Dina Khoury

In 2016, Fordham reportedly blocked the formation of a Fordham SJP chapter “based on the reported behavior of other [SJP] chapters on other campuses,” indicating that “the establishment of a local branch could be ‘polarizing’ and pose a safety concern to students and faculty.”

Signatories demanded that Fordham “immediately rescind the rejection of SJP as a student group on campus, apologize to the students affected by this harmful decision, and reaffirm Fordham’s commitment to free speech and academic freedom.” 

The petitioners also highlighted SJP’s BDS activity, characterizing SJP’s efforts to promote anti-Israel boycott as part of “a time-honored non-violent mode of political expression.” The petition accused Fordham’s administration of a “fundamental misunderstanding of what boycotts are, the purpose of a university, and the goals of SJP.”

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in cooperation with Palestine Legal (PL), and civil rights attorney Alan Levine sued Fordham on behalf of four students in April 2017. A New York court annulled Fordham’s decision in August 2019, mandating that the university recognize SJP as an official club. 
 
Fordham appealed the ruling to the NY State Supreme Court Appellate Division in January 2020. On July 24, 2020, Fordham SJP students filed a brief asking the appellate court to deny Fordham’s appeal of the lower court’s decision.
 
As of October 2020, a variety of groups, not directly involved in the case, filed amicus briefs with the Appellate Division for the court's consideration including JVP. 

Supporting BDS

Khoury signed a petition expressing support for the BDS movement, specifically calling for an academic boycott of Israel.

The petition, titled “Middle East Scholars and Librarians Call for Boycott of Israeli Academia,” was published on August 6, 2014. Signatories of the petition committed themselves “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.”  

Khoury reportedly signed a petition to the New York Times condemning anti-BDS activism. Signatories defended BDS activists, characterizing the movement as an expression of “Free speech and thought.”

The petition, published by Change.Org and the Electronic Intifada (EI) on April 30, 2012,attacked a strongly worded advertisement by The David Horowitz Freedom Center, published in the New York Times on April 24, 2012, that decried the accusations BDS levels against Israel as reminiscent of those used to justify the Nazi boycotts against the Jews in the 1930’s. 

The signatories responded by claiming: “The Horowitz Center’s advertisement seeks to shut down informed debate. Free speech and thought was a crucial right at stake in 1930s Germany and it remains so today.” 

The signatories went on to say they were “alarmed at [the New York Times] carrying an advertisement that misinforms and names individuals who do not have the money that Horowtiz [sic] has to defend themselves through his chosen medium.”

Demonizing Israel

In July 2014, during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE), Khoury signed a petition alleging that “Gaza was an open air prison” and that the Israeli air force had been “bombing both military and civilians targets almost indiscriminately.”

Throughout the summer of 2014 — during Operation Protective Edge (OPE) — Hamas's deployment of human shields was extensively documented and publicized. Hamas encouraged Gazans to act as human shields to frustrate Israeli efforts to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza. 

The petition Khory signed went on to charge that “the deprivation of the rights of the Palestinian people has been an organic aspect of the Zionist project, which has been supported by the Western imperial powers since 1917,” and to endorse the BDS movement as a “potent tool to hold Israel accountable.”

Israel commenced OPEin July 2014, to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.

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:https://history.columbian.gwu.edu/dina-khoury