Joshua Schreier

Overview

Joshua Schreier is an Associate Professor of History and Director of Jewish Studies at Vassar College. Schreier teaches a course at Vassar called "The Roots of the Palestine-Israel Conflict".

Schreier supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The Observer named Schreier "the preeminent Jewish proponent of the anti-Israel Boycott Divest Sanction (BDS) movement."

On November 17, 2015, Schreier featured at a presentation co-hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine at Vassar (SJP Vassar) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP Vassar) , to discuss "faithwashing and normalization."

Teaching Lopsided History

Schreier’s Fall 2008 description for his course titled The Roots of the Palestine-Israel Conflictconfirmed Schreier’s long-standing anti-Israel bias: Schreier noted that the "main inquiries" would include: “Why does Palestine, an area of the Ottoman Empire where the vast majority of people were Arabic-speaking Muslims only 70 years ago, currently host a "Jewish" state whose leadership claims to represent, first and foremost, only one of the ethnic/national communities living there?”

Schreier’s course description also advised: "Students should keep in mind that this course is NOT designed to present ‘an objective’ account of a ‘two-sided’ conflict."

True to the course description, Schreier’s course centered on material from numerous anti-Israel sources — while excluding works that might balance the anti-Israel side. The course material included Columbia University's Rashid Khalidi, UCLA's James Gelvin, UC Berkeley's Beshara Doumani, and Nur Masalha of Saint Mary's College (UK).

The class’ section on "Intifada and Hamas" neglected to include Hamas’ Charter — which calls for eternal war against the Jews— claiming “Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people.”

For the section of the course entitled "Establishing a Jewish "Ethnocracy," Schreier included The “Apartheid Laws of South Africa" as core reading.

More recently — in January of 2014— Schreier is reported to have written that although he would "never" equate Israel and South Africa he also believed it “hard to deny that both countries maintain (or maintained) hierarchies based on race or, in Israel, what is often called “nationality.”

On May 7, 2010, Campus Watch publicized unedited transcripts from an interview with Schreier, where he said "there's been a new field that's been invented… called Israel Studies." Schreier says this is a way for funders “to give money to universities to hire people who they're going to agree with..” because Middle Eastern studies - ”they would say is the anti-Israel bias...It's a way of subverting it, in a way.”

Schreier also slammed the Israel studies program for claiming anti-Israel bias in the Middle East Studies curriculum.

Delegitimizing Israel

In a November 15, 2015 article published by JP Updates, a Jewish Vassar student reported that during a workshop on the "Origins of Zionism," Schreier “delegitimized the Israeli nation-state, asserting that Jews lack any historical connection to present-day Israel and stole the land from the indigenous Arabs.”

Boycotting Israeli Academic Institutions

On February 28, 2014, Schreier signed an open letter from 39 Vassar College faculty members objecting to Vassar College President and faculty Dean condemnation of academic boycotts of Israeli colleges. Schreier supports the American Studies Association vote, on December 13, 2013, that endorsing an academic boycott of Israel.

On April 15, 2014, in an interview published in the Vassar Chronicle, Schreier described boycotting Israeli academic institutions as " just one corner of this larger movement to put pressure on the Israeli regime."

Schreier went on to say - "the real pressure is going to come when major corporations and banks start not wanting to do business with them. But, for the time being, it’s [academic boycotts] certainly getting attention."

Misrepresenting Arab Rights in Israel

In an April 15, 2014 interview about academic freedom, Schreier claimed that, "It doesn’t exist in many ways in Israel because there are so many limits on whether Arabs, either Israelis or Palestinians, in the occupied territories have access to universities in Israel."

Schreier failed to cite any specific examples for his claim that there are "limits placed on Arab student groups and Arab expression on Israeli universities...you could say that some of it exists only for a specific class of people who live in Israel/Palestine."

Demonizing Zionism

In an interview published by Campus Watch on May 7, 2010, Schreier maligned and misrepresented the policies and actions of the Zionist movement at the time of Israel’s founding, stating "the Zionist project has been of emancipation, but for a very specific group of people… it's been necessarily exclusive towards others. Murderously exclusive, at certain points."

