Ezra Mead
Overview
Ezra Mead disrupted a campus event titled: “Indigenous Jews of the Middle East: Forgotten Refugees” at Vassar College (Vassar) in November 2019.Mead then wrote an opinion piece as a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Vassar defending the disruption, where he demonized Israel, expressed support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Movement (BDS) and defended anti-Israel agitators.
Mead was a recipient of the 2019 Ann Cornelisen Summer Fellowship, which stated that he studied at the Qasid Arabic Institute in Amman, Jordan.
As of March 2020, Mead’s LinkedIn page said he was a “German Language Drill Instructor” at Vassar.
As of the same date, Mead’s LinkedIn page said he was pursuing a bachelor’s degree at Vassar in Political Science and German Studies, slated to graduate in 2021.
Disrupting a Campus Event
On November 14, 2019, Mead, along with approximately 25 other SJP Vassar agitators, disrupted a speech given by pro-Israel activist Hen Mazzig. The speech was hosted by Vassar Organizing Israel Conversations Effectively (VOICE) and titled: “The Indigenous Jews of the Middle East: Forgotten Refugees.”Mead recounted the disruption in an opinion piece he wrote for the Forward: “on behalf of the members of Students for Justice in Palestine at Vassar.”
In his piece, Mead stated: “we began chanting outside the doors of the talk. We yelled, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” is a chant calling to dismantle 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.
Mead argued in his Forward piece: “The phrase is a popular slogan among a wide range of Palestinian resistance and nationalist groups...It is a demand for total decolonization, for a recognition of the right of return and for the dismantling of an unequal regime.”
The “right of return” is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel. International law mandates no absolute right of return and UN Resolution 194, which defined principles for “refugees wishing to return to their homes,” was unanimously rejected by Arab nations following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
Mead noted the disrupters also chanted: “How do you spell justice? BDS!,” “From Kashmir to Palestine, occupation is a crime,” and “Stop the killing, stop the hate, Israel is an apartheid state.”
Mazzig reported that the chanting [00:00:06] went on for 15 minutes outside of the auditorium and was so loud he couldn’t speak until the protesters left.
SJP Vassar activists also distributed flyers to those outside the venue, with the title: “Do Not Normalize Zionism. Do Not Attend This Talk.”
In his op-ed, Mead wrote that Mazzig shouldn't be listened to, because “this talk would be little more than pro-Israel propaganda” and that on behalf of SJP, “we do not believe that Zionism should have a platform.”
Mead also claimed the agitators “did not prevent anyone from attending the talk or stop Mazzig from speaking” and suggested they made a “concerted to effort to allow him to speak.”
Elizabeth Bradley, then-President of Vassar released a statement after the disruption and acknowledged that “People who were in the lecture expressed that the chanting was intimidating and hard to listen to” and that the chanting “crossed the line into anti-Semitism.”
Mead wrote in his piece in the Forward: “While we understand that some who attended the event felt that the protest was, as Bradley put it, ‘intimidating and hard to listen to,’ we are steadfast in our belief that this discomfort was necessary.”
Demonizing Israel
In his opinion piece defending the November 2019 SJP Vassar disruption, Mead suggested the Israeli Defense Forceshad a “practice of torturing, imprisoning, harassing, demolishing the homes of, cutting resources off from, and murdering the Palestinian people.”Mead also condemned Mazzig for describing the Israeli military “as a progressive gay haven,” claiming: “This tactic folds into a larger strategy used on the pro-Israel right that’s been coined “Pinkwashing.”
“Pinkwashing” is a claim that Israel advocates manipulate the LGBTQ community in order to garner support for Israel.
Mead defended the tactics of SJP, saying: “Fighting against Israel should only intimidate those who have a stake in devaluing Palestinian lives, and like those who fought against apartheid in South Africa.”
Mead then disputed those who acknowledge anti-Zionism is linked to anti-Semitism and called it “an anti-Semitic tactic.” He also stated his appreciation for the “brave work of many Jewish people who actively speak out against Israeli apartheid, including many members of SJP at Vassar.”
Mead also expressed support for BDS in his Forward opinion piece, writing that people should “stand with the BDS movement and the Palestinian fight for freedom.”
Defending Anti-Israel Agitators
In his opinion piece on the November 2019 SJP Vassar disruption, Mead condemned Mazzig for calling out anti-Israel agitatorIlhan Omar’s anti-Semitic Twitter remarks. Mead wrote: “He [Mahas attacked Linda Sarsour and Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, as well as other supporters of BDS.”At Farrakhan’s 2015 #JusticeOrElse March, Sarsour asserted [00:00:36]: “The same people who justify the massacres of Palestinian people and call it ‘collateral damage’ are the same people who justify the murder of young black men and women.”
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
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