Emma Brown

Overview

Emma Brown has demonized Israel, as an activist with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Tufts University (Tufts SJP) in 2014.

In October 2014, Brown attended the 2014 National SJP Conference at Tufts.

Brown remained active with Tufts SJP through, at least, the spring of 2015, when Facebook listed her as attending multiple Tufts SJP events.

As of July 12, 2017, Brown’s LinkedIn page said that she was an outreach intern in 2014 for Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) in its national office in Oakland. Brown claimed to help in local chapter outreach and in managing various JVP social media platforms.

As of July 12, 2017, Brown LinkedIn page said she was an “American Studies Major at Tufts University, Graduating 2017.”

Likening Israel to Nazi Germany

On April 28, 2014, Brown employed the phrase “Never Again” on Facebook, when participating in a “die-in” that demonized Israel.

Brown commented “and every time, we say ‘never again’ again and again” alongside a photo of her at a 2014 Tufts SJP demonstration protesting Israel’s creation in 1948.

The phrase “Never Again” is often deployed as a general declaration against genocide, invoking the Nazis’ war of extermination against the Jews.

On April 25, 2014, Tufts SJP staged a “die-in” next to a Tufts Friends of Israel (Tufts FOI)-organized event celebrating Israeli Independence Day. Hannah Freedman, a Tufts SJP activist, said that Tufts SJP “crashed” the event “with a memorial for al-Nakba,” a term defining Israel’s founding as a “catastrophe.” Tufts SJP activists laid on red cloth meant to symbolize pools of blood.

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.

Participating in SJP Incitement

On March 18, 2014, Brown joined other SJP members in Boston in a rally applauding militant violence. Brown wrote on Facebook that the marchers also called for Israel’s destruction, chanting: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

On March 18, 2014, Tufts SJP members marched in support of SJP at Northeastern University (SJP Northeastern) after the group was suspended by the university for slipping mock eviction notices demonizing Israel under students’ doors. The marchers chanted a call for anti-Israel violence: “Long live the Intifada! Intifada, Intifada!”

On March 13, 2014, Brown said on Facebook that she was “outraged” that SJP Northeastern was suspended. Brown urged others in the Facebook post to “stand in solidarity” with SJP Northeastern and included a link to a petition to reinstate the group.

Demonizing Israel

On March 4, 2014, Brown endorsedas “powerful and important” a Tufts Daily op-ed that called Israel a “racist project.” The op-ed called Zionism “an ideology that has sought to establish and maintain a white, European-Jewish (or Ashkenazi) colony in non-European lands” and that “The erasure of Palestinians cannot be disassociated from Zionism, and the state of Israel cannot exist without it.”

Titled “Hand in hand: Israel and white supremacy,” the article relied upon a grossly mistranslated quote from Sephardic Jew and then-Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai to bolster its claim that Israel is fundamentally racist. The mistranslation was publicly exposed years before the Tufts Daily op-ed was written.

On March 6, 2014, Brown promoted an event for Tufts SJP’s Israeli Apartheid Week. The post claimed that Israel practices “settler-colonialism” and featured Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activist Susan Abulhawa.

On the same day, Brown shared an op-ed (page 20) which opposed Birthright Israel, a subsidized Jewish heritage tour to Israel. The op-ed described the trip as “violent.”

Tufts SJP - Hosting National SJP Conference 

In October, 2014, Brown attended the 2014 National SJP Conference at Tufts.On October 24-26, 2014, Tufts SJP hosted the 2014 National SJP Conference.

On October 25, 2014, Tufts SJP quoted Sara Kershner, the founder of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN), as saying at the conference: “Zionism has hijacked [Jewish] history and struggle against genocide to justify genocide today.”

On October 25, 2014, Sa’ed Atshan, then the Tufts SJP faculty advisor, blamed Israel for Palestinian honor killings and persecution of LGBTQ+ people within Palestinian society.

Clothing was sold at the conference, including a shirt with the image of airplane hijacker Leila Khaled — a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) — with the text “resistance is not terrorism.”

