Dean Spade
Dean Spade signed an anti-Israel petition during Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists. Israel launched the war after the October 7, 2023, terror attacks. Spade has also spread incitement, expressed support for “intifada” violence and promoted hatred of Israel and the police.
Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 Israelis, injured thousands and kidnapped hundreds more that day. For more information, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.
Dean Spade signed the February 26, 2024 petition, which accused Israel of committing a “genocidal campaign” during its war against Hamas in Gaza.
The petition was addressed to 12 United States senators representing the Northwestern states, and every individual who signed it was “a university or college faculty member, instructor, or academic fellow residing in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, or Wyoming.”
As of February 2023, Spade was a Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) activist, holding the position of “Campaign Advisory Team” member for JVP’s “Deadly Exchange” project. The project blames the American Jewish community for funding police brutality in America through funding exchanges between Israeli security personnel and American police to learn best practices.
Spade is also a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Spade has also opposed the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism.
In November 2018, Spade was affiliated [00:03:17] with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), having attended the National SJP (NSJP) conference that month.
In 2015, Spade directed an anti-Israel film titled: “Pinkwashing Exposed: Seattle Fights Back!”
“Pinkwashing” is a claim used by anti-Israel activists to argue that Israel manipulates the LGBTQ community in order to garner support for Israel.
As of May 2025, Spade was listed as a professor at the Seattle University School of Law (SU Law). SU Law is located in Seattle, Washington.
Spade received a JD from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law (UCLA Law) in 2001.
On February 26, 2024, more than 300 faculty and staff at colleges and universities in six Northwestern states signed an anti-Israel petition during Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza. Israel launched the war after the October 7, 2023, terror attacks, during which 1,200 Israelis were murdered.
The petition twice referred to Israel’s war against Hamas as a “genocidal campaign” and it accused Israel of "ethnic cleansing" during the war.
The petition called for "an end to Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip." Israel and Egypt implemented a UN-approved [pp. 39–41] joint blockade of the Gaza Strip in 2011 to stop Hamas from acquiring more sophisticated rockets. Hamas went around the blockade by smuggling weaponry through tunnels under the Philadelphi corridor separating Gaza from Egypt.
The petition "equated" the Hamas terror attacks to Israel's response and it also promoted elements of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. One of the demands made by signatories was to call on the Biden administration to “halt immediately further transfer of munitions and foreign aid to Israel.”
The petition was titled: “History Will Remember This Moment: University Faculty Scholars of Northwest States Advise Permanent Ceasefire, UN Peacekeeping, and a Durable Resolution Based on Justice and Equality in Israel-Palestine.” It was addressed to the U.S. senators from Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming.
On Saturday, October 7, 2023, thousands of heavily armed Hamas terrorists breached Israel’s border with Gaza. They executed numerous war crimes on civilians, including mass murder, beheadings of children, rape of men and women, torture, kidnappings and mutilation.
Hamas broadcast videos of their butchery on social media, often to victims’ accounts for families to see. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.”
On May 11, 2021, Spade tweeted: “🚨1,550 Palestinians across Jerusalem are facing home demolition to make way for an Israeli tourist site…#SaveSheikhJarrah #StopJerusalemExplusions.”
In May 2021, calls to “save” Sheikh Jarrah, a Jerusalem neighborhood at the center of a property dispute, led to violence against Israelis and were one of the leading factors in Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists firing over 4,300 rockets from Gaza into Israel that month.
Spade retweeted a May 14, 2021 tweet that said: “With rage and solidarity we stand with Palestinians defending lives, land, and homes in Sheikh Jarrah, Gaza, and across historic Palestine. A list of ways to support Palestinians and Palestinian-led resistance to Israel’s colonial occupation, dispossession, and genocide…”
Among Palestinians and anti-Israel activists, the term “resistance” is a euphemism for nationalistic terror and is used to glorify and encourage anti-Israel and anti-Semitic violence.
