Kristian Davis Bailey

Basel Al Araj was killed in a shoot-out with Israeli troops during an arrest raid. He had been suspected of belonging to a terror cell planning to carry out attacks on Israeli targets. Two M-16 assault rifles and an improvised Carlo-style submachine gun were found inside his home. 

On May 28, 2017, Bailey featured [00:00:07] in a Black4Palestine Facebook video in support of Palestinian hunger strikers.

The hunger strike was initiated by Marwan Barghouti, who was serving five consecutive life sentences for his role in suicide bombings — and shooting attacks against Israelis that killed five people during the Second Intifada. 

On May 15, 2017, Bailey featured in another video on Facebook supporting Palestinian prisoners then on a hunger strike.

Bailey said [00:00:25] in the video: “We understand as people that are harmed by the U.S. Empire that it is not we who are criminals, but it is that the societies that oppress us that are the true criminals and that Resistance is our right and our duty and we salute you the prisoners on your strike for dignity and freedom. Free Palestine!"

On December 2, 2015, during Israel’s “Knife Intifada,” Bailey spoke for an event sponsored by Loyola University Chicago’s SJP chapter titled: “The Fight Against Racism: from Chicago to Palestine.” The event’s promotional poster featured an image of Bailey alongside terrorist Rasmea Odeh. 
 
In 2014, Bailey was one of the organizers of SJP’s National Conference. Among the merchandise sold at the conference was a shirt with the image of airplane hijacker Leila Khaled — a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) — with the text: “Resistance Is Not Terrorism.” 

Defending Hamas 

On July 16, 2014, Bailey published an article in the far-left media outlet TruthOut where he defended Hamas and compared Israel to the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization.

Bailey wrote: “Hamas, for all of its faults (many of the same faults of any government), was democratically elected by the people of Palestine. To target the infrastructure of ‘terrorist Hamas’ is the equivalent of targeting the schools, hospitals and churches of the United States because they are maintained by the United States government, which reigns [sic] terror on people all across the world.”

Bailey also suggested Hamas’s terrorist activity was legitimate, writing: “Armed struggle against occupation and colonization is a right enshrined under international law.”

Throughout the summer of 2014, during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE), Hamas used civilian infrastructure for military purposes, which included homes, schools, hospitals and mosques.
In an August 2014 NewsmaxTV interview, Bailey excused [00:11:00] Hamas’s launching of rockets targeting Israeli civilians, saying that the members of Palestinian society in Gaza, Israel and the West Bank are “all oppressed people.”

Supporting PFLP Members 

In July 2016, Bailey filmed an interview with PFLP member Mohammed Khatib, Samidoun’s European coordinator, which was produced by Black4Palestine. Khatib is a proponent [00:05:56] of “armed struggle” against Israel and supports [00:06:43] “defeating the U.S.”

The U.S. State Department has listed the PFLP as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) since 1997, given its history of attacks against civilians, airplane hijackings and suicide bombings.

On July 21, 2016, Bailey was listed as a speaker alongside PFLP member [p. 24] Khaled Barakat for a Samidoun event titled: “Black/Palestinian Solidarity and Struggles for Liberation.” The event was held in Brussels in support of terrorists Bilal Kayed and Georges Abdallah.

Khaled Barakat is reportedly [p. 24] a “Central Committee member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).” In October 2022, Barakat was banned by the Netherlands, along with his wife, anti-Israel agitator Charlotte Kates, from entering the European Union (EU). In February 2020, Barakat was deported from Germany and placed under a 4-year entry ban.

PFLP terrorist Bilal Kayed was incarcerated for 14 years  for terror attacks and attempted terror attacks committed during the second intifada, in 2002.  

  Georges Abdallah is a convicted Lebanese terrorist, reportedly a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and co-founder of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF). He murdered an American military attaché and an Israeli diplomat in 1982.

That same day, Bailey featured in a Facebook group photo from the event with Khatib and Barakat, along with 13 other activists. 

