Michael Meranze
Overview
Michael Meranze has defended anti-Zionism and is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and has expressed support for disgraced anti-Israel Professor Steven Salaita.Meranze is a professor in the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Defending Anti-Zionism
On March 23, 2016, Meranze was reported to have condemned legislation, unanimously adopted by the regents of the University of California (UC), which expanded UC’s definition of anti-Semitism to incorporate anti-Zionism.The regents’ final report, underpinning the regents’ move, observed: “Recently, in the context of debates about Israel and its neighbors, members of the UC community have come forward with concerns that anti-Semitic stereotypes and tropes of Jewish people appear coded as political discourse about Israel and its policies.”
The report also noted: “opposition to Zionism often is expressed in ways that are not simply statements of disagreement over politics and policy, but also assertions of prejudice and intolerance toward Jewish people and culture.”
On March 22, 2016, Meranze published a blog post, condemning the prohibition of anti-Zionism because, he claimed: “anti-Zionism, whatever your perspective on it, is a political position and as a result is protected political and academic speech.”
In his post, Meranze placed calls for Israel’s destruction and attacks on its legitimacy on the same footing as theoretical “discussions of whether... Kurds, Taiwanese, Tibetans, Northern Cypriots“ and others “should have a right to have independent states.”
Meranze concluded with a call to the regents to reject the final report which would have included anti-Zionism as a form of anti-Semitism.
Supporting BDS
Meranze 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).
Israel commenced Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in July 2014, to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.
The petition went on to state that “Our country has an extraordinary leverage on Israeli policy, if only our government would dare to use it. As American Jews... we call on our government to make continued aid conditional on Israeli acceptance of an internationally agreed two-state settlement.”
Supporting Steven Salaita
In August 2014, Meranze published an article condemning the decision to withdraw Steven Salaita’s tenured position at the University of Illinois (U of I). In his article, Meranze argued that Salaita’s case was an issue of “academic freedom and expression” and went on to suggest that the decision to fire him had been “politically motivated.”In 2014, The University of Illinois withdrew an offer of employment to Salaita after becoming aware of his anti-Semitic tweets. One tweet, posted shortly after Hamas kidnapped three teenage Israeli high school students, read: "You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f**king West Bank settlers would go missing.” In 2017, Salaita posted to Facebook: “People ask if I would go back in time and change anything. I would not…I will die unapologetic.” In February 2019, Salaita stated that he had become a school bus driver in the Washington, D.C., area.
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:http://www.history.ucla.edu/faculty/michael-meranze
- Status:
- Professor
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- Organizations:
- BDS
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- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
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