Margot Backus
Overview
Margot Backus has demonized Israel, supported an anti-Israel agitator and expressed support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.As of January 2020, Backus is a Professor in the English Department at the University of Houston (UH).
Demonizing Israel
In 2016, Backus signed an open letter to Neera Tanden, the President of the Center for American Progress (CAP), condemning CAP and calling on her to: “Disinvite Netanyahu,” after the Center invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak.The letter said: “Netanyahu is #NotProgressive and has no business speaking at a self-defined progressive policy institute” and that“as a self-defined progressive policy institute, CAP would be dishonoring its mission by allowing its venue to be used by Netanyahu to promote his hateful, discriminatory and racist policies toward Palestinians.”
Signatories of the letter went on to claim that “Netanyahu—and Israel's apartheid rule over Palestinians—is not progressive.”
Supporting Anti-Israel Agitator
In 2016, Backus signed an open letter to Senator John Kerry, authored by CODEPINK, demanding that Kerry “call on the Israeli government to drop the politically-motivated charges against Issa Amro.”CODEPINK engages in regular actions to harm the State of Israel, aggressively promotes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and has been criticized for maintaining close ties to the Hamas regime in Gaza.
Backus also wrote a comment on the petition, stating: “This is NOT what democracy looks like. This is what oppression and tyranny look like. If Israel makes it impossible to work nonviolently — well, then, I guess they get what they apparently like — a Palestinian populace where people are either too cowed to speak up at all, and where the only kind of activism that can be undertaken is by those who are goaded into advocating or committing violent acts.”
Anti-Israel agitator Issa Amro is known for vandalism and attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians. Amro heads the Youth Against Settlements (YAS) movement, an anti-Israel organization based in Hebron that promotes anti-Semitism, rock-throwing and violence against Israelis.
Supporting BDS
In 2015, Backus signed an open letter to the MLA “calling on the association to pass a resolution endorsing the boycott of Israeli academic institutions.”In January 2017, the MLA Delegate Assembly approved a resolution (2017-1) acknowledging “the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel contradicts the MLA’s purpose” and conflicted with another resolution (2002-1), that condemned boycotts against scholars. Therefore, the Assembly “resolved that the MLA refrain from endorsing the boycott.”
In 2016, Backus signed another open letter to the MLA “calling on the association to pass a resolution endorsing the boycott of Israeli academic institutions.”
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.uh.edu/class/english/people/faculty/margot/
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- Houston
- Organizations:
- BDS
- Related Profiles:
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
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