On July 8, 2016, Bailey featured in a photo on the Black4Palestine blog holding up [slide 5] a sign in support of PFLP terrorist Bilal Kayed. The sign also mentioned “All political prisoners from Pennsylvania to Palestine,” as well as the names of other terrorists such as PFLP Secretary General Ahmad Sa’adat and Georges Abdallah. 

Ahmad Sa’adat is the Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). He is currently sentenced for terror activities, including his role in the 2001 assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi and is in an Israeli prison. Under Sa’adat’s leadership, the PFLP perpetrated many suicide bombings against Israeli civilians during the second intifada. 

On June 4, 2016, Bailey promoted to Facebook a fundraiser for terrorist Rasmea Odeh.

On March 21, 2016, a Facebook post by Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network (Samidoun) said Bailey spoke at a March 19, 2016 event in Paris, France, in support of Georges Abdallah. 

Promoting “Armed Resistance”
On December 19, 2012, Bailey wrote an article endorsing an event titled: “Resistance & Revolution,” in support of Palestinian violence.

In the article, Bailey focused on speeches by Sherry Wolf, formerly the associate editor of the International Socialist Review, who has referred to Palestinian intifadas as “inspiring uprisings of resistance,” and Lamis Deek, former board member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) New York chapter, who has supported [00:01:15] Hamas terrorists.

Bailey quoted Deek’s support for violence against Israelis, saying: “... we cannot be part of criminalizing or condemning any people - not just Palestinian people - who choose to fight off colonialist, Zionist forms of occupation by all forms of resistance.”

Deek referred to attacks by Hamas and other Gazan terror groups as “the only thing that has kept the Palestinians alive in their struggle against Zionism.”

Bailey also noted Deek’s comment that the narrative “of American solidarity activists condemning Palestinian armed resistance - is ultimately harmful to Palestinian liberation.”

Bailey concluded: “Wolf and Deek's speeches still resonates with how I...think about my solidarity and resistance work. I hope their words may have similar effects on you.”

Arrest

In January 2015, Bailey was arrested and charged “with obstructing the roadway, a misdemeanor,” for participating in a protest against police violence that shut down the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge in San Francisco Bay. The protest caused traffic accidents and forced the re-routing of an emergency vehicle transporting an ill child. 

A law enforcement officer at the scene reportedly called the protest “dangerous and irresponsible.” 

Bailey defended the traffic shut-down, saying: “Halting people's movement was an action to force people to confront what they don't necessarily have to.” 

Whitewashing Violent Protests

On March 28, 2019, close to the first anniversary of the violent riots on Israel’s border with Gaza, known as the Great March of Return, Bailey wrote an article titled: “Where is the Palestinian MLK [Martin Luther King]?”

Bailey quoted the march organizers as claiming that the riots were “a fully peaceful march from the beginning to the end.” Baily continued: “Some seek to delegitimize the marches in Gaza by pointing to molotov cocktails, burning tires and kites…Much of the same rhetoric was and is used against poor Black people resisting their oppression…As Dr. King himself said ‘I think that we’ve got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard…’ 

Demonizing the U.S. and Israel

On February 4, 2021, Bailey re-published an article in Hood Communist, originally posted on May 28, 2020, titled: “10 Thoughts on Ending Anti-Black Violence,” in which he claimed: “[T]he United States itself is a 400-year act of racist violence.”

Bailey wrote in the same article: “The US is founded upon slavery, genocide, and colonialism—specifically ‘settler colonialism,’” and called for the “decolonization of the United States: the complete dismantlement and restructuring of this racist, capitalist settler colony.” 

On June 19, 2020, Bailey wrote an article in Electronic Intifada titled: “How Palestine advocates can support Black struggle,” in which he alleged that “Arab and Ethiopian Jews in Israel” are “subjugated by European Jews but allowed the privileges of citizenship in exchange for oppressing Palestinians instead of aligning with them.”

In the same article, Bailey also wrote: “As an illegitimate settler colony that was built on the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population and enslavement of Africans, the US requires the continuous subjugation of Black and Indigenous people to maintain its imperial domination abroad.”

