David Klein

Overview

David Klein is a leader within the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and a member of the Organizing Collective of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI).

Klein is a member of the anti-Israel hate group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and a signatory to the Jews For Palestinian Right of Return endorsement of the American Studies Association (ASA)’s boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

Since 2009, Klein has used CSUN’s server to promote his web page entitled "Boycott Israel Resource Page." Klein’s page is replete with anti-Israel propaganda, false and inflammatory statements such as “Israel is the most racist state in the world at this time,” and gruesome photographs of dead and injured children, promoting the blood libel that Israel intentionally murders Palestinian babies.

During an October 12, 2013 Voice of Palestine interview — where Klein tried to bolster the fraudulent claim that "Zionists" work to forbid all criticism of Israeli policy — Klein accused anti-BDS activists of anti-Semitism (27:00).

In the interview, Klein encouraged college professors to post materials from Israel-hating sites like the U.S. Campaign to End The Occupation on their faculty webpages “with impunity” (20:50) — and to categorize such material, deceptively, under “community service.” The talk show host and Klein then agreed that “the governments in the U.S. and Canada and Europe are “in bed with Zionism” and opined that BDS was a “common people’s foreign policy.” (22:25)

Klein is a professor of Mathematics at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). Klein is the faculty advisor for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at CSUN (SJP CSUN).

Advocating for War Crimes-Inciter Imad Ahmad Barghouthi

In 2016, Klein initiated a letter campaign to protest the arrest — and demand the release — of Dr. Imad Ahmad Barghouthi.

Palestinian Astrophysicist Professor Imad Barghouthi of Al Quds University was sentenced in 2016 to seven months in prison for incitement to violence.

Barghouthi is a vocal supporter of Hamas's military wing — the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades — and has called for killing and being killed in the name of Islam.

An October 22, 2014 video showed Barghouthi at an Al-Quds university Hamas rally, draped in a Hamas banner, [00:00:33] urging students to design precision guided missiles, and sniper rifles as [00:01:11] “weapons ofthe resistance” to [00:02:35] kill “zionist soldiers” in their bedrooms.

The letter Klein promoted 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.”

Organizing Campaigns to Libel Israel

In 2011, Klein organized a campaign opposing the reinstatement of California State University (CSU) study-abroad programming in Israel. Klein — demonizing Israel in a display of modern anti-Semitism — lied that Israeli institutions “participate in apartheid” and suggested that Israeli universities are akin to “universities in Nazi Germany.”

Klein organized a campaign letter that was delivered to CSU Chancellor Charles Reed, which claimed "CSU participation with the government of Israel in the proposed study abroad program could be interpreted as an endorsement of the international crime of apartheid."

Lying to Slander Israel, Israelis and Zionists

On February 25, 2014, Klein published an opinion piece called "The Academic Boycott of Israel Supports Human Rights" in CSUN’s student newspaper. In the article, Klein again lied that Israel practices “apartheid” and cynically implied that racial exclusion and the “ideology of racial purity” is the basis of Zionism.

Klein also claimed — fraudulently—that Israel is committing “mass murder” and “ethnic cleansing,” despite wide reports that the populations of Gaza and the West Bank are among the fastest growing populations in the world in recent decades.

Klein went on to lie that Israel maintains segregated roads and applies administrative detention to Palestinians, exclusively. He also made the purposely misleading claim that “[f]reedom of movement, social services, and educational opportunities are severely restricted for non-Jewish populations.”

Klein complained, additionally, that “academic freedoms” are denied to Palestinian students of Birzeit University (Birzeit) — long notorious for its incitement-laden education.

Birzeit is a hotbed of anti-Israel agitation. The university has been accused of radicalizing students as well as promoting and encouraging political violence.

The student body elected Hamas to power in 2003, 2015 and 2016.

In January of 2016, Birzeit characterized an IDF raid to seize Hamas propaganda and arrest wanted militants as a "belligerent ... attack on the university and our right to education …"

Klein concluded by slamming CSUN’s President and Chancellor for rejecting an academic boycott of Israel.

Klein’s 2014 article repeated claims he made in a similar opinion piece he wrote titled “Support for Israel Must Stop” in CSUN’s student newspaper on February 6, 2009. In the 2009 article, Klein minimized the impact of Hamas’ terror attacks preceding the 2009 Gaza War. He also spread a recycled blood libel that Israel targets Gazans using white phosphorous.

Lying to Foist BDS on Israelis, Academic Journals, and U.S. Campuses

Klein has signed a 2014 open letter calling on Israeli academics who believed it “urgent” to act to end “the illegal occupation in Palestine” and Israeli “atrocities” to sign a petition. Although Israeli academics are often known for their vigorous criticism of Israeli government policies, the petition was closed to overseas signers after garnering the signatures of only 83 Israeli professors.

In October of 2013, Klein was one of eleven professors to chastise the Journal of Academic Freedom for publishing a series of essays opposing the academic boycott of Israeli institutions.

On January 9, 2012, Klein went on a radio program called “Law and Disorder” to protest Cornell University (Cornell)’s, joining with Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (Technion), an Israeli university, to build a campus in New York City (32:00). A USACBI letter addressed to Cornell claimed that Technion “is deeply complicit with Israel’s military, providing it with the technological infrastructure to maintain and expand its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land.”

