Tory-Webster Brykalski

Overview

Tory Brykalski [Tory Brykalski-Webster] Brykalski is a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis).

Brykalski is the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement Caucus representative at UC Davis.

Brykalski was a featured panelist for the Anthropologists for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions. She is an author of severalarticles calling for academic boycott and divestment from Israeli institutions.

Brykalski is a graduate student teacher's assistant and teaches that UC tuition hikes are connected to the "occupation of Palestine".

Brykalski maintains that the concepts of national homelands and nation-states are out-moded "relics". She signed a statement in support of banning national flags — expressly singling out the American flag — from the lobby of University of California, Irvine, because they might possibly offend some people.

Brykalski is a PhD student at UC Davis studying sociocultural anthropology. She majored in theology and international relations as an undergraduate at Wheaton College. Brykalski has a Masters from Columbia University (Columbia) in international relations.

Supporting a Terrorist

Brykalski is a supporter of the convicted terrorist- ­murderer Rasmea Odeh.

Odeh was a military operative with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization. In 1969, she masterminded a bombing that killed two university 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 her 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. In 2017, Odeh was deported to Jordan and stripped of U.S. citizenship, after admitting to immigration fraud.

Pushing BDS at UAW

In 2014, Brykalski was elected the UC Davis representative/head steward of the UC graduate student union, the United Auto Workers Local (UAW) 2865 — a position she exploited to politicize UAW and enlist its support for a proposed BDS divestment resolution. The UAW represents teaching assistants, tutors and student workers (a.k.a Academic Student Employees, or ASEs).

In response, later in September 2014, UC’s Office of the Provost circulated a cautionary letter to all Chancellors clarifying the university’s position on ASEs advocating for BDS in class, that "the university should remain aloof from politics and never function as an instrument for the advance of partisan interest."

As an additional response, in November of that year, UAW International issued a letter re-iterating its position as firmly against any BDS action.

Also as a result of the proposed boycott, in November 2014, the California Teamsters, representing nearly 250,000 workers statewide, sharply criticized UAW 2865 Executive Board’s involvement with BDS, emphasizing that they could not conceive of activity "more hostile to the interests of [Teamsters] members and more antithetical to the most basic principles of the union movement."

The resolution remained unresolved for over a year. Finally, in December 2015, UAW International officially overturned the UAW 2865 boycott resolution.

Pushing BDS on Campus

On January 23 2015, SJP introduced a resolution calling on UC to stop investing in "racist and war profiteering companies" after the Associated Students of the University of California (ACUSD) voted down a similar resolution in April 2014.

The April 2014 resolution called on UC to divest from holdings in companies "that aid in the Israeli occupation of Palestine and illegal settlements in Palestinian territories," including Caterpillar, G4S PLC and Veolia Environment. The resolution failed, with the senate evenly divided. The ASUCD Vice President refused to break the tie.

Eight months later, another hearing was called to push the resolution. Following speeches from those supporting and opposing the bill, the anti-divestment advocates —about a third of the attendees— participated in a walk-out. As they left, a large group of pro-divestment promoters hollered "Allahu Akhbar!" The January 2015 resolution passed, 8-2-2.

Afterwards, one of the council members who voted for the resolution, Azka Fayyaz posted on Facebook: "Hamas & Sharia law have taken over UC Davis." Later, in an open letter to the student community, Fayyaz insisted her comment was “satirical”— but attacked critics such as “the leadership of AEPi, the Jewish fraternity at UC Davis, and Aggies for Israel” claiming they reported the contents of her profile to “the Zionist lobby groups which they have been paid to represent.”

A week after the 2015 resolution passed, unknown vandals spray-painted two large swastikas on a house belonging to the Jewish fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi).

A day after the resolution passed, UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi issued a statement that the resolution to divest did not reflect the position of UC Davis or the University of California system. The Board and Office of the President had earlier issued a statement affirming the Board’s position that student calls to action would not be entertained.

UC Davis’ investment policy is set by the UC Board of Regents. Brykalski called the Regents’ financial policies "racist".

On February 10 2015, Brykalski led a protest — ending with a "die-in"— which called for firing Chancellor Katehi. The protest linked tuition hikes and the Israel divestment vote.

In February 2015, the the January resolution was overturned as unconstitutional by the university’s Court of Associated Students, voting 5-0-1, on the grounds that it was "primarily a political document" having no relevance to student welfare on campus.

In May 2015, SJP responded by proposing a new resolution alleging that "enabling Israel’s occupation of Palestine compromises the integrity of students’ education." This May 2015 resolution passed, 10-0-2.

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.

Social Media and Weblinks

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100007532714970

Twitter:https://twitter.com/torybrykalski

Linkedin:https://www.linkedin.com/pub/tory-brykalski-webster/49/320/4b5