On August 19, 2017, speaking at an event co-sponsored by Black4Palestine, Bailey said [01:08:24]: “The United States and Israel each operate against our livelihood and against our ability just to live as people and to live in freedom and dignity.” 

Bailey continued [01:08:43]: “The United States and Israel are each states that are rooted in white supremacy, that are rooted in displacement of an indigenous people, that are rooted in the oppression of minorities. These are the states that we have to target and these are what we have to fight in order to liberate ourselves.”

On June 24, 2017, Bailey featured in a photo on Black4Palestine’s Facebook page of Black4Palestine co-founder Rashida Tlaib with “a group of Black, Palestinian and Arab community members.” 

Part of the post read: “We recognize the struggles for Black and Palestinian liberation as connected to the fights of other colonized populations (e.g. Anishinaabeg people in ‘Detroit’ and other native populations in ‘the US.’”

Rashida Tlaib was elected to the U.S. Congress in November 2018. She has advocated for a one-state solution, endorsed the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and called for reduced foreign aid to Israel. In July 2019, Tlaib co-sponsored a pro-BDS bill in the U.S. Congress introduced by Rep. Ilhan Omar.

On April 1, 2017, Bailey was a featured speaker at JVP’s National Member Meeting. Bailey said [00:38:52] regarding the U.S. and Israel: “The foundational crimes of these two states are among the most inhumane of any state in the world.” 

In the same speech, Bailey also accused [00:39:10] Israel of being “a settler colony and apartheid state...established by ethnic cleansing, dispossession and military control of indigenous Palestinians.” 

Bailey continued [00:40:00]: “The Zionist military that emerged out of the terrorist militias that surveilled, bombed, tortured and summarily executed the Palestinians to create the State of Israel continues to do such actions today against the Palestinians.”

On March 21, 2016, Bailey wrote on Facebook: “The US-Israel relationship is based on shared values of colonial violence,” and accused both the U.S. and Israel of the “ethnic cleansing” of their “indigenous population[s]” and “subjecting the remainder to ongoing apartheid.” 

Bailey continued: “Neither country is, has been, or ever will be a ‘moral’ country…”

On January 11, 2016, Bailey posted a graphic to Facebook that suggested Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu committed genocide and likened him to Hitler.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) highlights as one possible contemporary example of anti-Semitism: “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” 

On February 25, 2014, Bailey published an opinion piece in The Stanford Daily to commemorate “Israeli Apartheid Week,” in which he accused Israel of apartheid.

Support for a Terror-Linked Institution

In 2016, Bailey was a tour coordinator of NSJP’s “Right to Education” (R2E) campaign with Birzeit University in the West Bank. Bailey promoted fundraisers for the R2E campaign on Facebook. 

The Right to Education Tour brings Birzeit University students to U.S. campuses, where they claim that Israel is obstructing the rights of Palestinians to higher education. This claim mischaracterizes the sweeps Israeli security forces have made to shut down terror cells operating on the Birzeit campus, including cells linked to Hamas. 

In 2003, 2015 and 2016, Birzeit University students elected Hamas’ student wing to power. As a result, Bilal Barghouti, who is serving 16 life terms in prison for his role in a series of suicide attacks against Israel, was made the "Honorary Chairman of the Bir Zeit University Student Council."  

Anti-Israel Activism

In 2015, Bailey co-authored a Black4Palestine statement titled: “Black Solidarity Statement with Palestine,” which laid out a framework for solidarity between Black and Palestinian activists. The statement referred to “Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid, an apparatus built and sustained on ethnic cleansing, land theft, and the denial of Palestinian humanity and sovereignty.” 

On August 20, 2015, Bailey was listed as one of two “press contacts” in a Black4Palestine press release. The press release called for “solidarity with the Palestinian struggle and commitment to the liberation of Palestine’s land and people” and for recognizing "the struggle for Palestinian liberation as a key matter of our time,”

The press release promoted a Black4Palestine statement, which Bailey co-authored, that called on the U.S. government to end diplomatic and economic aid to Israel. The statement also called, for Black and U.S. institutions to support the BDS movement. 

