Jeremy Siegman

Overview

Jeremy Siegman has demonized Israel, defended campus anti-Israel activists and participated in Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) events. 

He has also supported an anti-Israel agitator as well as the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Siegman is a Lecturer in Social Studies at Harvard University (Harvard). As of June 2019, Siegman is reportedly “preparing a book manuscript entitled 'Enemies in the Aisles: the Politics of Israeli-Palestinian Market Encounter’.”

Demonizing Israel

In the summer of 2018, Siegman published a scholarly article in the Journal of Palestine Studies titled “‘Super-Israel‘: The Politics of Palestinian Labor in a Settler Supermarket.” The article claimed that Israeli supermarkets employ Palestinian labor in order to reinforce “a broad range of Israeli policies that dispossessed them and suffocated the Palestinian economy over decades.”

Siegman explained that “Palestinians are called upon to perform customer service in a setting where they are not only subjugated but are also coerced to help create the ultranationalist climate of their occupiers holidays.”

Seigman went on to charactarize the establishment of Israel as “the forcible displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians by Zionist militias” and claimed that “violent dispossession... persists here alongside everyday forms of exploitation, with military occupation an added form of power over the workers.”

On April 7, 2017, Siegman published an article condemning a piece of Israeli legislation concerning noise regulation of the Muslim call to prayer. In his article, Siegman alleged that the regulation was part of a larger conspiracy to marginalize and displace Palestinians, and that “settlement often involves this inherently tricky prospect: Israelis move quite close to Palestinians, even into the middle of Palestinian neighborhoods, as in East Jerusalem and Hebron.”

Sigman then concluded that the regulation was part of “a sweeping—and contested—project to erase and regulate the presence of the indigenous people whom they are displacing.”

Siegman contributed a chapter to a book, published in December 2013, titled “Security Blurs: The Politics of Plural Security Provision.” Siegman’s chapter was titled “The Supermarket Became an Army Base!": Security and the Military/Civilian Blur in an Israeli Settlement.”

In the outset of his chapter, Siegman wrote: “this chapter explores Israel’s settler-colonial project...through a focus [on]...the discount supermarket chains that have proliferated in Israeli settlements over the years.”

Siegman went on to argue that the security guards at supermarkets were a covert reinforcement of the idea that “any Israeli can function as security personnel, whether formally deputised by the state (as some are in the settlements) or not; any Palestinian, and Palestinianness itself, can become a target.” 

Defending Campus Anti-Israel Activists

Siegman signed a 2017 letter condemning a decision by Fordham University’s (Fordham) dean to block the establishment of a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter on campus. The letter was authored by the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) organization.

In 2016, Fordham reportedly blocked the formation of a Fordham SJP chapter “based on the reported behavior of other [SJP] chapters on other campuses,” indicating that “the establishment of a local branch could be ‘polarizing’ and pose a safety concern to students and faculty.”

Signatories demanded that Fordham “immediately rescind the rejection of SJP as a student group on campus, apologize to the students affected by this harmful decision, and reaffirm Fordham’s commitment to free speech and academic freedom.” 

The petitioners also highlighted SJP’s BDS activity, characterizing SJP’s efforts to promote anti-Israel boycott as part of “a time-honored non-violent mode of political expression.” The petition accused Fordham’s administration of a “fundamental misunderstanding of what boycotts are, the purpose of a university, and the goals of SJP.”

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in cooperation with Palestine Legal (PL), and civil rights attorney Alan Levine sued Fordham on behalf of four students in April 2017. A New York court annulled Fordham’s decision in August 2019, mandating that the university recognize SJP as an official club. 
 
Fordham appealed the ruling to the NY State Supreme Court Appellate Division in January 2020. On July 24, 2020, Fordham SJP students filed a brief asking the appellate court to deny Fordham’s appeal of the lower court’s decision.
 
As of October 2020, a variety of groups, not directly involved in the case, filed amicus briefs with the Appellate Division for the court's consideration including JVP. 

JVP Activity

On November 11, 2018, Siegman co-facilitated an event sponsored by JVP, titled “TRAINING: Come Learn about Palestine Together!” 

According to the event page, the purpose of the workshop was to offer “a clear and condensed refresher on the region—a deeper understanding of the Nakba, the 1967 War, the Green Line, Area C, settlements, Oslo, the apartheid wall, Gaza, Palestinian resistance and so much more.” 

The term “Nakba” is generally translated as “catastrophe” in Arabic, referring to the outcome of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It is a term often used to delegitimize the creation of the State of Israel by defining it as a catastrophe.

An article published on July 22, 2016, describing the activism of JVP members in the US Presidential elections, cited Siegman as an attendee to a JVP event. 

The article went on to quote Siegman, discussing strategies to shift the Democratic Party away from supporting Israel. Siegman observed, “I don’t think [Clinton] is really movable on Israel, but the people around her might be… And I think the Democratic party is movable on Israel.”

Supporting Anti-Israel Agitators

Siegman signed a petition of “Jews who stand with Representative Ilhan Omar.”



The petition, signed by Siegman, stated: “There is absolutely nothing anti-Semitic about calling out the noxious role of AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), which spends millions each year to buy U.S. political support for Israeli aggression and militarism against the Palestinian people.”

Signatories of the petition went on to write: “We thank Ilhan Omar for having the bravery to shake up the congressional taboo against criticizing Israel.”

BDS Support

In an article titled “Discussing the Calls for an Academic Boycott at the Annual Meeting,” published on October 27, 2014, Siegman was cited as one of several panelists at the annual American Anthropological Association (AAA) meeting who had chosen to dedicate his discussion to an issue related to BDS. 

Because of his topic, Siegman’s presentation at the conference was suggested by BDS activists within the AAA as one of the “PANELS TO ATTEND ON ISRAEL/PALESTINE AND THE BOYCOTT.”