Naor Ben-Yehoyada

Overview

Naor Ben-Yehoyada is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanction (BDS) movement and was a leading participant in a controversial conference aimed at contemplating the dissolution of Israel.

Ben-Yehoyada signed a letter of Israeli anthropologists in support of a petition by the American Anthropological Association (AAA) BDS petition and has characterized Israel as a colonialist state.

He is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University (Columbia).

Anti-Israel Conference

In March of 2012, Harvard hosted a highly controversial conference entitled “The One-State Conference: Israel/Palestine and the One State Solution,” whose subject was the dissolution of Israel as a Jewish state.

Despite the university’s insistence that it was an entirely student-run initiative, not officially supported by the institution, several professors took leading roles in the planning and execution of the event.

Ben-Yehoyada was a leading participant in the conference.

Demonizing Israel

As a student at Harvard in 2006, Ben-Yehoyada participated in a Gaza Vigil on campus.

In an article published by the university paper on November 16, 2006, Ben-Yehoyada was quoted saying that “This is a political demonstration. It can’t be apolitical because the Israeli occupation of Gaza is political.”

In 2007, Ben-Yehoyada was part of a campaign at Harvard called “Harvard War Criminals,” which protested against IDF officers studying at Harvard Business School and other IDF visitors to the school.

As part of the campaign, Ben-Yehoyada distributed “Wanted” fliers, featuring the face of former Israeli Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, under the caption, “War Criminal.”

Support for BDS Ben-Yehoyada was one of several Israeli anthropologists who signed a letter published on September 10, 2014 in support of the American Anthropology Association’s (AAA) BDS petition.

Characterizing Israel as a Colonialist State

Ben-Yehoyada published an article in April of 2012 entitled “The reluctant seafarers: fishing, self-acculturation and the stumbling Zionist colonisation of the Palestine Coast in the interbellum period,” throughout which he characterized the “Zionist project” as an exercise in colonialism.

This accusation was reiterated on December 1, 2013, when Ben-Yehoyada published an article in which he described Israel as a “Colonial modernization project”.

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

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/naor.benyehoyada

Twitter:https://twitter.com/naorben [Private]

Status:: Professor
University:: Columbia

Organizations:: BDS
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Last Modified:: 06/23/2025

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