logo

Nathalie Handal

Overview

Nathalie Handal is a poet who has used her work to demonize Israel. She has performed her poetry for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) events and is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Handal is a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University Center for Palestine Studies (Columbia).

Demonizing Israel

On December 4, 2014, Handal published an essay accusing the state of enforcing “systematic and discriminatory policy.”

In May 2015, Handal published an article titled “The Shape of Time: New Palestinian Writing,” in which she accused Israel of “the continued ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem.”

On April 7, 2016, Handal performed her poetry as part of a Boston College SJP event, “Peace Not Apartheid Week.”

Supporting BDS

Handal signed a letter, published on February 2, 2009, calling for the academic boycott of Israel. In the letter, signatories claimed that “the Israeli state has systematically dispossessed, starved, tortured, and economically exploited the Palestinian people.”

The letter went on to “call upon institutions of higher education in the U.S. to cut ties with Israeli academic institutions, dissolve study abroad programs in Israel, and divest institutional funds from Israeli companies, using the 1980s boycott against apartheid South Africa as a model.”

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.



SJP

SJP is a student organization engaged in anti-Israel activity on North American college and university campuses.


The first chapter of SJP was founded in 2001 at the University of California at Berkeley by Professor Hatem Bazian. Bazian has spread classic anti-Semitism, reportedly promoted religious anti-Semitism and defended the Hamas terror group. In 2004, Bazian called for “intifada” in America.


SJP organizes anti-Israel campaigns, including running annual Israel Apartheid Weeks, often in collaboration with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Muslim Students Association (MSA) campus chapters.


SJP has been a major force in pushing the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement on campuses. Chapters have initiated dozens of BDS resolutions in student governments, which have been proposed on or around Jewish holidays, a time when many Jewish students are off-campus.


SJP activists have reportedly physically assaulted, intimidated and harassed Jewish students, disrupted pro-Israel campus events and demonized pro-Israel campus organizations.


Chapters have often endorsed and campaigned for numerous terrorists and whitewashed terrorism.




Nathalie Handal
Status:
Professor
University:
Columbia
Organizations:
BDS,
SJP

Related Profiles:
Marianne Hirsch,

Last Modified:
06/23/2025

Photos & Screenshots

13 images