Devika Shenoy
Overview
Devika Shenoy has demonized Israel and was an activist with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2019 and wrote that she attended a workshop at the 2018 National SJP Conference.The 2018 National SJP conference was held on November 16-18, 2018 at UCLA. The conference was themed “Radical Hope: Resistance in the Face of Adversity.” The conference website stated: “[t]he reason we can have hope is that Zionism...can be destroyed.”
As of May 2020, Shenoy’s LinkedIn profile said she was studying for her bachelor’s degree in Human Biology and Society at UCLA, slated to graduate in 2021. Her LinkedIn page also stated that she was an exchange student in physics at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), in 2019.
As of the same date, Shenoy’s LinkedIn page said she was an “Advocacy Director and US Report Card Intern” at Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM), since June 2019 and that she was on UCLA’sImmigrant Youth Task Force since December 2019.
Shenoy’s LinkedIn page also listed her as the Director of Finance at the UCLA Society and Genetics Undergraduate Union, since May 2019, an Assistant Editor of UCLA Student Media, since October 2018 and a part-time Medical Assistant at Mosaic Dermatology in Santa Monica, since October 2019.
Demonizing Israel
Palestine Awareness Week (PAW) is a re-branding for American audiences of Israel Apartheid Week (IAW), originally 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.
In her article, Shenoy expressed appreciation for a speaker at a PAW event she attended, for underlining “the importance of acknowledging the history and colonization of Palestine, and the development and perpetration of imperialist goals.”
Shenoy linked to an Al Jazeera English (AJE) chart that claimed: "Over 80 percent of Palestinians in what became Israel were expelled and approximately 80 percent of Palestinian land was seized by Zionists."
Shenoy added: "SJP constructed a wall of information on the Israeli occupation of Palestine in Wilson Plaza." The article was accompanied by a photo of a panel of the wall, meant to mock Israel’s security barrier, taken by Shenoy, that featured the phrase “anti Zionism ≠ anti-racism.”
Israel’s security barrier, 97 percent of which is a low chain-link barrier, was built as a deterrent to Palestinian terror attacks. The concrete portions of the fence were built in response to Palestinian sniper attacks.
On March 20, 2019, Shenoy published an article in FEM magazine, titled: “Free, Free Palestine: The History and Implications of Israeli Occupation,” where she encouraged students to attend SJP UCLA events, adding: “While attending these campus events supports [sic] Palestinians’ movement for self-determination, we must also acknowledge the history of Israeli apartheid.”
Shenoy also wrote: “(a)s a community, we must start to inform the general public about the implications of Israeli apartheid,” as well as “using our platforms of privilege to discuss Israel’s human rights violations.”
Shenoy added: “Supporting Palestinian-led organizations, such as the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), is one of many actions that directly support the Palestinian people.”
Attending the 2018 National SJP Conference
On November 25, 2018, Shenoy published an article in FEM magazine, titled: “Reflecting on the 2018 Students for Justice in Palestine Conference,” where she described Zionism as “the ideology that advocates for the necessity of a state solely for Jewish people."Shenoy wrote that she attended a workshop at the 2018 National SJP Conference led by Kanwalroop Singh, titled: “Intersectional Oppression Required Intersectional Resistance.” According to Shenoy, Singh’s lecture drew parallels “between the oppression of Palestinians by Israel and of Kashmiris by the Indian state.”
Singh and workshop attendees also reportedly discussed how Israel “engages in human rights abuses, violence, and the creation of a global Palestinian diaspora in their expulsion of Palestinians and settlement of their land.”
Shenoy wrote that the conference’s “private status” through the “regulation of attendees,” was preferable because the conference was able to create “ideal safe spaces” and prevented “the presence of counter protestors.”
Shenoy also claimed that counter-protestors were part of an “effort to silence the Palestinian movement on campus,” and symbolized “a much larger effort from the Zionist community at UCLA to victimize themselves.”
Promoting BDS
In her March 20, 2019 FEM magazine article, Shenoy criticized foreign governments for “contributing to and supporting the Israeli economy through trade of goods produced on colonized land.”She also wrote: “We must work to counter these human rights violations by telling our governments to stop buying goods — an act that stimulates growth in the economy — from settlements beyond the Green Line.”
2018 National SJP - Celebrating Violence
Since the early 2000’s, the term “intifada” has carried the connotation of violence. The second intifada was characterized by more than 120 suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians on buses and in cafes.
