Feride Eralp

Overview

While a student at Columbia, Feride Eralp was a member of Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (CSJP). She was also a member of the Columbia Palestinian Dabke Brigade, a dance group that "was formed as a means of artistic resistance to the cultural and physical occupation of Palestine, and calls for the boycott of Israel."

Eralp supported the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement’s call for the economic, academic, and cultural boycott of Israel.

Eralp is a graduate of Columbia University (Columbia), where she majored in Social Anthropology.

CSJP Demonizing Israel

In December 2015, CSJP promoted a video originally produced by Al-Jazeera that referred to Israel’s security fence as “The Apartheid Wall.” The video also suggested falsely insinuated that a non-binding, advisory opinion on the security fence issued by the International Court of Justice is binding international law. 

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 November 17, 2015, CSJP protested opposite an event hosted by Aryeh: Columbia Students Association for Israel, titled: “Israel Week.” CSJP members held signs accusing Israel of apartheid and ethnic cleansing. Another sign said: “Celebrating Israel is celebrating apartheid.”

In March 2015, CSJP’s yearly Israel Apartheid week featured the building of a mock ‘Apartheid’ wall on campus. 

Rebranding BDS

On February 1, 2016, SJP and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) launched a campaign at Columbia to rebrand its divestment effort as a fight against "apartheid." Entitled ”Columbia University Apartheid Divest,” (CUAD) the campaign targeted companies including Caterpillar, Hyundai Heavy Industries, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Hapoalim, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin.

CUAD’s press release stated that the campaign was "embedded in the larger BDS movement" — which calls for ending Israel’s so-called “occupation and colonization of all Arab lands.” The campaign was launched with a petition and inaugural event titled BDS 101, scheduled for February 4, 2016.

CSJP Excusing Anti-Semitism as Anti-Zionism

Columbia University which includes Barnard College (Barnard), was reported in 2015 to be the most anti-Semitic campus in the United States. Columbia employs a number of notoriously anti-Israel professors including Joseph Massad, Rashid Khalidi and Nadia Abu El-Haj.

In November 2014, CSJP hosted professor Steven Salaita. 

In 2014, The University of Illinois withdrew an offer of employment to Salaita after becoming aware of his anti-Semitic tweets. One tweet, posted shortly after Hamas kidnapped three teenage Israeli high school students, read: "You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f**king West Bank settlers would go missing.” In 2017, Salaita posted to Facebook: “People ask if I would go back in time and change anything. I would not…I will die unapologetic.” In February 2019, Salaita stated that he had become a school bus driver in the Washington, D.C., area.

CSJP’s Banner Controversy at Barnard

In March 2014, CSJP members hung a banner on Barnard Hall, the entryway of the college, to kick off Israeli Apartheid Week. The banner featured a map of Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, with no internal borders, colored uniformly green— visually eradicating the Jewish State.

The next morning, the banner was removed after Barnard received numerous complaints from students and alumni who felt uncomfortable and unsafe. Some students felt the banner was an overt display of anti-Semitism. Others opined that the banner space was inappropriate for any political message, by any student group — since the implication that Barnard supported any such message served only "to ostracize segments of the community."

On March 26, 2014, in objection to the banner’s removal, Eralp co-authored an editorial with Shezza Abboushi Dallal, on behalf of SJP, entitled "SJP banner removal implicitly backs pro-Israel view."

The editorial blasted the banner’s removal "without warning or consulting SJP" — and dismissed the feelings of Barnard students who felt threatened by the banner as trivializing “the experience of actual violence that we may be complicit in, from the suffering of the people of Palestine to global indigenous dispossession and the oppression of communities of color.”

CSJP Spreading Hate and Standing with Terrorists

In November 2010, CSJP staged a mock Israeli checkpoint on Columbia’s Low Plaza, in which members portraying "Israeli soldiers" harassed and yelled at passers-by. CSJP members also blindfolded and placed tape over the mouths of other students, who were meant to portray security detainees.

On November 20, 2010 the video CSJP uploaded of the event highlighted that "91% of students at An-Najah University miss classes because of delays at checkpoints." The video omitted that.

Advancing BDS

In November 2014, Eralp, as a member of the Columbia Palestinian Dabke Brigade, protested the Batsheva Dance Company’s performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

In April 2014, Eralp outlined her reasoning for promoting the boycott of Israeli academic institutions in the Columbia Political Review magazine. Eralp justified the boycott "as a form of exposing and struggling against the complicity of institutions in a system of oppression, rather than a curtailment of individual freedoms."

In December 2013, Eralp signed a letter extending the "deepest congratulations" for the American Studies Association’s resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions. The letter stated that “Israeli academia has never been a catalyst for change; it is at the core of Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies.”

In July 2013, Eralp attended the "Divest from Israeli Apartheid! National Day of Action" in which she joined an “Anti-Apartheid Mime Troupe to demand the TIAA-CREF pension fund, divest from companies invested in Israel. The event was was organized by Adalah-NY, a BDS advocacy group that defines itself as “The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel.” Adalah “affirm(s) that "Brand Israel" is not welcome in New York and we commit to upholding the cultural boycott however we can.”

In June 2011, Eralp signed a petition urging the punk band "Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine" to cancel a performance in Tel Aviv, Israel. The show was ultimately cancelled.

In November 2002, Columbia and Barnard launched a Divestment Campaign to encourage the United States government to suspend its military aid to Israel, and divest from all companies that manufacture military hardware sold to Israel. As of January 1st 2016, fewer than 1000 people have signed Columbia's divestment petition as compared to more than 33,000 who have signed Columbia's anti-divestment petition.

Columbia’s President, Lee Bollinger, blasted the divestment petition: "I want to state clearly that I will not lend any support to this proposal. The petition alleges human rights abuses and compares Israel to South Africa at the time of apartheid, an analogy I believe is both grotesque and offensive," he said.

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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