Spade retweeted a September 28, 2022 tweet discussing “Intifada” in reference to “the importance of uprisings that use combative tactics.” The tweet also claimed that “arguments that demonize the violence of the oppressed” are racist.
The term “intifada,” which translates from Arabic as “uprising” or “insurrection,” carries the connotation of violence. Palestinian intifadas waged against Israel have been marked since 1987 by hundreds of hijackings, shootings, stabbings, bombings and suicide missions.
Spade retweeted a February 23, 2022 tweet that said: “don’t make the mistake I did of not being fully educated and aware of the pink washing of Israel, genocide and displacement of Palestinian people.”
Spade retweeted a May 22, 2021 tweet that said: “London said from the river to the sea!”
“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free!” is a chant used [00:02:52] to call for the elimination of the State of Israel.
On May 20, 2021, Spade tweeted: “Seattle: don’t miss this event Friday night in solidarity with #Palestine! End Israeli colonialism and apartheid!”
Spade wrote the tweet during Israel’s Operation Guardian of the Walls (OGW) against Hamas.
In May 2021, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists fired over 4,300 rockets from Gaza at major population centers in Israel. Israel responded by launching OGW, carrying out targeted military strikes in Gaza.
On May 14, 2021, Spade tweeted: “Falastiniyat, a Palestinian feminist collective in Seattle, among others, is organizing a demo Sunday, May 16th 1-3pm at Westlake Park.” The tweet included an image of an event poster that read: “NAKBA 73 #SAVESHEIKHJARRAH.”
The term “Nakba” is generally translated as “catastrophe” in Arabic, referring to the outcome of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It is a term used to delegitimize the creation of the State of Israel by drawing a comparison to the Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, meaning “catastrophe.”
On March 30, 2021, Spade tweeted: “Don’t miss this panel, April 7, 6:30pm to 8:00pm Pacific. End the Deadly Surveillance State: Resisting The Surveillance State and Advancing Abolition in Palestine and Washington State.”
On November 26, 2020, Spade tweeted: “...if you are a filmmaker, sign this pledge to not submit your work to the Israeli government-sponsored LGBT film festival TLVFest. #CancelPinkwashing…”
On the same date, Spade tweeted: “If you missed this webinar on queer cinema and the fight against #IsraeliApartheid, please watch! #BDS…”
On June 30, 2020, Spade tweeted: “Seattle: Don’t miss this important event Wednesday linking the struggles against zionism and apartheid to the fight against anti-Black racism and policing.”
On March 5, 2019, Spade tweeted: “I am so grateful to Stephanie Skora for her recent report exposing A Wider Bridge, the Israel advocacy group that works to pinkwash Israeli apartheid and colonialism with a ‘gay rights' framework…”
Stephanie Skora is a JVP activist who has expressed support for terrorists, trivialized the Holocaust and blamed Jewish organizations for the murder of Jews. Skora also spread hatred of Israel online.
On December 4, 2018, Spade tweeted: “Stop the #deadlyexchange! #AbolishPolice.”
In an April 12, 2017 article published in Electronic Intifada (EI), Spade characterized the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as the “brutal colonial military” and accused Israel of “the most violent operations of settler-colonialism and genocide.”
On May 29, 2016, Spade tweeted: “New video from Pinkwashing Israel about boycott of Tel Aviv Pride. No Pride in Apartheid!...”
In a January 18, 2016 article published in Washington Blade, Spade called Israel “the settler colonial nation engaged in apartheid, condemned by the world” and “a regime producing colonization and genocide.” In the same article, Spade also accused Israel of perpetrating “colonial violence.”
On November 18, 2012, during Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense (OPD) against Hamas in Gaza, Spade tweeted: “#Twitition PETITION TO CONDEMN GAZA BOMBINGS…”
Israel launched OPD to stop Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians from Gaza. Over the course of eight days in November 2012, Palestinian terrorist groups fired more than 1,500 rockets at Israel. The majority struck Israel, damaging homes, schools and other civilian areas. Human Rights Watch noted: “Palestinian armed groups made clear in their statements that harming civilians was their aim.”
