Zachary Aldridge
Overview
Aldridge is a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) since 2015 and is also active with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) at Columbia University (Columbia).
Aldridge is an organizer and student activist with Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) coalition that promotes BDS at Columbia.
Aldridge signed a petition condemning the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA), a bipartisan bill drafted in response to growing anti-Semitism in the United States and passed unanimously by the United States Senate.
As of November 2018, Aldridge went by the name “Zak Aldridge” on Facebook.
Trivializing Harassment of Pro-Israel Students
On October 16, 2018, Aldridge was featured in an i24News segment titled, “Anti-Semitism Rising on New York College Campuses.” During an interview with a Jewish-Israeli student, Ofer Dayan, about SJP’s harassment [00:00:46] of pro-Israel students at Columbia, Aldridge interrupted [00:01:08] to refute Dayan’s claims.Aldridge, identifying himself only as “Zak,” reportedly denied [00:01:42] that his group was threatening pro-Israel activists and argued [00:01:46] pro-Israel students’ claims of harassment were “unfounded and unsubstantiated.”
In December 2016, Aldridge protested the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA), which was unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate on December 1, 2016.
Aldridge signed a JVP-launched petition opposing the AAA. The AAA directed the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to use the U.S. State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism when evaluating hostile environment complaints.
JVP’s petition asserted that anti-Semitism did not warrant its own bill, but should rather be considered equal to other forms of bigotry. The petition also purported that “real anti-Semitism” came from the “white supremacist movements in this country” and contended the bill did “little to protect us, as Jewish students, from these dangers.”
The JVP petition also claimed that BDS was “not inherently anti semitic,” and called the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism “problematic.”
Supporting Terrorists
On May 22, 2017, Aldridge featured in a CUAD Facebook post, holding a sign that read: “In solidarity with Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike #CUADhungerstrike”.The post quoted Marwan Barghouti and linked to an opinion piece by him. The post also said: “On April 17th, Palestinian Prisoner's Day, 1,500 Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails began a mass hunger strike to demand freedom and dignity and raise awareness of Israel's mass incarceration of Palestinians...”
On May 10, 2017, Aldridge featured in a video on CUAD’s Facebook page where he drank a cup of saltwater in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners “striking for freedom and dignity.”
On May 9, 2017, Aldridge changed his Facebook profile picture to feature a photo of himself drinking a glass of water and captioned it, “ #CUADhungerstrike Day 7 on Day 23 of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Hunger Strike for freedom and dignity. #SaltWaterChallenge.”
According to CNN, the Salt Water Challenge appears to have been started by Aarab Marwan Barghouti, the son of Marwan Barghouti.
Anti-Israel Activism
Aldridge reportedly said: “We came to protest the IPO because it needs to be made clear, particularly to the American public, that it is not okay to have normal relations with institutions of an apartheid state. BDS means that that line is never crossed.”
On February 14, 2017, Aldridge signed a letter condemning the invitation of Ayelet Shaked, Israel’s Minister of Justice, to hold a roundtable discussion at the University of Vienna scheduled for the following day.
On February 9, 2017, Aldridge publicized on Facebook a planned protest of a speech given by Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, at Columbia.
Aldridge wrote: “Hey JVP NYC, please come back up to Columbia this Monday 2/13 to protest Danny Danon, Israeli Ambassador to the UN, at 6:45pm at Lerner Hall” and shared the event, titled, “Racists Not Welcome: Protest the Israeli Ambassador at Columbia.”
Protesters inside Lerner Hall repeatedlyinterrupted [00:24:59] Danon and shouted him down seven times. Protesters chanted and held a banner that read “Boycott Israel”. Each group of protesters was consequently escorted out of the hall.
Some protesters who disrupted Danon chanted [00:46:35]“Racists not welcome” and [00:32:11]“From the river to the sea Palestine will be free.” Protesters also shouted [00:38:22]: “Stop the murder stop the hate, Israel is a terror state.”
A group of Columbia SJP activists and members of CUAD, JVP, Barnard Columbia Socialists and Columbia Against Trump also gathered outside Lerner Hall and chanted during the duration of Danon’s speech. One of the chants [oo:03:47] included “Danny Danon you can’t hide we charge you with genocide.”
On May 1, 2017, during Israel’s Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and terror victims, Aldridge role-played [00:00:23] a Palestinian school student at a mock checkpoint set up by CUAD at Columbia to demonize Israeli security measures.
Aldridge held a sign that read: “I can’t get to school,” while other activists dressed as Israeli soldiers shouted at students. Another Columbia student dressed [00:03:25] as a pregnant woman held [00:00:24] a sign that read [00:00:25]: “I am in labor and can’t get to a hospital.”
Condemning Jewish Heritage Tour
On January 18, 2018, Aldridge wrote an opinion piece for the Columbia Spectator, titled “Israel-bound students: no such thing as a free lunch,” where he discussed his experience as a participant on a UJA Federation/Columbia Hillel-sponsored trip to Israel, similar to the Taglit-Birthright trip.Aldridge participated in the trip in March 2016.
In the article, Aldridge claimed: “I don’t usually tell people that I have been to Israel and Palestine, because I was privileged by and complicit in the Zionist project in order to be there—and I am ashamed and embarrassed by that.” Aldridge also claimed he “tried to raise the alarm about Zionists’ intentions.”
Aldridge alleged the trip was “geared toward students who know little about Israel and Palestine to show them an Israeli interpretation of normalcy,” writing that “Special efforts are being made to show that Zionism cannot possibly be racist.”
Aldridge suggested that Israel used the trip to disprove “the growing belief among college students that Israel is a racist, apartheid state ” and warned travelers to Israel that “you stand on land that was and continues to be cleansed of its indigenous population.”
Aldridge concluded his article by glorifying an anti-Israel agitator who was jailed for assaulting an Israeli soldier: “Like 16-year-old AhedTamimi, you must speak truth to power.”
Pushing BDS at Columbia
On April 9, 2018, Aldridge changed his profile picture on Facebook to one with a frame designed by CUAD that said, “Yes to Divest!” His caption read, “If you're a Barnard student vote in this SGA election cycle to divest from companies that profit from the oppression of Palestinians.”On February 9, 2018, Aldridge was quoted in a Mondoweiss article as a CUAD representative saying that “It’s hard to know how BDS figures into people’s opinions...The operative association we’re trying to get is apartheid.”
On April 3, 2017, Aldridge promoted BDSat a general body meeting of Columbia College Student Council (CCSC).
CSJP - 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 Israeli “apartheid,” titled 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.
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.
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