Josh Willcox
Overview
Josh Willcox was an official contact with Harvard’s Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) when it co-organized a statement blaming Israel for Hamas terrorist war crimes against Israeli civilians, including mass murder, torture, rape, beheadings and kidnappings, carried out on October 7, 2023.The Hamas attacks left 1,400 Israelis dead, hundreds kidnapped and thousands wounded. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.”
Willcox also disrupted a campus event and promoted hatred of Israel as a Harvard PSC organizer in 2022.
PSC is an alternative name for the anti-Israel campus group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
Willcox has also engaged in anti-Israel activism as a member of Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP), a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement campaign launched by Harvard PSC in February 2020.
As of October 2023, Willcox wrote on his GitHub profile that he was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in “Near Eastern Languages and Civilisations (Modern Middle Eastern Studies) and History” at Harvard, slated to graduate 2024.
Also as of October 2023, Willcox, who also goes by Josh D. Willcox -and Joshua D. Willcox, was listed as a contributing opinion writer for the student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson (The Crimson).
As of the same date, Willcox used the handle “@jwillcoxx” on Instagram and the handle “josh.willcox.127” on Facebook.
Organizer of a Group Blaming Israel for Hamas War Crimes
In October 2023, Willcox was reportedly listed as a “contact” for Harvard PSC.On October 14, 2023, Willcox issued a statement on Instagram attempting to distance himself from the Harvard PSC statement that blamed Israel for Hamas’s war crimes.
Disrupting a Campus Event
On August 30, 2022, Willcox and fellow Harvard PSC members disrupted Harvard’s annual Convocation ceremony with posters and chanting following a speech by Harvard College dean Rakesh Khurana.At the Convocation, Willcox and fellow Harvard PSC member Asmer Safi displayed a poster that read: “Veritas? Here’s The Real Truth: Harvard Supports Israeli Apartheid.” Protesters also reportedly chanted: “free Palestine.”
On August 31, 2022, Willcox gave a statement to the Crimson in which he defended the group’s disruption, arguing that there was “no right time and place” to hold a protest. He said: “We believe that we have the responsibility to leverage our education to hold Harvard accountable and condemn the oppression that it is actively involved in…”
Also on August 31, 2022, Willcox was featured in a Harvard PSC Instagram photo from the disruption that was captioned: “Here’s the hard truth: Harvard supports Israeli Apartheid. How can anyone speak of justice, equity, and inclusion whilst making money off of ethnic cleansing…?”
Hatred of Israel
On September 7, 2022, Willcox published an op-ed in The Crimson titled: “If You Really Want to Make a Change, Start Organizing.”In the op-ed, Willcox criticized the university administration for not divesting from companies doing business with Israel. He wrote: “Student activists demand divestment from the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine and the imposition of an apartheid regime there.”
Willcox also urged readers to start organizing with Harvard PSC to “disrupt” and “make people uncomfortable.”
Anti-Israel Activism (PSC, HOOP, BDS)
From February 2022 to March 2022, Willcox appeared in multiple Harvard PSC Instagram photos from their weekly “#KeffiyehThursday” campaign. Willcox also featured in a September 7, 2022, Harvard PSC Instagram video promoting the campaign.In February 2022, Harvard PSC launched their “#KeffiyehThursday” campaign, a weekly initiative urging students to wear a Palestinian keffiyeh across campus “in solidarity with and to bring visibility to the Palestinian cause...”
The keffiyeh is a Palestinian headdress traditionally worn by men, which has become a symbol of Palestinian nationalism.
On February 8, 2022, Willcox featured in a Harvard PSC Facebook photo with protesters at a rally in Harvard Yard to launch the group’s “Deshelve Sabra” BDS campaign, which called on the university to stop serving Sabra hummus in its dining halls.
Sabra Hummus is partially owned by an Israeli company, the Strauss Group.
Protesters at the rally reportedly chanted: “Don’t buy products laced with hate, Sabra funds a racist state.”
Willcox was quoted in a February 9, 2022 article in The Crimson as saying: “We don’t want this company to be in our dining halls,” and “This is a general move to not support and not allow any money to go towards companies that involve themselves in an apartheid state.”
Willcox was also quoted as saying: “We’re borrowing from the same kind of movement that people tried to do when they wanted to end South African Apartheid.”
In March 2022, Willcox signed [p. 4] an action letter demanding that Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government suspend a weekly study group on Israeli national security led by retired Israeli Major General Amos Yadlin.
On March 20, 2022, HOOP launched an initiative on Instagram titled: “DEMAND ACTION - Stop supporting Israeli Apartheid.” The post included a flyer that said: "Would you take a class with a war criminal?...End Amos Yadlin's study group…” HOOP also accused Harvard of “platforming a participant in Israel’s illegal wars and an ideologue of its apartheid rule.”
In the Instagram post, HOOP urged viewers to sign a letter that alleged: “Harvard’s hosting of Yadlin as a senior fellow…represents an act of violence against Palestinian students who face six decades of Israeli ethnic cleansing, settler colonialism, and apartheid.”
HOOP’s boycott initiative included weekly protests outside the classroom where Yadlin held his study group sessions.
On September 21, 2022, Willcox featured in a Harvard PSC Instagram video promoting BDS. In the video, Willcox described the three strategies of the BDS movement and repeatedly accused Israel of “apartheid.”
On October 24, 2022, Willcox was quoted in an article in The Crimson supporting a PSC campaign calling for a boycott of Harvard College Israel Trek, a Harvard-subsidized trip to Israel. PSC materials reportedly claimed the trip “whitewashes the crimes of a racist, settler colonial state that dehumanizes and kills Palestinians each day.”
In the article, Willcox was quoted as saying that the campaign’s goal was to “‘increase the awareness on this campus that Palestinians live under an apartheid regime.’”
On December 7, 2022, Willcox helped lead a Harvard PSC-HOOP rally titled: “March for Palestinian Lives. Divest from Israeli Apartheid.” Willcox was quoted in The Crimson as saying at the rally: “We demand that Harvard start advocating for a free Palestine, liberated from the violent colonial apartheid regime.”
On November 14, 2022, Willcox featured in a Harvard PSC Instagram video with fellow PSC member Asmer Safi speaking “about the importance of using the correct terminology when talking about the reality of Israeli apartheid in Palestine.”
In the Instagram video, Willcox said: “We have to start using the right terminology” and suggested to “centralize” what he alleged was “the reality…that Palestinians are an oppressed group under a very oppressive and one of the most well-funded militaries in the world and an apartheid regime.”
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 Student 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
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/josh.willcox.127Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/jwillcoxx/
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-w-0a7a98213/
Github:https://github.com/joshwillcox