Although the event was listed as “free and open to the public,” at least one student journalist was refused press credentials. Terror supporter Max Geller and agitator Ahmed Hamad both spoke and presented at the conference.

Conference attendee Ofek Ravid said that he was “booed and hissed at” — and told by “several members in the crowd to f**k off” — for merely suggesting that “Israel needs to be looked at as a complex nation through a dialectic lens, not as a black and white fragment.” Ravid was also asked to leave the building by an SJP representative.

Tufts SJP - Vilifying Israel  

On October 23, 2016, Tufts SJP, on Facebook and in the Tufts Daily, stated: “We will not be silent when extra-judicial killings occur regularly in the West Bank.” The link attached to the word “killings” took readers to a discredited Amnesty International report that accused Israeli soldiers of murdering Sa’ad Al-Atrash and then planting a knife next to his body in October 2015. Al-Atrash had attempted to stab the soldiers who shot him.

October 2015 saw an upsurge in violence across Israel incited by Palestinian political and religious leaders. The wave of stabbings, known as the “Knife Intifada,” saw young Palestinians throughout the country stabbing and attempting to stab scores of Israeli civilians.

Many Palestinians killed during the Knife Intifada were shot after attempting to murder Israeli Jews and refusing to lay down their weapons. For instance, Fadi Alloun [Aloon] — referenced in the Amnesty International report — was shot by Israeli security forces after he stabbed a 15-year old Israeli boy in his chest and back. Several hours before his attack, Aloon posted “Either martyrdom or victory” on his Facebook page.

Tufts SJP added, in its above-mentioned October 23, 2016 Tufts Daily piece: “We will not be silent when Palestinian poets like Dareen Tatour are imprisoned for their writings.”

Dareen Tatour was placed under house arrest for inciting violence in the fall of 2015, during the “Knife Intifada.” Tatour posted a Facebook status reportedly “calling for intifada on behalf of al-Aqsa mosque.” Tatour also posted on Facebook “I am the next shahid [martyr],” under a picture of attempted-stabber Asraa Zidan Tawfik Abed. Tatour also posted a Youtube video, narrated with a poem that glorified violence and called for the eviction of Jews from “Arab Palestine.”

On October 5, 2016, Tufts SJP activists appeared in a Tufts SJP Facebook photo where they were building a parade float that  expressed their desire to “tear down” Israel’s security fence.

The fence was built as a non-violent deterrent to Palestinian terrorist attacks like suicide bombings. The SJP activists referred to Israel’s barrier as “the Apartheid Wall” and likened it to the “US Mexico border wall.”

On March 9, 2016, Tufts SJP demonstrated against the “illegal Jewish occupation on Palestinian land,” according to the Tufts student newspaper. The protest included Gaza — which Israel left in 2005 — and the Negev Desert which is recognized as part of Israel. The demonstration was part of Tufts SJP’s Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW).

At the demonstration, Tufts SJP distributed its 2013 publication titled “The Zintifada” — a play on the word “Intifada.”

The publication showcased another Tufts SJP activist, Sophia Goodfriend, who claimed  (p. 8) Israel was a “construction of simulated reality upon a foundation of genocide and delusion.” The pamphlet also featured Tufts SJP co-founder Lucas Koerner, who claimed (p.17) that pro-Israel Jews felt “the imperative to dominate” as a symptom of “internalized oppression.” Koerner is infamous for reportedly biting an Israeli police officer in 2011.  

In March 2015, Tufts SJP profiled some of its activists on Facebook. Tufts SJP activist Nicole Joseph, in her profile photo, decried the “influence of the Zionist lobby and the US-Israel special relationship.”

March 4, 2015, Tufts SJP hung a banner in the main dining hall that claimed: “Israeli weapons tried and tested on Palestinians.” The banner promoted a film screening of “The Lab.”   