In November 2012, Bailey participated in a protest against Israel during Operation Pillar of Defense (OPD). The protestors formed a sit-down blockade and impeded student foot traffic and bicycle traffic on the Stanford campus.

Bailey commented: “We want to put more of a burden on Stanford students who otherwise might be uneducated or apathetic to the atrocities that are going on and to care and to respond to them.” 

Israel launched OPD to stop Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians from Gaza. Over the course of eight days in November 2012, Palestinian terrorist groups fired more than 1,500 rockets at Israel. The majority struck Israel, damaging homes, schools and other civilian areas. Human Rights Watch noted: “Palestinian armed groups made clear in their statements that harming civilians was their aim.”

Opposing the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act

On April 27, 2019, Bailey criticized the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA) of 2019 in a British round table forum titled: “Israel and the Antisemitism Playbook in Great Britain and the Grassroots,” published by the “Jewish Voice for Labour.” 

The AAA, which was introduced to the U.S. Senate in March 2019, directed the U.S. Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to use the U.S. State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism when evaluating hostile environment complaints. 

Bailey continued: “If enacted, the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act would be used to justify investigations against Palestine activists on college campuses and encourage the Department of Education and university officials to infringe on constitutionally protected speech.”

Bailey also said in the forum: “The federal government is also considering adopting the Israel lobby’s definition of antisemitism, which includes the ‘three Ds’—demonization, double-standards and delegitimization—that refer to nearly any criticism of Israeli state policies as a form of antisemitism.”



Bailey went on to say: “When the politically-motivated Zionist definition of most criticism of Israel as antisemitism is no longer accepted, Israel’s apologists and US politicians will no longer be able to defend a racist, settler-colonial and apartheid state from the full weight of condemnation and mobilization among those who care about freedom and justice.”

Bailey also claimed: “Antisemitism and anti-Jewish violence are part of the same history of European violence and racism that took place elsewhere in the world. From this perspective, anti-Jewish oppression is not a unique or exceptional form of oppression...”

Supporting BDS

On June 19, 2020, Bailey wrote an article in Electronic Intifada in which he suggested that principles of BDS should be applied to American institutions. He said: “With the same energy that the Palestine solidarity movement has pushed campaigns for boycotting, sanctioning and divesting from Israel’s occupation, we must push campaigns to boycott and divest from US police and prisons.”

On July 26, 2019, Bailey wrote an article condemning the passage of U.S. Resolution 246, which opposed the BDS movement. The resolution was passed by the House of Representatives on July 23, 2019. Bailey also claimed BDS was started by “a diverse coalition of Palestinian civil society organizations.”

In August 2016, BDS leader Ilan Pappé admitted that BDS was not initiated by a “call” from Palestinian civil society; rather, it was initiated by a small number of radical anti-Israel extremists.

On November 13, 2016, Bailey wrote an article in which he claimed: “BDS presents great potential for anti-racist organizing against both Israeli and US policies.” 

Bailey wrote in the same article: “The call for BDS empowers civil societies around the world to pursue campaigns that best fit their local political contexts. And so it is fully within the realm of this call to use BDS as a stepping stone in the fight for both Palestinian self-determination and local freedom.”

On November 14, 2017, Bailey addressed [01:46:50] the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor’s Central Student Government in support of a BDS divestment resolution. During his speech, Bailey screened [02:00:04] part of his video, titled: “When I see them, I see us,” which demonized Israel. 

Promoting BDS At Stanford

In 2014, Bailey was a member of Stanford Out of Occupied Palestine (SOOP), which campaigned for Stanford to “divest from companies that facilitate and profit from the injustices of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.”
 
On October 24, 2014, Bailey published an article in Mondoweiss announcing that he would be “one of hundreds of SJP organizers in Boston for our 2014 national conference.” He clarified that “the primary objective of all SJP groups is to respond to the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).”

