Shadi Jafari
Overview
Shadi Jafari was an author of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) legislation at the University of California at Irvine (UC Irvine), where she graduated in 2013 with a degree in Literary Journalism and International Relations and Affairs.
Jafari received her master's degree in International/Global Studies in 2016 from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).
On May 4th 2015, Jafari attended the "Anti-Zionism Week" at UC Irvine, hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the Muslim Students Union (MSU).
She currently works as the project coordinator at Secure TechEase, in Santa Barbara, California.
Supporting Cultural Boycotts of Israel
On July 12, 2013, Jafari signed an "Open Letter to Filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf," an initiative of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI). The letter urged Makhmalbaf to boycott the Jerusalem Film Festival where he was to be an honorary guest.
The USACBI letter accused Israel of "systematic violation of the most basic human rights of the Palestinian people" and “ethnic cleansing (in) 1948.”
The letter also made the claim that Jews have no ties to Israel, implicitly arguing that the founding of the state of Israel, and the return of Jews to their historic homeland are essentially “colonialist.” The effort was ultimately unsuccessful and Makhmalbaf attended the festival.
Drafting BDS Resolutions
On November 23, 2012, Jafari co-authored with Sabreen Shalabi an anti-Israel resolution urging UC Irvine to divest from companies that do business with Israel. The resolution was unanimously approved by the Legislative Council, but was subsequently declinedby the university administration.
The 2012 resolution labelled Israel a "system of apartheid," as well as “racist and bigoted.”
The 2012 resolution further argued that Israel commits “systematic attacks against Palestinian people.”
Supporting Speech Suppression
On April 25, 2013, Jafari authored a resolution accusing UC Santa Cruz adjunct Professor of Hebrew Tammi Rossman-Benjamin of "Islamophobic Hate Speech." The 2013 resolution defended the 11 Muslim Student Union (MSU) members who were arrested for repeatedly shouting down former Israeli ambassador Michael Oren during a February 8, 2010 address at the University of California at Irvine.
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/shaytoon.shadi [Deleted]
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/shadi-jafari-71a761122
Twitter:https://twitter.com/VoteForShadi
Pinterest:https://www.pinterest.com/princessinlove9/boards/
- Status:
- Professional
- University:
- California-Irvine,
- more...
- California-Santa-Barbara
- Organizations:
- BDS,
- USACBI
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- Last Modified:
- 06/23/2025
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