Josephine Lawson

Overview

Josephine Lawson is a member of the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC), UT Austin. The PSC is an alternative name for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Lawson is also heavily involved in the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement on the UT Austin campus.

Lawson is a postgraduate student at the University of Austin (UT Austin), majoring in Woman and Gender Studies.

On November 13, 2015, Lawson was one of twelve members of the UT Austin Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) involved in hijacking an event organized by Professor Ami Pedahzur of the Institute for Israeli Studies at UT Austin.

PSC UT Austin-Disrupting Vardi's talk

The event hosted a guest speaker from Stanford University, Dr. Gil-Li Vardi, to deliver a lecture on the birth of the Israeli Defense Forces’ military culture.

PSC members disrupted the talk as soon as Vardi was introduced. Forming a human wall at the back of the room, they unfurled a large Palestinian Flag, while their leader, Mohammed Nabulsi read a prepared speech on "the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population of Palestine." Professor Pedahzur asked the group to listen and then respond, but they refused all dialogue. Instead, they bellowed “Long Live the Intifada!!” and “we don’t want two states”, conveying their support for the daily terror stabbings then occurring throughout Israel and their desire to annihilate the Jewish state. Professor Pedhazur faced down the ranting disruptors. Then, three individuals grabbed Pedahzur’s arm and pushed him backwards.

Eventually, the campus police arrived came and detained the PSC members. Pedhazur pleaded with Nabulsi and his followers to engage in academic conversation, but they refused, calling all Israelis who ever served in the IDF "war criminals." As the protesters left, one screamed out names of Jews who he claimed had co-operated with the Nazis.

Following the incident, PSC released a heavily edited video of the protest, falsely accusing Prof. Pedahzur of assault. PSC lodged a "civil rights" complaint with the University and launched a campaign on their Facebook page, calling for other students to file complaints against Prof. Pedahzur. PSC Finance Committee Chair, Ahmed Khawaja, subsequently initiated a GoFundMe fundraising campaign in order to sue Professor Pedahzur.

In response, students launched a petition in Professor Pedahzur’s defense. The petition, entitled Denounce Hate and Bigotry at UT-Austin, garnered thousands of signatures. Students from eighteen chapters of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law (LDB) issued a Statement of Support of Dr. Vardi and Professor Pedahzur, noting it is "incredibly disappointing and frightening that the protesters sought to intimidate and silence this speaker rather than engage or challenge [Dr. Vardi’s] ideas."

On November 23, 2015, the Dean of the UT Austin College of Liberal Arts, Randy L. Diehl, issued a strong statement against the disruption —and supporting Professor Pedahzur. Dean Diehl observed that "Students and faculty of every background, including Palestinians and Israelis alike, have enthusiastically received Prof. Pedahzur’s courses". The dean condemned PSC’s intrusion, stating: “Disruption of a visiting scholar’s invited academic lecture violates principles of academic freedom and free speech that are crucial to our mission as a great university.”

Professor Pedahzur no longer feels the university is a safe space and has requested police protection. The professor revealed that he has received death threats and vacated the offices at the Israeli Studies Institute due to concern for his personal safety and that of his students.

PSC

The PSC is an alternative name for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

In November 2015, PSC posted a call to protest a talk by U.S. Navy veteran Admiral William McRaven, a UT Austin graduate,who led the raid to kill Osama bin Laden. PSC accused UT Austin of hosting "a swarm of US intelligence and military officials on campus" who would “recruit students to a life of crime.”

Also, in November 2015, while Palestinian radicals were carrying out daily stabbings throughout Israel, PSC posted a Facebook event entitled "Solidarity with the Palestinian Uprising: Call to Action!" The post expressed the PSC’s support for the violence, stating “ Long “Live the Resistance! Long Live the Intifada!” The Intifadas involve a bloody series of “uprisings” which have variously featured the murder of Israeli civilians via shooting, stabbing, suicide bombing, rock-throwing, rocket fire and car ramming.

In March 2015, PSC organized a protest opposite an Israel Block Party held by Texas Hillel and Texans for Israel celebrating the cultural achievements of the Jewish State. PSC members constructed an "Apartheid Wall" and chanted “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” —a genocidal call for Israel’s elimination.

In October 2014, 15 PSC members disrupted a talk on the creation of ISIS given by Major Gen. Meir Dagan, a former head of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service. Soon after the talk began, a row of 15 PSC members stood up and began yelling. The group then left, but not before one member declared that anyone who stayed to listen to what Dagan had to say was complicit in the deaths of Palestinians.

Participation in BDS

Lawson was a co-author of a divestment resolution at UT Austin in April of 2015. The resolution called on the University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO) to divest itself of holdings in companies that "facilitate in the oppression of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel," including Alstom, Cemex, Hewlett-Packard, Procter & Gamble and United Technologies. The divestment measure failed in a 11-23-1 vote.

Following the vote, the UTIMCO CEO Bruce Zimmerman commented that the resolution would have been ignored, even if passed. "The current policy is not to take into account political and social considerations. That’s a long standing policy, and it’s a policy supported by staff," Zimmerman 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.