On October 26, 2014, Bailey was listed as a SOOP member on a SOOP op-ed published in the Stanford Daily which called on Stanford to “divest from the occupation of Palestine.” 

On February 17, 2015, the Stanford Undergraduate Senate voted in favor of a SOOP BDS resolution that called for Stanford University trustees to divest from companies that “violate international humanitarian law by: maintaining illegal infrastructure of the Israeli occupation…facilitating Israel and Egypt’s collective punishment of Palestinian civilians…[and] facilitating state repression against Palestinians.”

Showing Support for Black Liberation Army Members

In December 2015, Bailey wrote in a piece for American Quarterly, the American Studies Association journal: “[T]he most powerful aspect of the [Black4Palestine solidarity] statement was the participation of more than 10 current political prisoners, including some of the oldest and most recent political prisoners such as Sundiata Acoli, the Black Liberation Army member and comrade of Assata Shakur.”

Sundiata Acoli was convicted of killing a New Jersey State trooper and wounding another in 1973. One of Acoli’s accomplices was fellow Black Liberation Army (BLA) member Assata Shakur.  

The BLA was a violent “Nationalist/Separatist” group with the stated goal to “take up arms for the liberation and self-determination of black people in the United States.” The group was active from 1970 to 1981 and its members were involved in bank robberies, the murder of police officers and other crimes.  

Bailey was listed as one of two “press contacts” on an August 20, 2015 Black4Palestine press release. The press release promoted a Black4Palestine statement, which Bailey co-authored, in solidarity with Palestinians.

The press release also highlighted that “Ten current political prisoners” were signatories, including Sundiata Acoli, a former member of the Black Liberation Army.

SOOP #Stanford Divest 

Stanford Out of Occupied Palestine (SOOP) was reportedly a coalition of 19 student groups campaigning for Stanford University (Stanford) to “divest from corporations profiting from human rights abuses in occupied Palestine.” 

The campaign was initiated [00:12:16] by Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and promoted on social media under the hashtag “#Stanford Divest.”

As of January 2020, SOOP’s Facebook page said its mission was “To end Stanford's investments in corporations which profit from the Israeli Occupation of the Palestinian Territories.”

SOOP - 2015 Divestment Campaign  

In February 2015, members of SOOP presented a petition and a divestment resolution to the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) Undergraduate Senate to further the agenda of the Boycott, Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement.

The resolution, titled: “A Resolution to Divest from Companies Violating Human Rights in Occupied Palestine,” was co-authored by Ramah Awad, SOOP leader and co-president of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Stanford (SJP Stanford) at the time and then-members of SOOP, Clayton Evans, Laura Perez and Emma Hartung.

The resolution called for Stanford University Trustees to divest from companies that it alleged: “violate international humanitarian law by: maintaining the illegal infrastructure of the Israeli occupation.”

The resolution also called for divestment from companies it claimed facilitates Israel’s “collective punishment of Palestinian civilians…[and] state repression against Palestinians.” 

On February 8, 2015, The Stanford Review, a student-run political magazine reported that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings showed no evidence that Stanford has been invested in any of the companies that SOOP targeted for divestment over the last ten years, with the exception of Raytheon, for one filing period.

The resolution initially failed [00:00:42] to garner the required 66% majority senate approval, in a vote held on February 10, 2015. 

Senate Chair Ana Ordonez then brought forward a motion calling for a re-vote. Ordonez reportedly initially abstained from voting and was later quoted in the student newspaper, the Stanford Daily, as saying: “Now that the noise has subsided, I know that I voted incorrectly.” 

Ordonez voted in favor of the resolution in the re-vote, which passed on February 17, 2015. However, the Stanford Board of Trustees later announced on April 14, 2015, that Stanford would take no action on SJP’s request.

SOOP - Promoting BDS  

On February 10, 2015, SOOP promoted a BDS Youtube video on Facebook, titled: “Stanford Student Groups Support #StanfordDivest.”

The video featured members of student groups, including [00:03:38] SJP Stanford, expressing why they support “#StanfordDivest.” Ramah Awad, SOOP leader and co-president of SJP Stanford at the time, said [00:03:45]: “We recognize divestment as one step on that path to liberation.” 

