Ajantha Subramanian

Overview

Ajantha Subramanian demonizes Israel as an activist for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Subramanian is a member of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and was part of a group that unsuccessfully lobbied in 2016 for an AAA boycott of Israeli academic institutions. Subramanian is a member of the eight-person organizing collective of Anthropologists for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions (Anthro Boycott), which was the primary body advocating for the boycott.

Subramanian is a professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies at Harvard University (Harvard). She is the Social Anthropology Program Director.

Misrepresenting Violence

On October 28, 2015, Subramanian co-authored an Anthro Boycott blog post where she misrepresented the arrest of two violent Birzeit University students as being part of a broader Israeli effort to "violate Palestinians’ academic freedom and human rights" and of “censoring and repressing student political expression.”

The two students — Abdul Rahman Abu Dahab and Ahmed Walid Hamid — were involved in a violent confrontation with Israeli soldiers. The clash took place during an upsurge in violence across Israel incited by Palestinian political and religious leaders.

Birzeit University misleadingly claimed on Facebook that Abu Dahab and Hamid were arrested "during a peaceful demonstration." Subramanian adopted this position in her blog post, implying that the students were arrested simply for their academic affiliation.

Subramanian opened her blog post by writing: "On 8 October 2015, Israeli security forces brutally beat and arrested two students of Birzeit University, a major Palestinian university in the West Bank. In response, Birzeit issued an appeal to academic and human rights institutions to speak out against the crimes of the Israeli occupation. The university’s appeal is one of hundreds coming in the wake of Israeli actions that violate Palestinians’ academic freedom and human rights inside the occupied territories, as well as in Israel, where Palestinians account for 20% of the citizenry."

Promoting Anti-Israel Propaganda

On June 12, 2015, Subramanian retweeted a tweet from the anti-Israel Electronic Intifada (EI) website. The tweet linked to an EI article defending a student-run course at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) called "Palestine-Israel, settler-colonialism and apartheid." Tina Matar, the former president of the UCR chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), taught the course.

The course syllabus was analyzed by Verity Educate — an independent, non-partisan, non-profit organization that provides analysis of the accuracy and objectivity of educational material. Verity found the course contained primarily anti-Israel propaganda and that it sought to indoctrinate students and encourage anti-Israel activism. Their analysis concluded that "the core academic and educational values of knowledge acquisition and critical thinking have been hijacked by a particular strain of political action, and specifically by a particular politically oriented activist organization."

Defending Hate Speech

On November 5, 2014, Subramanian co-authored an Anthro Boycott blog post where she claimed that there is a "campaign of intimidation" against critics of Israel that “comes from the very top.” She highlighted the case of Professor Steven Salaita, the Edward Said Chair of American Studies at the American University of Beirut (AUB), whom she called a “victim of the politics of fear around debating Israel/Palestine on university campuses.”

In 2014, The University of Illinois withdrew an offer of employment to Salaita after becoming aware of his anti-Semitic tweets. One tweet, posted shortly after Hamas kidnapped three teenage Israeli high school students, read: "You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f**king West Bank settlers would go missing.” In 2017, Salaita posted to Facebook: “People ask if I would go back in time and change anything. I would not…I will die unapologetic.” In February 2019, Salaita stated that he had become a school bus driver in the Washington, D.C., area.

On June 6, 2016, Subramanian retweeted a tweet from Salaita praising Anthro Boycott leaders along with the hashtags "#anthroboycott #bds." Subramanian is a member of the Facebook group “Salaita academic freedom resources.”

Subramanian further defended a group of students, dubbed the "Irvine 11" after being arrested for disrupting then-Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren’s talk at University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine) on February 8, 2010. One of the students claimed that Oren was “an accomplice to genocide” before having to be removed by police. 10 of the students were found guilty of “one misdemeanor count of conspiring to disrupt” Oren’s speech. Subramanian called the incident an example of the “systematic targeting of student activism.”

Subramanian also defended the SJP chapter at Northeastern University (SJP Northeastern), which the university suspended after the group issued mock eviction notices under students’ doors slandering Israel. The university said that SJP Northeastern had "disregard for university policies over an extended period of time" including “vandalism of university property, distribution of flyers in residence halls without prior approval and disrupting the events of other student groups.” Subramanian linked to an article from the anti-Israel Mondoweiss site by Max Blumenthal — who regularly compares Israel to Nazi Germany — to make her case.

Vilifying Israel

On October 28, 2015, Subramanian tweeted: "Jewish Voice for Peace Endorses Anthropology Boycott Resolution via @anthroboycott" along with a link to an Anthro Boycott blog post. The post was originally authored by the anti-Israel organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).

On November 20, 2015, Subramanian dismissed the threat of Palestinian terrorism brought forward by the anti-boycott faction within AAA, Anthropologists for Dialogue on Israel/Palestine (ADIP) which criticized an AAA report on the conflict. Subramanian tweeted: "ADIP: AAA TF denies Palestinians agency in their ‘unremitting terrorist attacks on Israel.’ Palestinian agency=terrorism? #Anthroboycott."

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:http://www.facebook.com/560487888 [Deleted]

Twitter:https://twitter.com/ajanthasub

Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/user/ajanthasub

Harvard Website: http://anthropology.fas.harvard.edu/people/ajantha-subramanian

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajantha-subramanian-b651694/

Academia.edu:http://harvard.academia.edu/ASubramanian