Josefina Saldana-Portillo

Overview

Josefina Saldaña-Portillo [Maria Josefina Saldaña-Portillo] is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and has defended disgraced anti-Israel Professor Steven Salaita

Saldaña-Portillo is a professor of Social & Cultural Analysis at New York University (NYU).

Supporting BDS

In April 2016, Saldaña-Portillo signed a petition of NYU faculty, published by NYU Out of Occupied Palestine, calling on the university to join the BDS movement.

Saldaña-Portillo served as a National Council member of the American Studies Association (ASA) when the Council unanimously adopted a resolution in December 2013, singling out Israeli universities for academic boycott.

In a December 16, 2013 interview, former ASA President Curtis Marez acknowledged that the ASA never before called for an academic boycott of any nation’s universities, but claimed “one has to start somewhere.” No other academic boycott of any other nation has since been introduced at the ASA.

On April 20, 2016, a lawsuit was filed by ASA members against ASA officers who advanced the anti-Israel boycott. The plaintiffs accused the defendants of hijacking the ASA for personal political purposes and perverting their duties as officials of the ASA.

Saldaña-Portillo also signed an open letter, published by NYU’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) to president and CEO of TIAA-CREF Roger W. Ferguson, Jr.

Signatories of the letter wrote that “It gravely concerns us to know that a portion of TIAA-CREF retirement portfolio funds are invested in approximately thirty companies that profit from Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.”

The letter went on to state that “we urge you to divest TIAA-CREF’s funds from those companies that profit from Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.”

Defending Steven Salaita

Saldaña-Portillo 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.


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.



SJP

SJP is a student organization engaged in anti-Israel activity on North American college and university campuses.


The first chapter of SJP was founded in 2001 at the University of California at Berkeley by Professor Hatem Bazian. Bazian has spread classic anti-Semitism, reportedly promoted religious anti-Semitism and defended the Hamas terror group. In 2004, Bazian called for “intifada” in America.


SJP organizes anti-Israel campaigns, including running annual Israel Apartheid Weeks, often in collaboration with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Muslim Students Association (MSA) campus chapters.


SJP has been a major force in pushing the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement on campuses. Chapters have initiated dozens of BDS resolutions in student governments, which have been proposed on or around Jewish holidays, a time when many Jewish students are off-campus.


SJP activists have reportedly physically assaulted, intimidated and harassed Jewish students, disrupted pro-Israel campus events and demonized pro-Israel campus organizations.


Chapters have often endorsed and campaigned for numerous terrorists and whitewashed terrorism.



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