On January 23, 2015, SOOP posted a photo album on Facebook titled: “Human of ‘Out of Occupied Palestine,’” which featured photos of Stanford students holding posters with anti-Israel messages and showing support for #StanfordDivest.

One photo showed a student holding a sign which read: “I support divestment because collective punishment is a war crime.” Another sign read: “There are better & more commendable ways to fiscally profit that doesn’t contribute to the displacement & exploitation of human lives.”

On January 21, 2015, SOOP reportedly organized a panel discussion to promote its BDS petition, which called for Stanford’s divestment from corporations that allegedly “facilitate human rights violations in Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories.”

On January 9, 2015, SOOP published a Youtube video titled: “FilasteenFridays: Collective Punishment in the Palestinian Territories.” The video urged Stanford students to support their BDS campaign as “the only way to show true moral neutrality.”

On January 8, 2015, SOOP hosted an informational event titled: “Case for Divestment from the Occupation of Palestine.”

#UMDivest 2017 - Bringing Anti-Semite Sabry Wazwaz to UM 

At the November 7, 2017 CSG meeting, Sabry Wazwaz — a BDS activist from Minnesota who is unaffiliated with UM — spoke [2:02:43] in support of #UMDivest.  

Wazwaz has a history of tweeting anti-Jewish imagery, various anti-Israel conspiracy theories and imagery that equates Israel with Nazi Germany. Less than three months before the meeting, he tweeted: “#ZionismIsNazism.” At the meeting, Wazwaz compared [2:05:40] Palestinians in Israel to Jews killed by the Nazi regime.

Wazwaz directly addressed [2:05:16] pro-Israel students and said that, as a Muslim, he condemned “oppressive” Arab governments.

He then said [2:05:30]: “Just like I say ‘condemn them,’ what’s wrong with saying we’re against the racist policies of the state of Israel? … Just like what happened to the Jewish people in the Holocaust was a tragedy, why should the Palestinians also suffer a tragedy?”

These comments drew cheering and applause from #UMDivest supporters.

#UMDivest 2017 - Demonizing Jewish Students  

At the November 7, 2017 CSG meeting, former SAFE leader Devin Jones addressed attendees, saying [1:55:36]: “If you believe your Jewishness is tied to the oppression of another people, it is not the problem of being Palestinian that needs to be called into question.”

On November 14, 2017, SAFE posted a pro-BDS article on Facebook written by the UM Ann Arbor chapter of the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) organization. The post included an excerpt from the article addressed to pro-Israel Jewish students: “And as long as Israel and its supporters attempt to use our identities to deny Palestinian rights, we will continue to say: You do not speak for us."

On November 21, 2017, the CSG president Anushka Sarkar signed the resolution into effect. She wrote that she did it with “discretion and caution” and wrote: “We need to discuss why some people found it appropriate to hold up signs that say ‘Stop Silencing Me’ when a student shared a personal story of how their grandparents survived the Holocaust.”

#UMDivest 2017 - Promoting Terrorists  

SAFE’s 2017 BDS resolution accused [p.4] Israel of “the unlawful execution of Palestinians” and cited to a report portraying terrorists as victims. Among them were terrorists Fadi Aloon and Mustafa Al-Khatib [p.5-6], who both died during stabbing attacks.

The report claimed [p.1] that “Israeli forces” carried out over 200 “unlawful killings” of Palestinians in Israel since 2015, but admitted that “most of these killings – more than 150 of them – came during alleged, attempted, or actual attacks by Palestinian individuals against Israeli soldiers, police and civilians.”

On November 1, 2017, SAFE posted a photo on Facebook of a mock Israeli security barrier alongside an image of terrorist Leila Khaled. SAFE wrote: “We’re back. #UMDivest.”

#UMDivest 2017 - Denying That #UMDivest is BDS  

Throughout its divestment campaign, #UMDivest followed a strategy outlined by leading BDS activists while denying that the campaign was part of the broader BDS movement.