On August 30, 2022, Spade tweeted: “‘We call for abolition of police because, despite all of the power, resources and legitimacy we pour into them, they cannot and will not deliver safety.’ —@prisonculture and @dreanyc123 in #NoMorePolice, out now!...”
On August 29, 2022, Spade tweeted: “Abolitionists imagine a world without prisons, cops, borders and wars. Does that mean we want to abolish the state? Come hear @HarshaWalia, Gord Hill, and @williamcson talk it out…”
On February 27, 2022, Spade tweeted: “Feeling special gratitude for @cwillse and Ananda LaVita who also got arrested that day, trying to stop the cops from arresting me.”
On July 27, 2021, Spade tweeted: “And yet another way to save cops from exhaustion, stress and trauma of their jobs? FIRE THEM.”
On May 24, 2021, Spade tweeted: “In case you missed this statement from @queermarch responding to @HeritageofPride’s decision to kick the cops out of NYC Pride, read it here! #abolition #DefundThePolice…”
On June 12, 2020, Spade tweeted: “This brings to mind when people have blocked ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] from arresting people, times I’ve been at protests where people ‘unarrested’ someone by pulling police off them. I long for more of this kind of people power. Outnumbering cops and refusing to let people be taken.”
On January 31, 2023, Spade tweeted: “I just wrote a @theactionnet letter: Call on King County Council to remove the IHRA definition and take action to combat antisemitism!. Write one here…”
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) highlights multiple forms of contemporary anti-Semitism related to Israel, including “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” and “Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.” The U.S. State Department adopted the IHRA’s working definition of anti-Semitism in 2016. Over 40 other countries have adopted the definition as well.
Spade retweeted a January 18, 2023 tweet that said: “#NOIHRA #REJECTIHRA Take action today…”
On January 3, 2023, Spade promoted Spade’s anti-Israel documentary on Twitter, writing: “Spread the word, Portland, OR! Feb 5 Screening of Pinkwashing Exposed with panel of people from the movie. Captioned movie and ASL provided for Q & A. More details here! Come hang out! #FreePalestine #solidarity #cancelpinkwashing.”
On June 4, 2021, Spade promoted Spade’s anti-Israel documentary on Twitter, writing: “It is Pride month and Israel’s violence against Palestinians remains impossible to hide behind a thin narrative that Israel is ‘gay friendly.’ Good time to learn more about pinkwashing! Watch a free documentary with captions in many languages here…”
On November 26, 2018, Spade tweeted: “I was so moved by the rigor, commitment, and brilliance of all the presentations I saw at the NSJP conference, and moved by the courage of the organizers in the face of so much opposition. Please read their statement to see what they are facing, and how their fight continues.”
During the 2018 National SJP Conference, anti-Israel activist Mohammed Nabulsi led the attendees in the chant [00:00:52] “Long Live the Intifada! Intifada! Intifada!”
Anti-Israel activist Hatem Abudayyeh gave the NSJP keynote speech where he said [00:53:01] that the “specific role” of Palestinian and Arab students was to organize [00:53:42] in order to weaken “Zionist Israel” and force [00:54:23] the U.S. to “no longer provide it with diplomatic, political, financial and military cover and support.” He predicted [00:55:37] that once U.S. support to Israel ends, Israel would collapse and the National SJP attendees would “return as conquering heroes.”
On November 19, 2018, Spade appeared [00:03:17] in a video taken during the 2018 National SJP Conference.
In March 2017, Spade was reportedly a member of the group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) when the group protested against an LGBTQ event in Seattle, featuring a transgender IDF officer.
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 values.”
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.”
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 Student 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.
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by pro-terror activist Omar Barghouti in 2005 to turn “Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.” Barghouti has also called for Israel's destruction and the BDS movement demands would result in that same goal.
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 infiltrating university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments propose resolutions to boycott or divestment from Israel or Israeli-affiliated entities. 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 and pro-terror activism on campus.