon.com, Carter claimed that in poilice trainings between Israel and the US “facilitate...worst practices — such as racial profiling, increased surveillance, and repression of nonviolent protest — which are used by both Israel and the U.S. to subjugate their non-white populations.”Carter referred to the partnership as a “large web of interconnected systems of state violence.”
On August 29, 2018, Carter tweeted a video about JVP’s Deadly Exchange program and wrote: “Producing and launching this video has been an overwhelming labor of love from me and my friends in @jvplive / @JVPDCMetro. Please support our work to make DC safer by sharing this video and signing our petiton (sic): occupationfreedc.org/petition.”
On August 1, 2018, Carter tweeted: “DC deserves to know: Did @ADL_National just lead their police training in Israel? Did @DCPoliceDept participate? We need answers from@ChiefNewsham @councilofdc @charlesallen
#ApartheidIsNotSecurity #SafetyForAll #DeadlyExchange #OccupationFreeDC #StopMPD.”
On April 16, 2018, Carter tweeted: “Hey @councilofdc + @DCPoliceDept, we ready, we comin'! Join our local campaign to end the #DeadlyExchange of worst practices between police in DC & Israel:occupationfreedc.org #OccupationFreeDC #BlackLivesMatter
#FreePalestine.”On October 30, 2017, Carter tweeted: “Hey ADL! Reject ALL hate during #ADLConcert and stop funding racist police trainings with Israel #DeadlyExchange.”
Praising an Anti-Israel Agitator
On March 6, 2019, Carter tweeted: “I’m incredibly proud to represent @JVPDCMetro/@jvplive as a signer of this letter, in which we strongly #StandWithIlhan [Ilhan Omar] and condemn racism.”On February 15, 2019, Carter was featured in a photo posted to Facebook by JVP DC Metro. In the photo, Carter held a sign that read: “#IStandWithIlhan because Zionism =/= Judaism AIPAC =/= Jews.”
On January 10, 2018, Carter was featured on Facebook in a JVP-DC Metro photo with the caption: "I stand with Ahed and her family because brave people who resist terror and oppression should be celebrated as heroes, not imprisoned."
Condemning Jewish Heritage Tour
On March 4, 2015, Carter co-wrote an article for the student newspaper Tufts Daily with fellow JVP/SJP activist, Julia Mason-Wedgle. The article was then published on the anti-Israel website, Mondoweiss.In the article, the authors alleged: “Israel is doing the exact opposite of what our Jewish values teach us. Birthright led us to stand in solidarity with Palestine.”
Carter also discussed his experience on Birthright in Winter 2014; at the time of his trip Carter was a member of JVP in Boston and SJP at Tufts.
Carter said that he “expected to feel alienated by the organizers, but instead they expressed support and appreciation for my contrasting opinions.”
Carter also expressed displeasure at a video shown to the group in Sderot about constantly rockets fired at the city from the Gaza Strip, saying that the video “completely removing any context from the attacks.”
At an event on trip featuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Carter noted he was “the only one to boo him.” Carter then complained that Birthright was a “fundamentally problematic program attempting to conflate Judaism and Zionism” and that it was unfair that Jewish students have “a constructed right” to visit their homeland.
Carter concluded that “Birthright is only possible because of Israel’s violence toward the Palestinian people” and that “Birthright is not an essential Jewish rite of passage.”
On December 3, 2017, Carter attended an event titled: “Boycott Birthright: Protest Birthright Gala...” outside the Taglit-Birthright offices in New York City, where JVP members assembled to chant anti-Birthright slogans.
That day, Carter tweeted: “Today at the @jvplive #ReturnTheBirthright protest, I witnessed our bright and just Jewish future. #FreePalestine.”
On December 24, 2018, Carter tweeted: “#Birthright is built upon the displacement and disenfranchisement of Palestinians. This isn’t a structure that should or even can be reformed. It must be boycotted and ended. That’s why I support the #ReturnTheBirthright campaign by @jvplive.”
Also on December 24, Carter tweeted: “#Birthright—no matter how open or ‘liberal’—is wrong and always will be because it inherently supports the racist and colonialist notion that Jews around the world have a claim to ‘Eretz Israel’ upon the condition that Palestinians don’t have that same right.”
On April 18, 2018, Carter tweeted: “If you're a young Jew appalled by the values of @birthright, learn more about the many other reasons for why we must #ReturnTheBirthright here” and linked to JVP’s Return the Birthright campaign.