Anti-Israel activist Omar Zahzah also reportedly [00:00:07] led National SJP attendees in chanting, in Arabic, “With our bodies and our blood, we will free Palestine.”
As of November 2018, the 2018 National SJP website glorified “radical hope and upfront defiance of Zionism,” citing as examples the “early revolts through the Intifadas to the Great Return March.”
The Great Return March of 2018 was organized and funded by the terror group Hamas as a campaign of violent protests along Israel’s border to spotlight the demand of Palestinians to “return” to Israel.
Tens of thousands of rioters gathered on Israel’s Gaza border, attempting numerous breaches of Israel’s border fence, with leaders andparticipants declaring their intention to harm Jews.
National SJP originally promoted a conference logo featuring a keffiyeh-wearing bear, looking toward a kite bearing the colors of the Palestinian flag.
On October 27, 2018, National SJP said the kite signified “the power in the Gaza March of Return.”
Since March 2018, March of Return participants and Hamas’s “Kite Unit” have sent hundreds of kites bearing incendiary devices and IEDs (improvised explosive devices) across the border into Israel to terrorize Israelis. The kites are often marked with swastikas.
By the time National SJP produced its 2018 conference logo highlighting the kites in October 2018, Gazan terror kites and balloons had ignited more than 1,300 fires in Israel, over seven months.
2018 National SJP - Undermining U.S. Support for Israel
On November 18, 2018, the US Palestine Community Network (USPCN) posted on Facebook the 2018 National SJP keynote speech by Hatem Abudayyeh, USPCN’s co-founder.Abudayyeh has supported [00:08:45] convicted terrorists, praised terror organizations, called for Israel’s destruction and is an activist in theBoycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
In his 2018 National SJP Keynote, Abudayyeh said [00:53:01] that the “specific role” of Palestinian and Arab students was to organize [00:53:42] in order to weaken “Zionist Israel” and force [00:54:23] the U.S. to “no longer provide it with diplomatic, political, financial and military cover and support.”
Abudayyeh predicted [00:55:37] that once U.S. support to Israel ends, National SJP attendees would return to Palestine as “conquering heroes,” end [00:54:38] the “occupation and colonization of all Arab lands including the Golan Heights” and replace “Zionist Israel” with a Palestinian state.
2018 National SJP - Whitewashing Terror Organizations
During his keynote speech, Abudayyeh also painted [00:14:01] terrorist organizations as “liberation movements” and “resistance organizations,” stating [00:14:21] “what we also know is that the majority of the resistance organizations in Palestine are on the U.S. state department list of foreign terrorist organizations.”Abudayyeh also celebrated [00:52:00] that all of the “armed resistance” organizations in Gaza are part [00:52:14] of a “unified resistance in Gaza, that includes all of the resistance organizations, working together under a unified military command.”
2018 National SJP - Defending Terrorist Rasmea Odeh
During his keynote speech, Abudayyeh claimed [00:08:28] that pro-Israel organizations “go after students like you,” adding [00:08:20] “just like they went after my friend and colleague, Rasmea Odeh.”2018 National SJP - Demonizing Israel and Jews
During his keynote speech, Abudayyeh defended [00:27:25] the “Irvine 11” — eleven Muslim Student Union (MSA) members who were arrested in 2010 for repeatedly shouting down former Israeli ambassador Michael Oren during an address at the University of California at Irvine (UC Irvine).Abudayyeh referred [00:27:37] to Oren as a “racist fascist speaker, representative of a racist, fascist country.”
Abudayyeh went on to claim [00:29:48] that “today, even in the United States, Israel is finally being seen as the criminal, apartheid, racist state that it is.”
Abudayyeh also called for increased action in the face of President U.S. Donald Trump, and referred [00:48:41] to Jared Kushner, Trump’s Jewish son-in-law and senior advisor, as “that pig son-in-law of his.”
2018 National SJP - Excluding Students
The 2018 National SJP Conference welcomed only students who were verified and vouched for by an SJP (or otherwise named campus Palestine solidarity group). Media requests needed to be “approved by the NSJP press team” prior to the conference.A November 7, 2018 Columbus Jewish News article reported that the Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed a resolution calling on UCLA to cancel the 2018 NSJP conference, stating that a “public university should not allow any group to implement a litmus test for event participation on their campus.”
On November 12, 2018, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block published an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times that criticized National SJP’s exclusion of members of pro-Israel student groups.
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/100009676630414LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devika-shenoy-46481a157/
Videos
Photos & Screenshots
