Zoe Jasper
Overview
Zoe Jasper has participated in anti-Israel activism, expressed support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Movement (BDS) and has promoted the #returnthebirthright initiative launched by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) against the Birthright Jewish heritage tour (Birthright).Jasper is a member of JVP at Oberlin College (Oberlin) and an affiliate of Students for a Free Palestine (SFP), theaffiliate chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Oberlin.
As of January 2019, Jasper’s LinkedIn page said she was slated to graduate Oberlin in 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in Comparative American Studies with a concentration in Identity and Diversity.
As of the same date, her LinkedIn profile said Jasper was a staff writer for the Oberlin Grape and an intern at Black and Pink, Inc. in the Greater Boston Area.
Anti-Israel Activism
Jasper indicated on Facebook that she “went” to a November 7, 2018 event called: “Gaza Today: A Human Rights Crisis,” hosted by Oberlin SFP. The event urged people to “Join us to hear the stories of those living under occupation in one of the world's largest human rights crises.”The event announcement on Facebook featured a photo glorifying the Great March of Return riots on Israel’s border with Gaza.
Jasper indicated on Facebook that she “went” to a November 6, 2018 event called: “Nyle Fort: Black-Palestinian Solidarity in an Age of Repression,” co-hosted by Oberlin SFP and JVP.
The event’s Facebook page said: “In 2016, Nyle recently to [sic] Palestine on a delegation with the Dream Defenders to build solidarity between black and Palestinian freedom struggles.”
Jasper indicated on Facebook, as well, that she “went” to an October 6, 2018 event called: “Garik Ruiz: The BDS Movement for Palestinian Rights,” co-hosted by Oberlin SFP and JVP.
The event’s Facebook page advertised that Garik Ruiz was the “North America Liaison for the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition in Palestinian civil society through August 2018. Ruiz has worked with local and national partners throughout North America to support BDS campaigns.”
The event’s Facebook page went on to claim that Ruiz spent 6 months during the Second Intifada “working with Palestinians resisting the occupation non-violently through the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).”
ISM has been accused of supporting terrorism and has encouraged its foreign volunteers to act “as human shields in cities, towns and refugee camps.” ISM has also encouraged activists to break curfew and disregard Israeli directives prohibiting access to closed military zones.
Jasper indicated on Facebook that she “went” to a May 15, 2018 event called: “Emergency Vigil for Palestine: Nakba Day.”
The term “Nakba” is generally translated as “catastrophe” in Arabic, referring to the outcome of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It is a term often used to delegitimize the creation of the State of Israel by defining it as a catastrophe.
The Facebook event page claimed that “Yesterday, while the US Embassy in Jerusalem was opening, 58 more peaceful protestors in Gaza were murdered and thousands were injured.”
On May 16, 2018, a Hamas senior official, Salah al-Bardawil, stated that 50 out of 62 protesters killed during the May 14 Gaza border protest were Hamas operatives. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) also claimed that three of its members were killed at the same protest.
On May 15, 2018, senior Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Zahhar said explicitly that the Gaza protests were only a pretext of “peaceful resistance.”
The “Emergency Vigil for Palestine: Nakba Day” Facebook event page asked participants to “Please join SFP and JVP to commemorate 70 years of the Nakba, Jerusalem, and the Right of Return.”
The “right of return” is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel.
Support for BDS
On January 17, 2019, Jasper wrote an article for the Oberlin Grape that focused on analyzing and criticizing Canary Mission.In her article, Jasper discussed her JVP chapter’s activities. She said: “ We spent the semester strategizing on how to get Sabra products out of our dining halls.”
JVP ran a boycott campaign against Sabra products and claimed that Sabra products “support apartheid.” Oberlin SFP started their campaign to boycott Sabra on April 18, 2018.
Condemning Jewish Heritage Tour
On October 4, 2018, the Oberlin JVP Facebook page posted a picture of Jasper sitting behind a table alongside another activist with the caption: “We're tabling in Mudd for #ReturnTheBirthright until 8! Come chat with us!” The table featured informational flyers about BDS and a sign that said: “There are no free trips on stolen land.”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.
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
https://twitter.com/jaspzoe [Deleted]
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/100003326241885
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/zoe-jasper-759606166/
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/jaspzoe/ [Deleted]