Promoting Discord and Blood Libels

On February 1, 2016 JVP Vassar and SJP Vassar partnered to form the Vassar Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (VBDS) Coalition.

On February 3, 2016, VBDS’ promoted an event sponsored by Vassar's American Studies Program and co-sponsored by seven other academic departments and programs that featured Rutgers Associate Professor — and hate speech purveyor — Jasbir Puar, speaking on "Inhumanist Biopolitics: How Palestine Matters." Puar began her speech by calling for an armed struggle against Israel. She then went on to thoroughly demonize Israel. Puar suggested that Israelis harvest the organs of dead Palestinians and claimed that Israel is maiming and “stunting” Palestinians by food restrictions — despite Gaza having one of the highest obesity rates in the world. Puar concluded that the reason Israeli Jews have not killed Palestinians is “[t]hey need the Palestinians alive in order to keep the kind of rationalization for their victimhood and their militarized economy.”

On February 10, 2016, Ziva Dahl, a fellow with the Haym Salomon Center, attended the Puar event reported in the Algemeiner, "When I asked Schreier whether he believed Puar’s outlandish accusations, he responded, ‘You prove to me that anything she said wasn’t true.’"

SJP Vassar - Spreading Incitement  

In February 2016, SJP Vassar’s Facebook page said that the group sought a “full decolonization of Palestinian lands,” a call to dismantle the state of Israel.

On October 21, 2013, SJP Vassar posted an article on Facebook alleging that Israel was carrying out a campaign to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The allegation that Jews “threaten” to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque has been a traditional pretext for Arab attacks on Jews long before the existence of the modern Jewish state.

Such propaganda served as the excuse for an upsurge in Palestinian violence that flared in the fall of 2015 and incited Palestinians to attempt mass casualty attacks on Israeli civilians in July 2016.  

SJP Vassar - Support for Terror

In February 2016, SJP Vassar announced that they would be selling "sweet fucking antiZionist gear" at their future events, such as a T-shirt featuring gun-toting terrorist Leila Khaled.

Khaled was a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and participated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 840 in 1969 and El Al Flight 219 in 1970.

In a 2014 interview, Khaled opined that the Palestinian second intifada failed because it was not violent enough.

SJP Vassar also advertised the sale of “Existence is Resistance” T-shirts, which include various designs featuring the words “Straight Outta F**k Israel” a picture of a masked gunman, as well as the Leila Khaled T-shirt.
  
On October 6, 2015, SJP Vassar whitewashed Palestinian terrorist Fadi Aloon as a civilian who was shot while “run[ning] from a racist mob.” 

Fadi Aloon was shot by Israeli security forces after he stabbed a 15-year-old Israeli boy. Several hours before the attack, Aloon posted “Either martyrdom or victory” on his Facebook page.

SJP Vassar - Spreading Hate  

In May 2014, SJP Vassar was forced to issue an apology for posting a Nazi-style, anti-Semitic cartoon on its Tumblr account. Vassar’s President, Catharine Hill, announced a review of SJP Vassar’s status as a student group, and said that Vassar would probe use of the image “as a bias incident under college regulations.”

In late February 2014, SJP Vassar staged a protest against a proposed class trip to Israel, outside the classroom of the professor leading the trip. The belligerent behavior of the SJP Vassar members left the professor and her students feeling harassed and intimidated.

On March 3, 2014, Vassar held an open forum to discuss the “ethics” of the class trip to Israel. SJP Vassar members turned out to picket the event. Reports from attendees were that “Jewish kids who spoke were heckled” and drowned out with a finger snapping noise and loudly laughed at” and that “rage against Israel was the theme.”  

In February 2014, SJP Vassar shared a video called “This Divestment Hurts my Feelings.”

On March 4, 2014, SJP Vassar mocked pro-Israel students on Facebook who felt “attacked” and  “vulnerable” after receiving fake eviction notices in their dorm rooms.

In April 2014, the group posted on Facebook a cartoon ridiculing pro-Israel college students for feeling attacked and unsafe. 

SJP Vassar - Honoring Human Shield

In November 2014, SJP Vassar co-sponsored a play with JVP Vassar honoring the memory of International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist Rachel Corrie. 

