Linda Dittmar
Overview
Linda Dittmar has supported the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and demonized Israel.Dittmar is a professor emerita of English at the University of Massachusetts, Boston (UMB).
Supporting BDS
Dittmar signed a January 25, 2017 letter, authored by the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) organization, condemning Fordham University’s decision to block the establishment of a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at Fordham.In 2016, Fordham reportedly blocked the formation of a Fordham SJP chapter “based on the reported behavior of other [SJP] chapters on other campuses,” indicating that “the establishment of a local branch could be ‘polarizing’ and pose a safety concern to students and faculty.”
Signatories demanded that Fordham “immediately rescind the rejection of SJP as a student group on campus, apologize to the students affected by this harmful decision, and reaffirm Fordham’s commitment to free speech and academic freedom.”
The petitioners also highlighted SJP’s BDS activity, characterizing SJP’s efforts to promote anti-Israel boycott as part of “a time-honored non-violent mode of political expression.” The petition accused Fordham’s administration of a “fundamental misunderstanding of what boycotts are, the purpose of a university, and the goals of SJP.”
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in cooperation with Palestine Legal (PL), and civil rights attorney Alan Levine sued Fordham on behalf of four students in April 2017. A New York court annulled Fordham’s decision in August 2019, mandating that the university recognize SJP as an official club.
Fordham appealed the ruling to the NY State Supreme Court Appellate Division in January 2020. On July 24, 2020, Fordham SJP students filed a brief asking the appellate court to deny Fordham’s appeal of the lower court’s decision.
As of October 2020, a variety of groups, not directly involved in the case, filed amicus briefs with the Appellate Division for the court's consideration including JVP.
Dittmar also signed a March 27, 2014 petition “in support of the academic boycott of Israel.”
Signatories of the petition claimed that “institutions, Israeli universities—almost all of them state institutions—are demonstrably complicit with egregious violations of Palestinian human rights” and committed to “ceasing to collaborate with and support state institutions that perpetuate human rights violations.”
Dittmar signed an open letter to former United States President Barack Obama, published on January 12, 2009.
The letter, published by the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI), accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing,” 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 the BDS movement.
Demonizing Israel
On November 2, 2017, Dittmar published part one of a memoir, chronicling her travels through Israel and her encounter with “the Nakba.”The term “Nakba” is generally translated as “catastrophe” in Arabic, referring to the outcome of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It is a term often used to delegitimize the creation of the State of Israel by defining it as a catastrophe.
In her memoir, Dittmar wrote how, as an Israeli woman, “Exposing the Nakba would be a transgression, violating the unspoken rules that let us, Israelis, believe in and celebrate the justice of our national becoming.”
Dittmar also contributed a chapter to the book, “Shifting Sands: Jewish American Women Confront the Occupation,” published in 2010.
Dittmar signed a petition, published on January 30, 2003, which stated that “With an average of more than $10 million dollars per day of American tax dollars going to Israel, we believe Americans cannot remain silent while crimes as abhorrent as ethnic cleansing are being openly advocated.”
Dittmar also signed another open letter, authored by “an ad hoc group of Jewish women activists,”that stated: “we take our inspiration from the long history of Jewish participation in struggles for liberation and justice for all peoples, a history which is stained by Israel's current status as an abusive occupying power.”
The letter went on to “call upon American Jews to join us in speaking out in every way you can. Contact the Israeli Consulate… Challenge those around you who continue to support Israel uncritically. Educate yourselves about Israeli violations ofPalestinian human rights.”
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.umb.edu/academics/cla/faculty/linda_dittmar
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- Massachusetts-Boston
- Organizations:
- BDS
- Related Profiles:
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
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