Joseph Palermo

Overview

Joseph Palermo has expressed support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and has promoted hatred of Israel.

Palermo is a professor in the Department of History at Sacramento State University (Sacramento State).

Supporting BDS

On July 27, 2015, Palermo shared an article on his Twitter, titled: “Why I Support the BDS Movement Against Israel.” 

The article stated that “Sanctions brought down the apartheid regime of South Africa. And they are what will bring down the apartheid regime of Israel,” and went on to charge that “Israel’s goal is to make life a living hell for all Palestinians, ethnically cleansing as many as it can and subduing those who remain.”

Palermo 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.”
On July 9, 2014, Palermo tweeted: “The only thing Netanyahu is going to accomplish with the IDF's latest assault on Gaza will be to give a shot in the arm to the BDS movement.”

Promoting Hatred of Israel

On August 15, 2019, Palermo tweeted that Israel’s then-Prime Minister was “a bigot & a racist.”

On June 2, 2019, Palermo tweeted that Israel’s then- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a “war-mongering corrupt ideologue.”

On May 28, 2019, Palermo tweeted that conservatives in the U.S. were encouraging America to go to war with Iran “to help Israel & Saudi Arabia & profiteers.”

On July 23, 2018, Palermo tweeted that “Today Israel’s ambassador calls for a US war against #Iran quoting Trump’s warmongering tweets to great applause from those attending the ‘Christians United for Israel’ event...”

On January 12, 2016, Palermo tweeted that “It took a while, but now we know for certain: Israel intentionally attacked and killed Americans”

On June 23, 2014, Palermo tweeted: “I'm tired of Mark Regev's voice on CNN lying to Wolf Blitzer and spewing his self-serving rhetoric about how it's great to kill babies #Gaza.”

Demonizing Supporters of Israel

On March 6, 2019, Palermo tweeted: “.@AIPAC has been a regressive force inside Am politics for decades: It seeks to silence ANY criticism of Bibi Netanyahu's [Israel’s then Prime Minister] policies.”

The stated mission of AIPAC is to “strengthen, protect and promote the U.S.-Israel relationship in ways that enhance the security of the United States and Israel.”

Palermo continued that AIPAC “has enormous influence [about] what can and cannot be said about the government of Israel's policies in the West Bank & Gaza Strip - #IStandWithIlhanOmar.”

Palermo’s tweet referred to a March 1, 2019 event where U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar suggested that supporters of Israel were disloyal to America, saying [00:00:42]: “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.”
 
Following Omar’s March 1, 2019 presentation at Busboys&Poets TownHall, then-Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressman Elliot Engel, issued an online statement describing Omar’s comments [00:04:08] as a “vile anti-Semitic slur” as well as “unacceptable and deeply offensive.” 

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JosephPalermo1

University Website: http://csus.edu/hist/faculty%20webpages/palermo.html