Howard Winant

Overview

Howard Winant has defended anti-Israel activism on campus and is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

He is a professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).

Defending Anti-Israel Activism on Campus

Winant signed a letter published by the anti-Israel Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) organization on January 25, 2017, whose purpose was to “condemn Fordham University’s decision to deny Students for Justice in Palestine student group status.”

Signatories of the letter defended boycotts, like BDS, as “a time-honored non-violent mode of political expression” and went on to “demand that you immediately rescind the rejection of SJP as a student group on campus.”

These claims echoed another letter, published by JVP on March 8, 2016, which Winant also signed, opposing the University of California’s proposed  “Statement of Principles Against Intolerance.”

Signatories specifically opposed the inclusion of “anti-Zionism” as a form of intolerance and defended the right to include anti-Zionist positions in the classroom.

Supporting BDS

Winant signed an open letter, published on April 19, 2015, condemning the decision to feature French intellectual Monique Canto-Sperber as the keynote speaker of a “Night of Philosophy” event, because of her pro-Israel activism.

Signatories of the letter stated that “we find it incumbent upon ourselves to register our profound disappointment and to protest in the strongest terms possible that one of the key people you have selected to promote free speech at your Night of Philosophy has been an open practitioner of denying the same to Palestinians and their supporters.”

Winant also signed a statement of University of California faculty, published on March 9, 2015, calling on the university “to refrain from investing in certain companies that openly assist the Israeli government and army in the occupation of Palestine.”

Winant also signed a declaration published on November 14, 2014, titled: “Faculty Support Student-Workers of UAW 2865 in Standing in Solidarity with Palestinian Students and Workers and Voting YES on BDS December 4th!”

In signing the declaration, Winant and others called upon the university and UAW International “to divest their investments, including pension from Israeli state institutions and international companies complicit in severe and ongoing human rights violations, and on the US government to end military aid to Israel.”

Winant is a member of the California Scholars for Academic Freedom (cs4af). In August 2012, the group published an open letter, which Winant signed, to California Assembly Members opposing a piece of anti-BDS legislation.

In the letter, the group argued that BDS’s descriptions of Israel as “an apartheid state” and accusations against Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and “crimes against humanity” do not constitute anti-Semitism and should be protected on campus.

Winant also signed a petition, published on April 24, 2012, defending anti-Israel activists and professors Hatem Bazian and Joseph Massad. The petition went on to claim that anti-BDS activism “can only make us redouble our efforts to do more for BDS.”

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.”