Marina Hansen

Overview

Marina Hansen is a member of Jewish Voice Peace at Columbia University (Columbia) and Barnard College (JVP Columbia).

On November 18, 2015, Hansen co-authored an article with fellow Columbia student Max Fineman that attacked the pro-Israel group Aryeh for embracing IsraAid, an Israeli organization that provides global humanitarian aid.

In the article, Hansen and Fineman politicized IsraAids work and claimed that "there can be no such thing as an “apolitical" celebration of Israel” until the “Palestinian refugee crisis” — which they blamed solely on Israel— is solved. Hansen and Fineman also falsely accused Israel of denying humanitarian aid to Palestinians and charged Aryeh with “hypocrisy” for celebrating Israel’s assistance to Syrian refugees in Jordan and Europe.

The same day, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Columbia (CSJP) members held a demonstration on campus, displaying posters that declared: "Celebrating Israel is celebrating Apartheid." The placards also misrepresented that that Israel was created in 1948 “through the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians … and that Israel maintains itself today “through ethnic cleansing ...expulsion and Jewish only settlements.”

Hansen is a sophomore at Columbia.

JVP Columbia

JVP Columbia was founded in March, 2015 by Barnard College senior Eva Kalikoff, primarily to shatter "the illusion of a Jewish consensus on the policies and actions of the State of Israel." Kalikoff co-chairs the group, with Columbia senior Chris Godshall.

Supporting Terrorists

On January 27, 2016 JVP Columbia joined in Palestine Legal’s support for Rasmea Odeh. 

Odeh was a key military operative [00:02:08]with the terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In 1969, Odeh masterminded a PFLP bombing that killed two college students in a Jerusalem supermarket. Odeh also attempted to bomb the British consulate. 

Odeh confessed, in a highly detailed account, the day following her arrest. In a 2004 documentary, one of Odeh’s co-conspirators directly implicated [00:10:53] Odeh as the mastermind. 

In 1970, an Israeli court tried and convicted Odeh for her involvement in both bombings and sentenced her to life imprisonment. However, Odeh was released 10 years later, in a prisoner swap and emigrated to the United States.

On November 10, 2014, a Michigan federal jury convicted Odeh for immigration fraud because she failed to disclose her prior conviction and life sentence on her immigration application. On March 12, 2015, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison. 

In 2017, after an appeal and a lengthy court battle, Odeh admitted to immigration fraud, was stripped of her U.S. citizenship, deported to Jordan and banned from re-entering the U.S.

Standing with Terror

On January 14, 2016 JVP Columbia tweeted their solidarity with the "brave students" at Birzeit University. 

Birzeit is a hotbed of anti-Israel agitation. The university has been accused of radicalizing students as well as promoting and encouraging political violence.

The student body elected Hamas to power in 2003, 2015 and 2016.

In January of 2016, Birzeit characterized an IDF raid to seize Hamas propaganda and arrest wanted militants as a "belligerent ... attack on the university and our right to education …"

JVP SJP Demonizing Israel

On April 28, 2015, JVP Columbia and CSJP co-hosted an event that featured Haneen Zoabi, called "Israel, Racism, and Apartheid: An Insider's View." Zoabi, a member of Israel’s parliament (the Knesset), has been investigated for inciting violence on a number of occasions. In July 2014, Zoabi was suspended from the Knesset after she excused the Hamas terrorist kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers — declaring that the abductors were "not terrorists." The kidnapped boys were later found in a field — executed by their Hamas kidnappers.

In October 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu initiated a criminal investigation against Zoabi after she doubled down in a Hamas-affiliated newspaper, Al Resalah — imploring Muslims to give a wave of murderous “individual attacks ... popular support,” and calling for the “outpouring of thousands” to create a “real intifada.”

On December 10, 2015 JVP Columbia politicized the issue of sexual violence to demonize Israel — by linking all victims of sexual violence to the Palestinian cause. JVP Columbia and CSJP hijacked the global problem — alleging that "... sexual violence is intimately connected with colonialism, imperialism, and other forms of state violence. As shown by the stories of Rasmeah Odeh and countless Palestinian survivors, sexual violence has routinely been used as a tool of oppression against Palestinian women."

Shutting Down Dialogue

JVP Columbia frequently partners with members of Students for Justice in Palestine at Columbia (CSJP) to demonize Israel. In March 2015, Kalikoff and Godshall wrote that "For the first time ever, there is a Jewish voice standing in solidarity with Students for Justice in Palestine at the annual Israeli Apartheid Week on College Walk."

CSJP’s yearly ‘Israel Apartheid week’ featured a Mock ‘Apartheid’ wall. JVP Columbia joined CSJP to occupy both sides of the College Walk, a heavily-trafficked thoroughfare in the center of the Columbia campus — boxing out pro-Israel organizations’ freedom to table and counter the false claims of CSJP and its associates.

Rebranding BDS

On February 1, 2016, SJP and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) launched a campaign at Columbia to rebrand its divestment effort as a fight against "apartheid." Entitled ”Columbia University Apartheid Divest,” (CUAD) the campaign targeted companies including Caterpillar, Hyundai Heavy Industries, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Hapoalim, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin.

CUAD’s press release stated that the campaign was "embedded in the larger BDS movement" — which calls for ending Israel’s so-called “occupation and colonization of all Arab lands.” The campaign was launched with a petition and inaugural event titled BDS 101, scheduled for February 4, 2016.

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.”

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/profile.php?id=100010441032884

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/plzcallmemina/