In April 2017, Omar Barghouti — the BDS movement founder — said [00:58:53]: “If you join a campaign for justice and freedom, it doesn’t have to carry the BDS logo. It doesn’t have to say ‘boycott’ and it doesn’t have to say ‘BDS.’ There are many creative ways how to do things without labeling it as BDS.”

On November 14, 2017, during the CSG vote on #UMDivest, Yara Gayar, an author of SAFE’s divestment resolution, told [00:51:35] the CSG: “This is not part of the BDS movement.”

Reema Kaakarli, a SAFE activist, spent [00:53:32] nearly two minutes trying to distinguish UMDivest’s resolution from BDS and specified [00:54:28]: “We really want to distinguish ourselves from the leaders of the broader BDS movement.”

On November 7, 2017, Arwa Gayar, another SAFE activist, told [1:35:03] the CSG: “We are not BDS, we are just divestment.”

However, SAFE activists Arwa Gayar and Reem Al-Khatib, who spoke [1:40:42] at both [00:38:19] CSG hearings, posed for a photo supporting BDS at the 2017 National SJP Conference (NSJP 2017) in Texas from October 27-29.

The NSJP 2017 schedule explicitly identified campus divestment efforts with BDS, and held workshops to: “... envision pathways to achieving sanctions in the future and work towards getting our institutions to follow through on commitments to divest.”

On November 22, 2017, SAFE posted a Facebook photo of BDS activist Roger Waters celebrating the #UMDivest victory.

Upon signing the resolution, CSG president Sarkar condemned SAFE’s tactic of obfuscating the resolution’s connection to BDS. She also condemned SAFE for preventing a Jewish professor from speaking against the resolution, because the group had argued that the debate should remain a “student-to-student” issue.

However, SAFE activist and CSG representative Hafsa Tout invited BDS activist Kristian Davis Bailey and former SAFE leader Farah Erzouki to speak for #UMDivest, neither of whom were students.

#UMDivest 2017 - SAFE - Pushing BDS at UM Ann Arbor

In October 2017, Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) at UM Ann Arbor launched a BDS campaign, #UMDivest, to pass a BDS resolution on campus. Similar SAFE resolutions in 2014, 2015 and 2016 all failed. As of May 2018, SAFE’s university web page said it was a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter.

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.

JVP

JVP was founded in Berkeley, California in 1996, as an activist group with an emphasis on the “Jewish tradition” of peace, social justice and human rights. The organization is currently led by Rebecca Vilkomerson and its board members include Israel critics Naomi Klein, Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky and Tony Kushner.

JVP, which generally employs civil disobedience tactics to disrupt pro-Israel speakers and events, consists of American Jews and non-Jewish “allies” highly critical of Israeli policies. A staunch supporter of the BDS movement, JVP claims to aim its campaigns at companies that either support the Israeli military (Hewlett-Packard) or are active in the West Bank (SodaStream).

Although several Jewish groups critical of Israeli policies, like J Street and Partners for a Progressive Israel, make efforts to operate within the mainstream American Jewish community, JVP functions outside. The group is often criticized for serving as a tokenized Jewish voice for the pro-Palestinian camp and is widely regarded as the BDS movement’s “Jewish wing.” 

JVP denies the notion of “Jewish peoplehood” and has even gone so far as to refer to its own Ashkenazi (Jews who spent the Diaspora in European countries) leadership as “white supremacy inside of JVP.”

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has accused JVP of being “the largest and most influential Jewish anti-Zionist group in the United States,” and said the group “exploits Jewish culture and rituals to reassure its own supporters that opposition to Israel not only does not contradict, but is actually consistent with, Jewish value.”

The ADL also claimed that “JVP consistently co-sponsors rallies to oppose Israeli military policy that are marked by signs and slogans  comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, demonizing Jews and voicing support for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.”

According to the ADL website, JVP “uses its Jewish identity to shield the anti-Israel movement from allegations of anti-Semitism and provide it with a greater degree of legitimacy and credibility.”

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