Return the Birthright Campaign
In September of 2017, JVP issued its #ReturntheBirthright campaign manifesto, calling on American Jews to boycott the Birthright Israel (Birthright) program. Birthright was founded by Jewish philanthropists “in 1999 to address the growing divide between young Diaspora Jewish adults and the land and people of Israel.”After decades of demographic decline in the American Jewish community, Birthright set out “to strengthen Jewish identity, build a lasting bond with the land and people of Israel, and reinforce the solidarity of Jewish people worldwide.” The program offers “the gift of a life-changing, 10-day trip to Israel to young Jewish adults between the ages of 18 and 26.”
JVP’s anti-Birthright campaign was launched precisely to coincide with “the very moment that college students across America are returning to campus and registration for Birthright winter visits are underway.”
The #returnthebirthright manifesto accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and alleged “the modern state of Israel is predicated on the ongoing erasure of Palestinians.”
The text claimed: “We reject the offer of a free trip to a state that does not represent us, a trip that is only ‘free’ because it has been paid for by the dispossession of Palestinians.”
The manifesto concluded: “And as we reject this, we commit to promoting the right to return of Palestinian refugees… Israel is not our Birthright… Return the Birthright.”
On June 22, 2017, just prior to the launch of JVP’s #returnthebirthright campaign, JVP received a $140,00 two-year grant for general support for its operations from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF).
Since 2015, JVP has received $280,000 from RBF, which has a history of supporting anti-Jewish causes, including BDS campaigns and various organizations that promote BDS campaigns throughout the United States.
Anti-Israel Activism
On June 9, 2019, Carter published an article in which he discussed an anti-Israel activist trip he participated in, in May 2019 with a group of 100 anti-Israel activists, organized by the Center for Jewish Nonviolence (CJNV).Carter recalled how the group worked in a closed military zone and when Israeli soldiers tried to disburse them, they linked arms to avoid being moved. Carter also said that Israel was a state “rooted in racism.”
On April 5, 2017, Carter has shared a JVP DC event on his Facebook page and invited people to “Please join Jewsh Voice for Peace - DC Metro on Tuesday, April 18, for a presentation” of the film “Obliterated Families: Film Screening and Discussion.”
The event’s Facebook description said: “Obliterated Families is an extremely compelling, award-winning multimedia web documentary that draws attention to the families from Gaza whose lives were shattered during the Israeli offensive in 2014.”
On February 28, 2017, Carter shared on his Facebook page the “JVP DC March Meeting” taking place on March 5, 2017 and wrote “Hey y’all! With a number of brand new campaigns and projects, we need you to join us on Sunday in order to build up our work for justice from the US to Palestine! New members welcome!”
Carter indicated on Facebok that he “went” to a March 1, 2015 event called: “Tufts Israeli Apartheid Week 2015,” hosted by Tufts SJP.
On December 1, 2014, Chase was tagged in a photo on Facebook by JVP Boston.
Carter indicated on Facebook that he “went” to an October 26, 2014 event called: “NSJP Closing Keynote: Transnational BDS with Hind Awwad, Dr. J Kēhaulani Kauanui, Muhammad Desai and Kristian Davis Bailey.”
National SJP held their annual conference at Tufts in 2014. Max Geller, who has idealized and supported terrorists, spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and demonized Zionism, spoke at the conference.
Ahmed Hamad, who in February 2016 threatened to kill Palestinian human rights activist Bassem Eid, during a talk Eid gave at the University of Chicago,also co-presented a workshop at the conference, titled: “The Struggle for Academic Freedom on Palestine on College Campuses.”
Supporting BDS
On June 7, 2017, Carter tweeted: “...saying that it supports the total boycott of the state of Israel deliberately ignores the fact that BDS is a nonviolent tactic with clear demands of achieving justice for Palestinians.”Carter indicated on Facebook that he “went” to an August 16, 2018 event called: “BDS 101: Palestinian Struggle for Freedom, Justice, and Equality,” hosted by JVP- DC and the Democratic Socialists of DC.
The event’s Facebook description offered: “Have questions about the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions? Join us - activists from Jewish Voice for Peace and Occupation Free DC - to learn more!”
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.”
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.
Social Media and Weblinks
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/789375380Twitter: https://twitter.com/chasemcarter
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/chasemcarter/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chasemcarter [private]
Personal Website:https://chasecarter.nu/
Academia:http://tufts.academia.edu/ChaseCarter
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