Ammiel Alcalay

Overview

Ammiel Alcalay is a tenured professor of Middle Eastern Language and Literature at Queens College (Queens), as well as the the City University of New York Graduate Center (CUNY GC). He is also a poet.

Alcalay has written several articles spreading anti-Israel conspiracy theories, including the suggestion that terrorist attacks in France are Israeli "false flag" operations.

Alcalay is a prominent activist in the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and has endorsed the United States Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI).

Alcalay has reportedly appealed to poets to go to Israel to "bear witness" with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). The ISM has been accused of supporting terrorism and has encouraged its foreign volunteers to act "as human shields in cities, towns and refugee camps." At least once, ISM facilities have been used in attempts to facilitatethe escape of known terrorists from Israeli security forces.

Alcalay has also reportedly appealed to poets to support anti-Israel groups such as Stop U.S. Tax-Funded Aid to Israel Now and Al-Awda.

Anti-Israel Incitement

In August 2014, Alcalay published a poem called “Letter to the Americans,” which he wrote during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE). Israel implemented OPE to destroy Hamas’ attack tunnels and stop rocket attacks from Gaza targeting Israeli civilians.

In his poem, Alcalay accused Israel of several atrocities and even suggests that Israelis beat unborn children to death in their mothers’ wombs. The poem also trivialized Palestinian terrorism against Israel.

On April 4, 2016, a video of Alcalay reading his poem was posted on a CUNY faculty union’s Youtube channel.

Pressuring Academics to Adopt BDS

In 2016, Alcalay signed a letter calling on the PEN American Center (PEN) to reject sponsorship from the Israeli government and to adopt BDS. After PEN refused, Alcalay submitted a personal statement in support of BDS.

In a May 2016 article, Alcalay promoted the claim that "Palestinian civil society" initiated the call for BDS. By 2012, Norman Finkelstein had already called into question the composition of the so-called Palestinian Civil Society organizations. In August of 2016, BDS leader Ilan Pappé admitted that BDS was not initiated by a “call” from Palestinian civil society but actually initiated by a small number of anti-Israel radicals.

In 2014, Alcalay signed a letter calling on “scholars and librarians within Middle East studies to boycott Israeli academic institutions.”

The letter pledged "not to collaborate on projects and events involving Israeli academic institutions, not to teach at or to attend conferences and other events at such institutions, and not to publish in academic journals based in Israel."

In 2013, Alcalay signed a letter calling on academics to boycott a history conference at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Tokenizing Jewish Identity to Legitimize Anti-Semitism

Alcalay has invoked his Jewish identity to legitimize the systematic demonization of Israel.

In 2014, Alcalay signed a statement titled "Jewish survivors and descendants of survivors and victims of Nazi genocide unequivocally condemn the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza.”

The signatories accused Israel of committing an "ongoing genocide" of Palestinians and called for a “full economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel.” The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network helped coordinate the statement.

In 2010, Alcalay signed a statement titled "Breaking the Law of Return." The signatories, invoking their Jewish identities, pledged to boycott Israel’s “law of return,” which guarantees Israeli citizenship to any person who can prove Jewish lineage and identifies as part of the Jewish people. The signatories also stated that their rejection of this “right” is an expression of solidarity with BDS.

Supporting Incitement

In 2016, Alcalay was a signatory to a letter campaign demanding the release of Dr. Imad Ahmad Barghouthi, an astrophysics professor at Jerusalem’s Al-Quds University (Al-Quds) who had been arrested by Israeli security forces for incitement.

An October 22, 2014 video showed Barghouthi, draped in a Hamas banner at an Al-Quds university Hamas rally, urging students to design precision guided missiles (0:33), sniper rifles as "weapons of the resistance" (1:11) to kill “zionist soldiers” in their bedrooms. Barghouthi praised Hamas terrorist Abu Obeida (1:19) and called on West Bank Palestinians to “be the spearhead and make the ultimate sacrifice” (1:30).

Barghouthi continued: "We will install electronic chips in these rockets, Allah willing, into these chips we will upload the fingerprints of the Zionist soldiers… we will program these rockets - which will be fired from Gaza - to hunt them down in their bedrooms" (2:35).

Barghouthi concluded that "Palestine and the Al-Aqsa mosque have not yet been liberated. Our lives should be entirely dedicated to resistance" (3:12).

The letter further urged Barghouthi’s release in accordance with “Article 26 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Israel is a signatory, [which] grants all people the right to education.”

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

University 1:http://www.qc.cuny.edu/academics/degrees/dah/cmal/pages/ammiel-alcalay.aspx

University 2:https://www.gc.cuny.edu/Page-Elements/Academics-Research-Centers-Initiatives/Doctoral-Programs/Comparative-Literature/Faculty-Bios/Ammiel-Alcalay

Wikipedia:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammiel_Alcalay