Donna Murch
Overview
Donna Murch is a leader of the Black Palestine Solidarity movement, which conflates the struggle against racism in America with anti-Israel activism.She has demonized Israel on Facebook and is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Murch is an associate professor of History at Rutgers University (Rutgers).
Conflating Civil Rights with Anti-Israel Activity
In 2015, Murch participated in a film, titled “When I See Them, I See Us.” The film is a product of the “Black Palestinian Solidarity” group.According to the official website, the film aimed to highlight “the shared state agenda to demonize, police and annihilate Black and Brown bodies for its own imperialistic desires.”
The film was sponsored by organizations that included the Dream Defenders and Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP).
On June 3, 2015, Murch participated in a roundtable discussion about the film, titled “Anti-Blackness and Black Palestinian Solidarity.” In the discussion, Murch stated that “I view the current deepening of African American and Palestinian solidarity through the lens of anti-colonial struggle and anti-racism more broadly.”
In the same talk, Murch went on to explain that “a long tradition of African American Palestinian solidarity informs current anti-state violence youth activism.”
On September 18, 2014, Murch was a speaker at an event titled “From Gaza to Ferguson.”
The event took place at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and was intended to “examine and explore the relationship between race, the rise of militarized policing, and the response to dissent in the United States and consider its implications in a global context.”
Demonizing Israel on Facebook
On October 5, 2017, Murch wrote a Facebook post stating that “Palestine is the largest open air prison in the world. Use the compassion of the vegan movement to reckon with the terrible violence Israel directs at Palestinians. The cruelty of dominion is true of people to people and people to animals.”On August 3, 2014, Murch shared an article on her Facebook page, which claimed that “Israel is dedicated to the destruction of Palestine, apart from some occasional meaningless words, and is implementing that commitment.”
On July 30, 2014, Murch shared an article titled “Racism is the Foundation of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge” on her Facebook page.
Along with the link, Murch quoted from the article stating that “The public devaluation of Arab life enables a society that sees itself as ‘enlightened’ and ‘democratic’ to repeatedly send its army to slaughter the largely defenseless population of the Gaza Strip.”
Supporting BDS
In an article published on August 5, 2017, Murch praised “the twin threads of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel and the burgeoning African-American-led movement against state-sanctioned violence inside the United States.”On July 31, 2014, Murch signed a letter, authored by American Historians, calling upon former United States President Barack Obama “to suspend US military aid to Israel, until there is assurance that this aid will no longer be used for the commission of war crimes.”
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.
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.”
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- Rutgers
- Organizations:
- BDS,
- JVP
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- Last Modified:
- 06/23/2025
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