Alex Lubin

Overview

Alex Lubin is an activist within the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and attempted to push the Modern Language Association (MLA) to boycott Israeli academic institutions.

During the 2016 MLA Convention, Lubin presented an essay he wrote that claimed United States support for Israel results in an “erasure” of Palestinians. In December of 2013, Lubin wrote another essay titled “Why I’m Voting to Boycott Israel” that applauded the American Studies Association (ASA) for adopting an anti-Israel boycott resolution.

Lubin has also used Twitter to mock anti-BDS efforts at the MLA and retweet support for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). In 2015, Lubin tweeted that he was slated to speak for the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) — a group that likens Israel to Nazi Germany and supports terror groups.

Lubin has signed several statements excusing Hamas war crimes and demonizing Israel.

He has also demonized Israel at the University of New Mexico (UNM), where he is a professor and chair of the American Studies Department. Lubin has co-organized two field schools for UNM students in Israel.

Pushing BDS

Lubin has publicly endorsed the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) and has signed a resolution calling on the MLA to boycott Israeli academic institutions.

In January of 2016, Lubin presented a nine page essay at the 2016 MLA Convention as part of the roundtable “What It Means for MLA Members to Support the Academic Boycott of Israel.” In his essay, Lubin argued that the U.S. was engaged in a de-facto boycott of Palestinians because of its support for Israel.

Lubin claimed that “U.S. sponsorship for the Israeli colonization of Palestine is a boycott that seeks to erase the very possibility of Palestine, and to reposition Israel as the victim of Palestinian terror, rather than the other way around.” The essay concluded with a call for BDS.

In 2017, MLA’s delegate council rejected the BDS resolution and instead voted to support Resolution 2017-1 (2017-1), which urged the MLA to refrain from adopting BDS.

In June of 2017, the MLA adopted 2017-1 by a 2-1 margin following a full membership vote. Lubin then signed a statement condemning the MLA’s adoption of the anti-BDS resolution, which it characterized as “support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine.”

In December of 2013, Lubin wrote another essay, titled “Why I’m Voting to Boycott Israel,” that applauded the American Studies Association (ASA) for adopting an anti-Israel boycott resolution.

In 2013, Lubin signed a letter calling on academics to boycott a history conference at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The letter accused Israel of practicing “colonialism” and “apartheid.”

Demonizing Israel

In July of 2014, Lubin signed “An International Scholars’ Statement on Gaza” that excused Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, claiming they were a “direct response” to the Israelis “terrifying the entire population of the West Bank.”

The statement accused Israel of “collective punishment” for sweeping the Palestinian controlled territory for suspects and victims following the June 12, 2014 kidnapping of three Israeli high-schoolers on their way home from school by Hamas. The captors murdered the abducted boys, whose bodies were found buried in Palestinian-controlled territory on June 30, 2014.

The statement asserted that Israel used the event as a smokescreen in order to initiate Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in Gaza and characterized OPE as “the wholesale slaughter of a civilian population.”

Israel commenced Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in July 2014, to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.

In July of 2014, Lubin also signed a statement titled “Jews Say: End the War on Gaza — No Aid to Apartheid Israel! BDS!” The statement, circulated by Jews for Palestinian Right of Return (JFPROP), claimed that Israel is an “apartheid” state committing an “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” of Palestinians.

The statement claimed that Hamas rockets were “fired from Gaza into land stolen from Palestinians in the first place.” The statement concluded by calling for the “complete dismantling” of Israel “throughout historic Palestine — from the River to the Sea.”

On October 12, 2015, Lubin gave a presentation at UNM alongside anti-Israel activist Les Field titled "Panel presentation on Israel and Palestine," in which they contextualized data through an ideological anti-Zionist position. Both Field and Lubin were involved in organizing a field school for UNM students in Israel.

Anti-Israel Activism on Twitter

On January 5, 2017, Lubin tweeted “At MLA the hypothetical harm of an academic boycott will be presented as more damaging than the actual harm of a 50 yr colonial occupation.”

On December 10, 2015, Lubin retweeted “The selective targeting & disruption of SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine] at #CUNY must end! #StopTheRepressionCUNY #Liber8CUNY.”

On September 18, 2015, Lubin tweeted “This is what democracy doesn't look like: Ca city commish. fired for proposing Israel divestment.”

On July 20, 2015, Lubin tweeted “Looking forward to talking with activists at the Palestine Youth Movement summer school. UC Riverside. July 27.”

The Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) is a group that likens Israel to Nazi Germany and supports terror groups.

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.

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.

PYM

In 2012, the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM USA) released a statement saying: “Our liberation...will be gained with the path that was written with the blood of our martyrs. We reaffirm that the only path that we are concerned with is the path that explicitly heads towards the liberation of our land and the return of our people to Palestine.”

PYM organized rallies demonizing Israel where it displays propaganda posters supporting the terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and compared Israel to Nazi Germany.

On October 25, 2015, PYM called to support “intifada” during a period when Palestinian radicals across Israel stabbed and hacked to death scores of Israeli civilians. PYM alleged that “Al-Aqsa Mosque has been the target of particularly brutal assaults” and that “... arbitrary killings are committed daily by the Zionist military and settlers.”

On November 10, 2015, the PYM Facebook page displayed a photo of masked Palestinian radicals throwing rocks and firing rocks from slingshots. That photo was used to promote at least 25 anti-Israel rallies across the globe on or around November 29, 2015 under the banner of “Transnational mobilization for Palestinian resistance.”

On November 30, 2015, PYM displayed a photo on Facebook from one of the rallies showing a sign in support of PFLP member Khalida Jarrar, who confessed to inciting violence and calling for terrorists to abduct Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers.

Another sign showed support for PFLP Secretary-General Ahmad Sadat, who was convicted for the 2001 assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi.