Soto Dedes

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.

#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.

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

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