Eliza Klein

Overview

Eliza Klein has defended terrorists, supported a violent agitator and promoted the #returnthebirthright campaign calling on American Jews to boycott the Birthright Jewish heritage tour.

Klein was a Student Fellow with the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) organization from June 2017 to August 2017 and is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

As of July 2019, Klein’s LinkedIn page said she was a Service Corps Member at Avodah from “Jun 2019 - Present” and a Resident Liaison at UHAB from “Jun 2019 - Present.”

Klein’s LinkedIn page, as well as her Facebook page, said she graduated from Williams College in 2019, with a bachelor’s degree in History.

Defending Terrorists

On July 12, 2017, Klein tweeted: “Israeli Occupation Forces: Free Khalida Jarrar and Khitam Saafin Now...” The tweet linked to a petition demanding Jarrar and Saafin’s “immediate release.”

The two women were reportedly arrested “due to the women’s leading roles” in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP),a designated terrorist organization by the European Union, Canada, the United States and Israel.

On May 4, 2017, Klein shared a Facebook status where she wrote about how she dropped banners that read: “Solidarity with the Palestinian Prisoners’ Hunger Strike” “Occupation Isn’t Kosher,” and “End Israeli Apartheid” — in response to a “kosher BBQ “=hosted by a group of Zionists on our campus,” to celebrate Israel’s Independence day.

The hunger strike referred to by Klein was initiated by Marwan Barghouti, who was serving five consecutive life sentences for his role in suicide bombings — and shooting attacks against Israelis that killed five people during the Second Intifada.

Barghouti financed the guitar-case bomb used in the Sbarro Cafe massacre. Also among the hunger strikers was Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) Secretary General Ahmad Sa’adat.

More than 1,000 other Palestinian prisoners participated in the hunger strike — most of whom were also convicted for acts of terrorism.

On May 3, 2017, Klein wrote in the Williams college student newspaper: “By disrupting the barbeque, by writing this op-ed and by speaking out against the occupation of Palestine, we hope to destabilize the normalcy and legitimacy of supporting Israel.”

Supporting Violent Agitator

On September 9, 2017, Klein shared an event on Facebook, co-organized by JVP, CODEPINK, and the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), featuring violent agitator Issa Amro.

Anti-Israel agitator Issa Amro is known for vandalism and attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians. Amro heads the Youth Against Settlements (YAS) movement, an anti-Israel organization based in Hebron that promotes anti-Semitism, rock-throwing and violence against Israelis.

Boycotting Jewish Heritage Tour

Klein was involved in promoting and organizing for the #returnthebirthright campaign launched by JVP.

On September 1, 2017, Klein wrote a Facebook post that read: “Today, Jewish students and young people across the U.S. are launching a BIRTHRIGHT BOYCOTT CAMPAIGN because Israel is not our birthright.

She continued, “While Palestinians are not free, and while Israel continues to wage violence and occupation in our name, we reject Birthright and all that it stands for.”

Klein went on to quote JVP’s anti-Birthright Manifesto: “Don’t take a trip sponsored by conservative donors and the Israeli government, where the ongoing oppression and occupation of Palestinians will be hidden from you, just because it’s free.”

Klein called on her Facebook friends to “Return the Birthright. If you are Jewish and age 18-26, sign the boycott pledge HERE and share widely.”

In the comment section of her post, Klein wrote: “Birthright LITERALLY acts out settler colonial violence...”

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.

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.”

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.