Carol Fadda Conrey

Overview

Carol Fadda-Conrey [Carol W. N. Fadda] is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and has pushed for the academic boycott of Israel at Syracuse University (Syracuse). She has also defended disgraced anti-Israel professor Steven Salaita . 

As of January 2020, Fadda-Conrey was listed as an associate professor of English at Syracuse. 

Supporting BDS

In 2016, Fadda-Conrey signed an open letter calling for the academic boycott of Israel. 

The open letter was addressed to the Modern Language Association (MLA), “calling on the association to pass a resolution endorsing the boycott of Israeli academic institutions.”
On August 6, 2014, Fadda-Conrey signed a petition of Middle East scholars and librarians, calling for the boycott of Israeli academic institutions.  

The petition accused Israel of carrying out “ongoing massacres” and concluded with a “pledge 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.”

Pushing the Academic Boycott of Israel at Syracuse

In September of 2016, Fadda-Conrey signed a petition affirming her support for the BDS movement at Syracuse. 

A few weeks later, Fadda-Conrey signed a petition opposing an upcoming conference at Syracuse because it involved a collaboration with Tel Aviv University (TAU). 

Signatories of the petition expressed support for the BDS movement in general and specifically endorsed the guidelines laid out by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).

After rejecting the idea of dialogue, the petition concluded that BDS “rightly names Israeli occupation and apartheid as the root of the conflict and offers a realistic path toward ending Israeli apartheid by targeting its structural basis.”

Defending Steven Salaita 

Fadda-Conrey signed a petition, published on August 21, 2014, by the BDS movement, titled: “A Call to People of Conscience Not to Speak at the University Of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Until Chancellor Wise Honor [sic.] the Contract to Hire Professor Steven Salaita.”

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.

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 Website: https://thecollege.syr.edu/people/faculty/fadda-conrey-carol/