Jeffrey Sacks

Sacks retweeted an August 2, 2018 tweet that said: “#ThrowbackThursday: Palestinian revolutionary and anti-Israeli apartheid activist Leila Khaled #WomansMonth #FreePalestine.” The tweet Sacks retweeted featured an image of Leila Khaled holding an assault rifle.

Sack retweeted a June 6, 2018 tweet that promoted the Ghassan Kanafani Resistance Arts Scholarship.

Kanafani was a leading member and spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) during the terrorist organization’s early years. Kanafani announced the PFLP’s responsibility for the Lod Airport Massacre of May 1972 and was linked to the airport attackers. The attack killed 26 people and wounded 80 others.  

On June 18, 2018, Sacks tweeted a quote from Kanafani’s wife, Anni, praising the work of her husband,: “Nobody can destroy an honorable human being rooted through revolutionary struggle among his people.”

Demonizing Israel

Sacks retweeted a May 14, 2018 tweet from U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that said: “This is a massacre. I hope my peers have the moral courage to call it such. No state or entity is absolved of mass shootings of protesters. There is no justification. Palestinian people deserve basic human dignity, as anyone else. Democrats can’t be silent about this anymore.”



On May 16, 2018, a Hamas senior official, Salah al-Bardawil, stated that 50 out of 62 protesters killed during the May 14 Gaza border protest were Hamas operatives. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) also claimed that three of its members were killed at the same protest.

On August 1, 2014, Sacks published a scholarly article titled: “Palestine and Sovereign Violence.”

According to the article abstract, Sacks used the article to analyze “the hermeneutic and interpretive violence occasioned in Israel’s ‘Operation Pillars of Defense’ in November 2012” and “acts of sovereign violence in the institution of the colonial state.”

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.”

Supporting Anti-Israel Agitators

Sacks signed a petition published on August 21, 2014 by the BDS movement titled: “A Call to People of Conscience Not to Speak at the University Of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Until Chancellor Wise Honor [sic] the Contract to Hire Professor Steven 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.

On September 20, 2018, Sacks tweeted: “Hey @UMichAlumni The concept of ‘rights’ is abused outside of a reflection on inequalities in power. The right to exercise the right not to write a recommendation letter contests the right of the state to kill, mame, and exclude. #JohnCheney-Lippold Jeff Sacks LSA ‘92.”

Cheney-Lippold sparked major controversy in September 2018, when he reneged on his offerto write a recommendation letter for a student to study abroad in Israel.
 
In an October 3, 2018 letter, the University of Michigan disciplined Cheney-Lippold by issuing a number of sanctions, including ineligibility “for a salary increase for the 2018-2019 academic year.” Further, Cheney-Lippold’s sabbatical eligibility and credits were frozen for two years “until the Fall 2020 semester.”  

Sacks’s tweet was in response to a tweet that said: “Not acceptable. A student striving to learn and further their education should never be a victim of political bias. The University needs to publicly clarify it opposes the academic boycott of Israel. http://j.mp/2PLlpv7.”

On November 8, 2018, Sacks tweeted: “‘We condemn attempts by UCLA administration to taint imagery that is grounded in freedom and liberation.’ —National Students for Justice in Palestine.” 

Sacks’s tweet included an image of National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)’s logo from their 2018 Conference, which featured a keffiyeh-wearing bear, looking up toward a kite bearing the colors of the Palestinian flag. 

National SJP stated on its Facebook page that the kite signified “the power in the Gaza March of Return.” From March 2018, Gaza March of Return protesters sent hundreds of kites bearing incendiary devices and IEDs (improvised explosive devices) across the border into Israel to terrorize Israelis. 

Sacks retweeted a November 30, 2018 tweet from the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) that said: “#ISTANDWITHMLH #FromTheRiver2theSea We reiterate our demand to #CNN for Professor Hill’s immediate reinstatement, and we ask supporters to sign a petition to that effect.It is simply…”