Miriam Lowi

Overview

Miriam Lowi is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. She has also demonized Israel in her writing and expressed support for Steven Salaita.

Lowi is a professor of Political Science at the College of New Jersey (TCNJ).

Supporting BDS

In August of 2014, Lowi signed the “Middle East Scholars and Librarians Call for Boycott of Israeli Academia.”

In signing this petition, Lowi and others committed “not to collaborate on projects and events involving Israeli academic institutions, not to teach at or to attend conferences and other events at such institutions, and not to publish in academic journals based in Israel.”

Lowi also signed a petition, published on March 5, 2014, in defense of professors supporting BDS.

Demonizing Israel

On July 23, 2015, Lowi published an article in which she claimed that “Israel's concerns are focused squarely on gaining most of historic Palestine for a Jewish state. Achieving this goal has meant the continued oppression of the Palestinian people.”

In the same article, Lowi went on to allege that “Israel's relentless finger pointing at Iran...and its increasingly hysterical insistence that the Islamic Republic represents the principal threat to regional security is, in large measure, a way to distract international attention from its own brutality in the West Bank and Gaza Strip - and now, among the Negev Bedouin as well.”

In an article published on March 10, 2014, Lowi condemned Israel for “failing to acknowledge the occupation.”

Lowi went on to describe “almost 50 years of Israel's domination and control over Palestinian land” and concluded that “If Israel genuinely wants peace with its neighbours, it will end its occupation of Palestinian land and control over the people, their resources, and livelihood.”

Supporting Steven Salaita

Lowi signed a petition, published on August 21, 2014, by the BDS movementtitled: “A Call to People of Conscience Not to Speak at the University Of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Until Chancellor Wise Honor the Contract to Hire Professor Steven Salaita.”

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.