ISM

Promoting BDS at Vassar

On February 1, 2016 JVP Vassar and SJP Vassar partnered to form the Vassar Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (VBDS) Coalition, which sought to pass a resolution that would be considered by the Vassar Student Association (VSA) on March 6, 2016. 

The resolution, which was co-authored by Rosen, demanded that Vassar “boycott and divest from the main colonizing force in Israel/Palestine, Zionism." The resolution also aimed to prohibit using student funds to purchase goods from 11 companies that had ties to Israel, such as Ben & Jerry’s and Sabra Hummus.

VBDS organized over a month and a half of anti-Israel events, culminating in Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), to advocate for the divestment resolution’s passage. 

Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) is presented as “an international series of events that seek to raise awareness of Israel’s settler-colonial project and apartheid system over the Palestinian people” and build support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. IAW has been re-named Palestine Awareness Week.

JVP Vassar - Demonizing Israel  

In March 2015, JVP Vassar and SJP Vassar co-sponsored an event featuring Dr. Sa'ed Atshan, speaking on “resistance in Palestine.” Atshan, a leading proponent of BDS, wants the Jewish state to be dissolved in favor of another democratic state, but stripped of its Jewish majority.

On November 19, 2015, JVP Vassar promoted an initiative called “Renounce Birthright,” calling on Jews aged 18-26 to renounce a free trip to Israel provided by Birthright. The Renounce Birthright initiative states “We are young Jews living in the diaspora committed to mobilizing for the abolition of Birthright.” 

According to the site, anybody that visits Israel on Birthright is “willfully taking advantage of [his or her] racial privilege” and “complicit in sustaining the occupation.”

On November 17, 2015 JVP Vassar shared an article on Facebook titled “The way for Americans to take on the Islamic state is to end support for Jewish nationalism.” commenting “We are Jewish, we stand against the oppressive Israeli state, and we will not be ignored.”

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.

JVP

JVP was founded in Berkeley, California in 1996, as an activist group with an emphasis on the “Jewish tradition” of peace, social justice and human rights. The organization is currently led by Rebecca Vilkomerson and its board members include Israel critics Naomi Klein, Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky and Tony Kushner.

JVP, which generally employs civil disobedience tactics to disrupt pro-Israel speakers and events, consists of American Jews and non-Jewish “allies” highly critical of Israeli policies. A staunch supporter of the BDS movement, JVP claims to aim its campaigns at companies that either support the Israeli military (Hewlett-Packard) or are active in the West Bank (SodaStream).

Although several Jewish groups critical of Israeli policies, like J Street and Partners for a Progressive Israel, make efforts to operate within the mainstream American Jewish community, JVP functions outside. The group is often criticized for serving as a tokenized Jewish voice for the pro-Palestinian camp and is widely regarded as the BDS movement’s “Jewish wing.” 

JVP denies the notion of “Jewish peoplehood” and has even gone so far as to refer to its own Ashkenazi (Jews who spent the Diaspora in European countries) leadership as “white supremacy inside of JVP.”

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has accused JVP of being “the largest and most influential Jewish anti-Zionist group in the United States,” and said the group “exploits Jewish culture and rituals to reassure its own supporters that opposition to Israel not only does not contradict, but is actually consistent with, Jewish value.”

The ADL also claimed that “JVP consistently co-sponsors rallies to oppose Israeli military policy that are marked by signs and slogans  comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, demonizing Jews and voicing support for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.”

According to the ADL website, JVP “uses its Jewish identity to shield the anti-Israel movement from allegations of anti-Semitism and provide it with a greater degree of legitimacy and credibility.”

Social Media and Weblinks

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/joshua.schreier.77

Twitter: https://twitter.com/joschreier

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-schreier-b67a195

University Website: https://www.vassar.edu/faculty/joschreier

University Website:https://mesana.org/mymesa/directory_mem.php?page=/mymesa/meeting_program_session.php?sid=4da380bcc2ea5f6309b503f9e9e2b7f8&mem=0624a096b6edfa274ff0d967cdfd40c4

Academia.edu: https://vassar.academia.edu/JoshuaSchreier