Joan Landes
Overview
Joan Landes [Joan B. Landes] has expressed support for anti-Israel agitators and demonized Israel.Landes is the Ferree Professor Emeritus of Early Modern History and Women's Studies in the Department of History at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State).
Supporting Anti-Israel Agitators
In January 2018, Landes signed a petition titled: “Free the Tamimi Women,” calling to “demand that Ahed, Narmian, Nour, Manal and all members of the Tamimi family be released now.”In addition to signing the petition, Landes also wrote a comment stating: “Your actions are unconscionable. Release all the Palestinian prisoners and end the occupation.”
Demonizing Israel
Landes signed an open letter demonizing Israel and calling for an end to foreign aid.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.”
The letter was in response to Operation Protective Edge (OPE), which Israel commenced in July 2014, to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.
After charging Israel with inflicting “one of the most massive, ethnocidal atrocities of modern times,” the signatories called upon Obama to join in the BDS movement.
The USACBI letter accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and compared Israel to Apartheid South Africa and concluded that “Israel too maintains an apartheid regime.”
After charging Israel with inflicting “one of the most massive, ethnocidal atrocities of modern times,” the signatories called upon Obama to join in the BDS movement.
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
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- Penn-State
- Organizations:
- BDS
- Related Profiles:
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
Photos & Screenshots