On November 10, 2014, Tufts SJP held a “die-in” to protest a speech at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) legal advisor Lt. Col Dr. Eran Shamir-Borer. Shamir-Borer’s talk addressed Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in July 2014.

Tufts SJP organized a petition against the speech and what they called “the genocidal logic of the Israel’s so-called ‘defense’ forces.” Tufts SJP, at the die-in, called Shamir-Borer a “genocide apologist.”

Tufts SJP - Hosting Propagandists

On April 4, 2017, Tufts SJP hosted anti-Israel poet Remi Kanazi, who is known for his aggressive anti-Israel performances. His performance was part of Tufts SJP’s “Israeli Apartheid Week 2017,” which the group hosted from April 3-7, all less than a week before its Passover Eve BDS resolution vote, detailed above.  

On November 16, 2016, Tufts SJP hosted former Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) spokesperson Diana Buttu. Buttu served in the PLO during the second intifada, when the PLO — via Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade — perpetrated terror attacks against Israeli civilians. Buttu was publicly discredited at least twice, in 2014, as a propagandist, who lied to defend terror organizations.  

On March 1, 2016, Tufts SJP hosted an event featuring Nada Elia, titled “Refusing to be Complicit: The Question of Palestine and Non-Violent Resistance.” Elia wrote an article the previous fall — during the Knife Intifada — titled “Why Be Afraid of an Intifada?” In that article, Elia said: “Intifadas are good.”

On October 6, 2015, Tufts SJP brought Palestinian propagandist Bassem Tamimi to campus.

Bassem Tamimi is notorious for exploiting young children as political props. Tamimi regularly manufactures confrontations with Israeli soldiers, who respond to the rioting that Tamimi instigates. In 2011, Tamimi was jailed for organizing violent rallies and inciting minors to commit violent crimes, such as rock-throwing.

Tufts SJP - Harassing Fellow Students   

On October 28, 2015, Tufts SJP activists attended a Tufts Friends of Israel (Tufts FOI)- hosted cultural event, with the express purpose of bullying FOI members of at the event. Claudia Aliff, a Tufts SJP activist, told The Tufts Daily: “The disruption of this event” was the purpose of SJP’s presence there.

Tufts SJP members mocked Tufts FOI members and their displays while distributing Tufts SJP flyers. The flyers accused Israel of “theft” and “terrorism,” and blamed the deadly “Knife Intifada” — then taking place in Israel — on “Israeli police violence and oppressive policies.” Tufts SJP posted signs accusing Israel of “[p]racticing expulsion, occupation, apartheid & cultural cuisine appropriation” and declaring that Israel was founded on “stolen Palestinian land.”

On April 25, 2014, Tufts SJP staged a “die-in” next to an FOI event celebrating Israeli Independence Day. Hannah Freedman, a Tufts SJP activist, said that Tufts SJP “crashed” the event “with a memorial for al-Nakba,” a term defining Israel’s founding as a “catastrophe.” Tufts SJP activists laid on red cloth meant to symbolize pools of blood.

Tufts SJP - Demonizing Birthright  

On April 21, 2016, Tufts SJP shared an online zine on Facebook targeting Jewish students considering going on Birthright Israel trips. Birthright Israel is a series of Jewish heritage trips to Israel for Jewish young adults.

Sophia Goodfriend, a Tufts SJP activist, wrote a publication titled “Whose Birthright?” undermining the Jewish millennia-long connection to the Land of Israel, including ancient Jewish religious sites like the Western Wall in Jerusalem (pages 9 and 15). Goodfriend claimed that Jews were “creating their own origin stories, or claims to nativism” (page 18). She also claimed that Israel was established on “expropriated land” and that Israel continues to “evict, incarcerate or kill millions of Palestinians” (page 2).

In 2012, Tufts SJP produced a pamphlet targeting Jewish students considering going on Birthright trips. That pamphlet, too, trivialized the Land of Israel’s significance to Judaism.

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.

Social Media and Weblinks

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/1559611183/
Twitter:https://twitter.com/erb125
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmabrown17