Deepa Kumar

Overview

Deepa Kumar is a frequent speaker at Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) events on university campuses.

Many of Kumar's public speaking events on university campuses are sponsored by the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement on campuses.

Kumar speaks widely at universities and across community forums on a range of topics including Islamophobia and Political Islam. She is a harsh critic of US foreign policy in the Middle East and of Israel, which she refers to as a settler colonial state.

Kumar sparked outrage for a tweet in which she declared that "the US is more brutal than ISIS." The tweet was picked up and the story run by Fox New's Outnumbered where the concerns were discussed whether she has "the right to peddle whatever nonsense she likes" at Rutgers and if she is "shoving" her opinions "down the throats of the students."

She attempted to diminish the image of Hamas as a terrorist organization via emphasizing its efforts at liberating Palestinians from "the continued brutality of the Israeli occupation" in a 2009 article entitled "Behind the Myths about Hamas."

In the article, Kumar contends that Hamas is not anti-Semitic. She cites a 1990 Hamas document that states Hamas' struggle is "against Zionists and Zionism, and not Jews and Judaism." This, she claims, appears to contradict the original 1988 Hamas Charter, which calls for the murder of all Jews. Kumar neglects however to mention that Hamas did not update the original anti-Semitic 1988 version of their Charter and continue to use it as their official position, this singular document notwithstanding.

Kumar further explains some of Hamas' violent and homicidal actions as being in line with its "religious dimension." For example, she illustrates that a Palestinian woman who was murdered and her fiancé assaulted by Hamas after they were found in his car at a beach, is the groups way of having "intervened" in what the organization considers immoral behavior.

Later she expounds on the varying gender roles within Hamas. The Israeli-civilian-killing strategy within Hamas is mentioned here as a mere societal "task," alongside leading prayers and "fighting 'vice' in the streets." She states that "while a limited number of women have carried out suicide attacks, that task is assigned primarily to men."

In June 2015, Kumar gave a speech which included a slide on "anti-Muslim McCarthyism" in which she labelled together "Neoconservatives, Zionists, the Christian Far Right, ex-Muslims and other 'Native Informants' as the 'New McCarthyites.' In an earlier written interview with the anti-Israel website Mondoweiss, she explained that a "network of Islamophobes," which she calls the 'new McCarthyites,' have since the events of 9/11 "been involved in a series of campaigns targeting Muslim schools, community centers and mosques."

Kumar is an Associate Professor of Media Studies and Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University and is also affiliated with the Department of Sociology.

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.

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.