Manu Goswami

Overview

Manu Goswami has defended intimidation tactics by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) on campus and is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Goswami is an associate professor in the Department of History at New York University (NYU).

Defending SJP Intimidation Tactics

Goswami signed a petition, published on April 28, 2014, defending controversial intimidation tactics by NYU’s SJP chapter.

The petition stated that “We, the undersigned NYU faculty members, believe that the First Amendment right of NYU students to express, and advocate for, their opinions on issues of public concern must be respected and protected. This includes the mock eviction notices that members of the NYU chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a recognized student organization, recently distributed in NYU dormitories.”

In April 2014, SJP at NYU served fake eviction notices to undergraduate students. According to a report, the notices, slipped under the doors of the students’ dormitories, read “We regret to inform you that your suite is scheduled for demolition in three days...If you do not vacate the premise by midnight on 25 April, 2014, we reserve the right to destroy all remaining belongings. Charges for demolition will be applied to your student accounts.”

One NYU student was quoted stating that "It's an attack on the Jewish community… It's specifically targeting Jewish students, which makes them feel not so safe."

After serving the notices, NYU SJP released a statement validating their campaign, claiming that “Through its policy of housing demolitions, Israel aims to ethnically cleanse Israel/Palestine of its Arab inhabitants in a systematic manner.”

Supporting BDS

In February 2016, Goswami signed the “South Asian Studies Scholars’ Statement of Boycott of Academic Workshop at Hebrew University.”

In signing the statement, Ray and others alleged that “many students and youth were killed, arrested, kidnapped, placed in administrative (indefinite) detention, and tortured by Israeli soldiers and settlers.”

The petition went on to accuse Israel of “extrajudicial assassinations by soldiers, lynchings by settlers, arson attacks that killed toddlers and families, and daily racist harassment.”

Goswami also signed a petition stating that “NYU must divest itself of any holdings it may have” in Israeli companies.

The petition claimed that “Israel has turned the impoverished and densely-populated Gaza strip into the world’s largest open-air prison and launched repeated military assaults against it.”

Goswami 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 Gazan civilian 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), which Israel commenced in July of 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://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/faculty/manu-goswami.html