Ismail Poonawala
Overview
Ismail K. Poonawala is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. He is a professor emeritus of Arabic & Islamic Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).Supporting BDS
Poonawala is a member of the California Scholars for Academic Freedom (cs4af) and signed a March 31, 2009 letter condemning a University of California decision to reinstate a study abroad program to Israel.Signatories of the cs4af letter alleged that “Israel has deprived hundreds of thousands of Palestinians of their right to education” and went on to claim that “Hebrew University (HU), has a longstanding and documented record of discriminating against Palestinian students.”
In August 2012, cs4af published another open letter, which Poonawala signed, to California Assembly Members, opposing a piece of anti-BDS legislation.
That cs4af letter argued that BDS, 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.
Poonawala also signed a cs4af open letter, published on June 27, 2014, to the Los Angeles City Council.
The letter supported an allegation that the Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Hasbara Fellowships work to “lobby student leaders and council members through free trips and other in-kind gifts as a means of buying loyalty and influencing student council votes.”
The signatories defended a pledge proposed for candidates in student body elections at UCLA, committing them not to participate in trips to Israel funded by AIPAC, the ADL and Hasbara Fellowships.
The letter also condemned the Blumenfield Resolution, a piece of legislation that outlawed the pledge as an effort to “harass” and “intimidate” pro-Israel candidates for student government and urged the university to develop policies and institute practices at every UC campus to outlaw “intimidation or harassment of any student.”
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:http://nelc.ucla.edu/person/ismael-poonawala/
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- California-Los-Angeles
- Organizations:
- BDS
- Related Profiles:
- Last Modified:
- 06/23/2025
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