Sam Cibula

Overview

Sam Cibula has demonized Israel and whitewashed terrorists at Vassar College (Vassar). Cibula is an activist with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and an affiliate of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Vassar.

He has also promoted the #returnthebirthright initiative launched by JVP against the Birthright Jewish heritage tour (Birthright).

As of May 2018, Cibula was reportedly a sophomore at Vassar, slated to graduate in 2020.

Demonizing Israel

On April 16, 2018, Cibula wrote an article in the online magazine Boilerplate to publicize Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) at Vassar. The article was titled “ISRAEL IS NOT AN INCLUSIVE PARADISE.”

Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is presented internationally as a “series of events that seeks to raise awareness of…Israel’s settler-colonial project and apartheid system over the Palestinian people.” One of its goals is to build support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. IAW has been renamed Palestine Awareness Week.

In his article, Cibula implied that Israel is an “imperialistic project” and a racist state. He also promoted a libel that Israel forcefully sterilized Ethiopian Jews, a claim that was based on a flawed report by Ha’aretz.

Cibula also encouraged students to attend IAW at Vassar, where “Jewish resistance to Zionism will be celebrated through a number of on-campus events.” He concluded: “It is time to acknowledge and disavow the crimes of the government that claims to act in our name.”

Cibula’s article also promoted anti-Israel agitator Ahed Tamimi.

Ahed Tamimi has a long history of physically attacking Israeli soldiers. Tamimi is the daughter of Bassem Tamimi, who is known for exploiting young children as political props in staged confrontations with Israeli soldiers.

On March 25, 2018, Cibula was featured in a photo posted on the Vassar JVP Instagram account holding a sign that read: “End All Occupation Support Decolonization.”

Whitewashing Terrorists

In his April 2018 article, Cibula also whitewashed the 2018 “Great March of Return” and justified Palestinian violence against Israeli soldiers.

On March 30, 2018, some 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza approached Israel’s border to take part in “Land Day Protests” or the “March of Return.”

On March 30, 2018, some 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza approached Israel’s border to take part in “Land Day Protests” or the “March of Return.” The March of Return was organized and funded by Hamas as a campaign of violent protests along Israel’s border to spotlight the demand of Palestinians to “return” to Israel.

The “right of return” is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel.

March participants sent scores of kites bearing explosive devices across Israel’s border to burn Israeli crops and homes. Participants also attempted to breach the border fence, which caused the Israeli Defense Forces to respond with live fire.

Agitators threw Molotov cocktails, firebombs, shot firearms and threw rocks under the cover of smoke from burning tires.

On May 16, 2018, a Hamas senior official stated that 50 out of 62 protesters killed during a May 14 protest were Hamas operatives. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) also claimed that three of its members were killed at the same protest.

Cibula’s article also lamented the death of Yasser Murtaja, who he described as a “photojournalist.”

Yasser Murtaja, a photojournalist, was reportedly a Hamas spy who useddrones to film Israeli positions. Murtaja was shot on April 6, 2018 as he filmed the 2018 “March of Return” protest in Gaza.

Condemning Jewish Heritage Tour

On April 15, 2018, Cibula participated in a Return the Birthright protest outside the Taglit Birthright Gala in New York City. Cibula held a sign that read “Young Jews for Palestinian Right of Return.”

He told the crowd [01:11:58]: “I return the Birthright because I believe in a just world, free of colonialism and settler colonialism and all other types of colonialism.”

JVP members from across the United States assembled to chant anti-Birthright slogans outside the Birthright offices.

Return the Birthright Campaign

In September of 2017, JVP issued its #ReturntheBirthright campaign manifesto, calling on American Jews to boycott the Birthright Israel (Birthright) program. Birthright was founded by Jewish philanthropists “in 1999 to address the growing divide between young Diaspora Jewish adults and the land and people of Israel.”

After decades of demographic decline in the American Jewish community, Birthright set out “to strengthen Jewish identity, build a lasting bond with the land and people of Israel, and reinforce the solidarity of Jewish people worldwide.” The program offers “the gift of a life-changing, 10-day trip to Israel to young Jewish adults between the ages of 18 and 26.”

JVP’s anti-Birthright campaign was launched precisely to coincide with “the very moment that college students across America are returning to campus and registration for Birthright winter visits are underway.”

The #returnthebirthright manifesto accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and alleged “the modern state of Israel is predicated on the ongoing erasure of Palestinians.”

The text claimed: “We reject the offer of a free trip to a state that does not represent us, a trip that is only ‘free’ because it has been paid for by the dispossession of Palestinians.”

The manifesto concluded: “And as we reject this, we commit to promoting the right to return of Palestinian refugees… Israel is not our Birthright… Return the Birthright.”

On June 22, 2017, just prior to the launch of JVP’s #returnthebirthright campaign, JVP received a $140,00 two-year grant for general support for its operations from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF).

Since 2015, JVP has received $280,000 from RBF, which has a history of supporting anti-Jewish causes, including BDS campaigns and various organizations that promote BDS campaigns throughout the United States.

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.”

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.