Leila Rupp

Overview

Leila Rupp [Leila J. Rupp] has defended anti-Zionism on campus, promoted hatred of Israel and is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

She is a professorof Feminist Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).

Defending Anti-Zionism on Campus

Rupp signed a letter, authored by the anti-Israel Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) organization, opposing the inclusion of anti-Zionism as an “intolerant position” in the University of California (UC)’s proposed “Statement of Principles Against Intolerance.”

Signatories of the letter argued that “The definition of ‘anti-Zionism’ as intolerance and/or bigotry is vague and overbroad” and stated that “We believe that this formulation is now being revived by seeking to include ‘anti-Zionism’ as a form of bigotry and intolerance, and we urge you to reject that view.”

Promoting Hatred of Israel

In March 2011, Rupp signed a controversial petition, demanding that the director of a French university allow anti-Israel academic Stéphane Hessel to speak at the university.

Hessel was the author of “Indignezvous!/Time for Outrage,” in which he, among other things, which demonized Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
 
According to a letter, sent by the director in response to the petition on May 10, 2011, the reason he chose to cancel Hessel’s event was that it had been “monitored by the organizers for the boycott campaign of the Israeli state” and that “the boycott of a State is illegal in French law as well as anti-Semitic discourse.”

Supporting BDS

Rupp signed an open letter to United States President Barack Obama and the American Congress, dated July 31, 2014, condemning “the disproportionate harm that the Israeli military, which the United States has armed and supported for decades, is inflicting on the population of Gaza.”

The letter exclusively blamed Israel for the Gaza crisis and called upon the administration “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). 

Israel commenced Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in July 2014, to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.  

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

University Website:https://www.femst.ucsb.edu/people/leila-j-rupp