Daniel Joslyn

Overview

Daniel Joslyn promoted incitement and called for Israel’s destruction while leading chants at anti-Israel protests outside Columbia University (Columbia) in April 2024. Joslyn has also spread hatred of Israel online.

Joslyn’s anti-Israel activism took place during Israel’s war against the Hamas terror group after the October 7, 2023 attacks, when terrorists murdered over 1,200 Israelis, kidnapped hundreds and wounded thousands. War crimes against civilians included torture, rape and beheadings. For more information, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.

In April 2024, Joslyn participated [slide 2] in at least two anti-Israel protests organized by the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a coalition of “over 80 student groups working toward the goal of ‘collective liberation.’” CUAD is part of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

CUAD’s demands included “a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, divestment from Israel…and to reinstate” Columbia’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) chapters after the university’s administration suspended them. The groups are known as Columbia SJP and Columbia JVP.

As of May 2024, Joslyn’s personal website said Joslyn was “a socialist organizer,” and had been active with the Bronx and Upper Manhattan branch of the anti-Israel organization Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

As of the same date, Joslyn’s personal website said Joslyn taught “classes on the histories of social movements, labor, culture, sexuality, and religion in the United States.”

As of June 2024, Joslyn’s LinkedIn profile said Joslyn had been working as a freelance English-German translator since October 2012.

Also as of June 2024, Joslyn’s curriculum vitae said Joslyn was expected to receive a PhD from New York University (NYU) in 2023.

As of the same date, Joslyn’s curriculum vitae also said Joslyn graduated from NYU with a master’s degree in 2018, and from Hampshire College (Hampshire) with a bachelor’s degree in “Interdisciplinary Concentration: Forgiveness and Reconciliation” in 2016.

As of June 2024, Joslyn’s LinkedIn said Joslyn was located in New York, New York. However, as of the same date, Joslyn’s Facebook About page said Joslyn was located in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Promoting Incitement and Calling for Israel’s Destruction

On April 18, 2024, Joslyn led chants that promoted [00:01:28] incitement and called for [slide 2] Israel’s destruction at a CUAD rally held outside Columbia. On April 20, 2023, Joslyn participated in another CUAD rally.

On April 18, 2024, as Columbia students were being arrested [00:00:01, 00:02:00] for illegally protesting on campus, Joslyn led [00:00:55] outside the university the chant: “Falesteen Arabia [Palestine is Arab]!”

Joslyn then led [00:01:28] the chant: “There is only one solution, intifada revolution!”

The term “intifada,” which translates from Arabic as “uprising” or “insurrection,” carries the connotation of violence. Palestinian intifadas waged against Israel have been marked since 1987 by hundreds of hijackings, shootings, stabbings, bombings and suicide missions.
During the protest, Joslyn also led [slide 2] the chant: “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free!”

“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” is a chant used [00:02:47] to call for the elimination of the State of Israel. It has also been employed by Hamas leader Khaled Mashal to call for the replacement of Israel with an Islamic state. In April 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning the chant as antisemitic.

On April 20, 2024, Joslyn participated [slide 7] in another anti-Israel protest outside Columbia. Joslyn appeared in a photo shouting through a megaphone, which bore a sticker that read: “END THE GENOCIDE. FREE PALESTINE."

On April 17, 2024, Columbia students and anti-Israel activists set up what they called the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on the university's main lawn. Participants protested Israel’s war against Hamas and demanded that Columbia “divest from companies and institutions that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide and occupation…”

The action had reportedly been planned for months and was organized by the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) coalition, as well as Columbia’s banned pro-terror groups Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). The Columbia activists reportedly consulted with and received training from National SJP and other anti-Israel organizations.

The encampment was forcibly dismantled at the directive of Columbia’s president and administration. The NYPD [New York Police Department] entered the area, cleared the encampment and arrested more than 100 students. They were also charged with trespassing and suspended from Columbia indefinitely.

Two days later, activists created a new encampment. When divestment negotiations with Columbia failed, protesters illegally forced their way into the university’s Hamilton Hall on April 30, 2024. They smashed [00:00:55] through a glass-paneled door, broke security cameras and threw university property out of the windows.

While barricading themselves in the building, agitators kept three Columbia custodians hostage and stopped them from leaving. When the NYPD raided and dismantled the encampment a second time, they arrested more than 100 students, nearly half of whom were reportedly not affiliated with Columbia.

NYPD shared on Twitter photos of objects the police found in Hamilton Hall. These included knives, hammers, gas masks, ropes and a pamphlet that read [video 1]: “...DISRUPT/RECLAIM/DESTROY zionist business interests everywhere! DEATH TO ISRAELI REAL STATE! DEATH TO AMERICA!...LONG LIVE THE INTIFADA!” The term “Intifada” is Arabic for uprising or insurrection, and carries the connotation of violence.

The Columbia encampment reportedly inspired a wave of protest encampments across North American campuses, where pro-Israel students were blocked or restricted from campus facilities. Jewish students were reportedly harassed in several other ways. Some were told [00:00:02] to “go back to Poland” and [slide 3]: “Yahoodim [Jews], yahoodi [Jew], f**k you!” as they walked from campus to their dorm rooms.

Hatred of Israel

Joslyn retweeted a June 8, 2021 tweet that said: “...The Israeli legal system is an arm of its ethnic cleansing project. Zionism is colonialism.”

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.

Joslyn retweeted a May 13, 2021 tweet that promoted a series of maps popular among anti-Israel activists.

The maps claim that lands once controlled by Britain, Egypt and Jordan as autonomous “Palestinian land” were purportedly stolen by Israel. In February 2016, publisher McGraw-Hill Education recalled copies of a college textbook containing the fraudulent maps. In October 2015, American cable news network MSNBC apologized for airing a similar series of maps and retracted them.

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.