Claudio Fogu

Overview

Claudio Fogu has demonized Israel, is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and has expressed support for anti-Israel professor Rabab Abdulhadi.

Fogu is an associate professor of Italian Studies and the director of the Italian Program & Italian Undergraduate Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).

Demonizing Israel

Fogu is a member of the California Scholars for Academic Freedom (cs4af). On October 5, 2016, he was among three cs4af members who authored a press release alleging that Zionist organizations have waged an “assault on academic freedom that has increased in intensity over the last fifteen years, overwhelmingly in the interest of one foreign government, namely Israel.”

The statement went on to charge that “It is clearly their intent not only to intimidate but also by example to threaten others and deter them from their rights to academic freedom and free speech.”

Fogu signed another cs4af petition, which described “a Zionist cultural war of aggression against academic freedom in the United States.” The letter was titled “The Extremist Zionist Media Campaign Gone Too Far.”

Fogu signed an open letter, published on July 13, 2014, claiming that the “government of Israel, having provoked the firing of rockets by its rampage through the West Bank, is now using that response as the pretext for an aerial assault on Gaza.”

The letter went on to charge that “An atmosphere of hysteria is being deliberately provoked in Israel, and whole communities are being subject to collective punishment, a war crime.”

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

Supporting BDS

In 2016, Fogu authored a letter to University of California (UC) Chancellor Henry Yang and nine other UC chancellors, condemning their opposition to a piece of BDS legislation.

In August of 2012, cs4af published an open letter, which Fogu signed, opposing a piece of anti-BDS legislation. The letter was aimed at California Assembly Members.

In the letter, the group argued that BDS, descriptions of Israel as “an apartheid state” and accusations against Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and “crimes against humanity” do not constitute anti-Semitism and should be protected on campus.

Fogu signed another open letter, titled “Resisting American Zionism,” published on March 31, 2009. The letter opposed the reinstitution of  UC’s Education Abroad Program (EAP) in Israel.

Signatories of the petition claimed that "Israel has deprived hundreds of thousands of Palestinians of their right to education” and that “The designated site of UC’s EAP, Hebrew University (HU), has a longstanding and documented record of discriminating against Palestinian students.”

Fogu signed an open letter to former United States President Barack Obama, published on January 12, 2009.

The letter, published by the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI), accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing,” compared Israel to Apartheid South Africa and concluded that “Israel too maintains an apartheid regime.”

After charging Israel with inflicting “one of the most massive, ethnocidal atrocities of modern times,” the signatories called upon Obama to join in the BDS movement.

Supporting Rabab Abdulhadi

Fogu signed an open letter to San Francisco State University (SFSU) President Leslie  Wong, authored by cs4af and published on September 29, 2016, “to express our deep concern over the news of the relentless attacks on Professor Rabab Abdulhadi.”

The letter claimed that “These attacks are orchestrated by a well-financed network of special interest groups” and went on to express the signatories’ “utmost support of and solidarity with Professor Abdulhadi.”

According to a Middle East Forum report, professor Rabab Abdulhadi has — since at least January 2014 — sought to cultivate alliances between SFSU and two Hamas-dominated Palestinian universities, Bir Zeit and An Najah.

During a March 2014 SFSU faculty event, Abdulhadi praised international hijacker Leila Khaled as an “icon in liberations movements and… an icon for women’s liberation.”

In 2016, Abdulhadi signed a letter to Vassar College President Catherine Bond Hill defending Jasbir Puar who had  demonized Israel, suggesting that Israelis harvest the organs of dead Palestinians.

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:http://www.frit.ucsb.edu/people/claudio-fogu