Klein Lieu
Overview
Klein Lieu co-sponsored an anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement resolution at the University of California Berkeley (UC Berkeley) in 2013.He was acting in his capacity as a student senator of the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC).
As of April 2020, Lieu’s LinkedIn page said that he was a senior software engineer at Affirm, Inc., since August 2019. He is also the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of CharitySprout and the co-founder of Intechional Web & Mobile Development.
Lieu graduated from UC Berkeley in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in Cognitive Science.
BDS Campus Activism
The resolution passed on April 18, 2013, by an 11-9 vote.
On May 26, 2013, the ASUC Judicial Council ruled that SB-160’s clauses requiring the ASUC to divest from companies affiliated with the Israeli military were unconstitutional, since the ASUC had no constitutional power to craft specific investment policies.
Shortly thereafter, George Kadifa, who co-sponsored of the divestment bill, reportedly thanked Lieu and the other ASUC senators who supported the BDS resolution, and admitted none of the companies targeted for divestment were actually held by the ASUC.
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/1048410014
- Status:
- Professional
- University:
- Organizations:
- BDS
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- Last Modified:
- 06/23/2025
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