Claudia Chaufan
Overview
Claudia Chaufan is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and is an associate adjunct professor in the Institute for Health and Aging at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).Supporting BDS
On September 27, 2014, Chaufan signed a petition of Holocaust survivors and children of survivors calling for the boycott of Israel. Signatories of the letter “unequivocally condemn the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza and the ongoing occupation and colonization of historic Palestine.”The petition went on to accuse Israel of “racist dehumanization of Palestinians” claiming that Israeli media “has called openly for genocide of Palestinians” and that “right-wing Israelis are adopting Neo-Nazi insignia.”
On August 29, 2014, Chaufan signed the “Open Letter on Gaza and BDS from the Middle East Caucus of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies.”
The letter described “indiscriminate and disproportionate violence that has been waged… by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) against the civilian population of Gaza” which it characterized as “the largest ‘open air prison’ in the world.”
The letter went on to endorse the BDS movement and to conclude that “the violence has taken an unprecedented and savage turn, having reached genocidal proportions.”
In August of 2014, Chaufan signed the “Middle East Scholars and Librarians Call for Boycott of Israeli Academia.”
In signing this petition, Chaufan and others committed “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.”
On April 29, 2014, Chaufan signed a petition to “Boycott Israeli Cinema and TV Studies Conference at Tel Aviv University.”
The petition called upon scholars to boycott an upcoming conference at Tel Aviv University (TAU) and provided a link to the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).
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.
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- California-San-Francisco
- Organizations:
- BDS
- Related Profiles:
- Jess Ghannam,
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
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