During the interview, Klein likened former Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg — a supporter of Zionism — to a supporter of apartheid (38:30) and repeated the libel that “Israel is the most racist country in the world” (40:45). Klein also lied that Israeli Arabs, who he referred to as “Palestinians,” are excluded from serving in the Israeli military and do not receive equal benefits. Klein also lied that Israeli Arabs who attend Technion — and comprise 20% of the school’s student body — “have to live very, very far away” from Technion campuses in Haifa and Tel Aviv, due to Israeli racism. There are significant Israeli-Arab communities in both cities.

In March 2010, Klein signed a petition to have an Israeli scholar ejected from an academic conference in Los Angeles.

Whitewashing Violent and Reckless Lawbreakers to Demonize Israel

Klein's 2011 letter misleadingly suggested that it was dangerous, generally, for U.S. citizens to study in Israel. The letter listed U.S. citizens Furkan Dogan, Tariq Abukhdeir and International Solidarity Movement (ISM) volunteers Rachel Corrie, Tristan Anderson, Brian Avery, and Emily Henochowicz as examples of “young Americans killed or injured by Israeli forces.”

The letter omitted that all students named therein were either Jihadis or reckless anti-Israel activists who, respectively, attacked or interfered with security forces fighting terror.

Furkan Dogan was one of nine American so-called “peace activists” on board the Gaza “Freedom Flotilla,” in May 2010.

The Mavi Marmara was the lead ship in the “Freedom Flotilla” that attempted to sail to Gaza in May 2010. Activists aboard the ship agitated for violent confrontation and chanted a slogan glorifying the killing of Jews. When Israeli security forces boarded the Marmara, protesters attacked them with iron bars, metal chairs, knives, stun grenades and firearms, rocks and bottles. A United Nations report found that the flotilla agitators initiated an organized, violent confrontation with Israeli forces, and that the Marmara was carrying no humanitarian aid, only weaponry.

Afterwards Dogan’s diary was found, containing the entry: “These are the last hours before I join the sweet experience of being a shahid [martyr]. Is there anything more beautiful than this?”

Corrie, Anderson, and Avery were ISM agitators who were accidentally killed after they knowingly entered an active military zone, in defiance of Israeli Defense Force warnings.

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM), founded in 2001, is a movement allegedly “committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles.”

However, the group has been accused of supporting terrorism and has encouraged its foreign volunteers to act “as human shields in cities, towns and refugee camps.” ISM has also encouraged activists to break curfew and disregard Israeli directives prohibiting access to closed military zones.

That policy resulted in the death of Rachel Corrie, who was accidentally killed while interfering with an Israeli military operation in 2003. A wrongful death suit brought by Corrie’s family was dismissed, because the judge ruled that Corrie unreasonably chose to put her own life in danger.

Henochowicz was injured by a tear gas canister that ricocheted off a concrete barrier, while participating in a violent, illegal riot against Israel’s interception of the Mavi Marmara mentioned above.

Vowing to Defy French Anti-Discrimination Laws

In January 2016, Klein signed a USACBI petition “in support of the right to call for a boycott of Israeli goods in France.”

The petition opposed a French court ruling that found BDS promoters guilty of inciting hate or discrimination. France’s highest appeals court upheld the ruling in October 2015. Signers of the petition vowed not to comply with French law, which prohibits BDS.

Demanding The Hire of Anti-Semitic Hate Speech Purveyor Steven Salaita

In November of 2015, Klein advocated for the University of Illinois (U of I) to reinstate 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.

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.

JVP

JVP was founded in Berkeley, California in 1996, as an activist group with an emphasis on the “Jewish tradition” of peace, social justice and human rights. The organization is currently led by Rebecca Vilkomerson and its board members include Israel critics Naomi Klein, Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky and Tony Kushner.

JVP, which generally employs civil disobedience tactics to disrupt pro-Israel speakers and events, consists of American Jews and non-Jewish “allies” highly critical of Israeli policies. A staunch supporter of the BDS movement, JVP claims to aim its campaigns at companies that either support the Israeli military (Hewlett-Packard) or are active in the West Bank (SodaStream).

Although several Jewish groups critical of Israeli policies, like J Street and Partners for a Progressive Israel, make efforts to operate within the mainstream American Jewish community, JVP functions outside. The group is often criticized for serving as a tokenized Jewish voice for the pro-Palestinian camp and is widely regarded as the BDS movement’s “Jewish wing.”

JVP denies the notion of “Jewish peoplehood” and has even gone so far as to refer to its own Ashkenazi (Jews who spent the Diaspora in European countries) leadership as “white supremacy inside of JVP.”

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has accused JVP of being “the largest and most influential Jewish anti-Zionist group in the United States,” and said the group “exploits Jewish culture and rituals to reassure its own supporters that opposition to Israel not only does not contradict, but is actually consistent with, Jewish value.”

The ADL also claimed that “JVP consistently co-sponsors rallies to oppose Israeli military policy that are marked by signs and slogans comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, demonizing Jews and voicing support for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.”

According to the ADL website, JVP “uses its Jewish identity to shield the anti-Israel movement from allegations of anti-Semitism and provide it with a greater degree of legitimacy and credibility.”

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.