Erik McDuffie

Erik McDuffie is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and has expressed support for disgraced anti-Israel professor Steven Salaita. 

McDuffie is an associate professor in the Department of African American Studies and the Department of History at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign (UIUC).).  

Supporting BDS

McDuffie signed an open letter expressing support for BDS.

The July 31, 2014 letter, addressed to former U.S. President Barack Obama and the American Congress, called “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.”

On November 18, 2012, during Operation Pillar of Defense (OPD), McDuffie signed a petition by African Americans for Justice in the Middle East and North Africa (AAJMENA) to “Condemn Israeli Aggression in Gaza.”

Signatories of the petition charged that “Israel is responsible for the escalating violence and for this epic breach of human rights” and went on to state that “The aggression against Gaza must be understood as the latest act in the decades-long oppression of the Palestinian people at the hands of the Israeli government.”

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.”

The petition McDuffie signed concluded with a call to “Support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (www.bdsmovement.net) and U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (www.usacbi.org), and back the efforts of labor unions and student groups to compel their employers and administrators to divest from companies that do business in Israel.”

Supporting Steven Salaita

McDuffie signed a petition, published on October 26, 2014, which claimed: “Salaita's criticisms of Israel are not anti-Semitic” and went on to allege: “Their misrepresentation on various blogs was the result of a deliberate campaign to create controversy over the hire of a scholar who is an outspoken critic of the Israeli government.”

An article published on October 14, 2014, reported: McDuffie said he believes the firing of Salaita was about Israel, politics and outside political influence.”

McDuffie also signed an open letter, published on October 30, 2014, to UIUC Chancellor Phyllis Wise, President Robert Easter and the University of Illinois Board of Trustees condemning the decision to fire professor Salaita.

Signatories of the petition said: “None of the statements that we have seen represents an attack on any racial or ethnic group, unless one accepts the disingenuous equation of the state of Israel and Jewish people generally.”

The signatories concluded the letter by “calling on these leaders to reinstate the offer to Professor 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.

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.