Kevin Kamara
Overview
In 2018, Kamara was affiliated with theMuslim Alliance for Social Change (MASC) at UMD. UMD MASC was a supporter of the spring 2019 divestment bill at UMD and part of the Divest UMD campaign, which called on UMD to divest from companies that do business with Israel.
Promoting BDS
On April 25, 2019, Kamara was featured [03:20:40] in a video posted on Facebook by the UMD Student Government Association (SGA), urging the SGA to pass a BDS bill launched by Divest UMD.In the video, Kamara said [03:20:40]: “Representatives, I come to you today in support of a resolution.”
Kamara continued [03:21:01]: “After hearing all the supporters of this resolution, I hope you realize the intersectionality of this campaign. You claim to support immigrants... support workers, support workers rights, support peace, so there is no reason you all should not support this resolution...”
On April 25, 2019, Divest UMD announced on Facebook that following a UMD student government vote, the BDS bill failed to pass with “a vote of 9 for, 25 against, and 2 abstentions.”
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.
