Purnima Bose
Overview
Purnima Bose is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) and has defended disgraced anti-Israel Professor Steven Salaita.Supporting BDS
As of January 2020, Bose was a signatory to a list of individuals endorsing the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI).In 2015, Bose signed an open letter to the MLA “calling on the association to pass a resolution endorsing the boycott of Israeli academic institutions.”
The open letter was addressed to the Modern Language Association (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.”
On December 13, 2013, Bose signed a letter, published by the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, congratulating the American Studies Association (ASA) on its endorsement of the academic boycott of Israel.
Signatories of the petition wrote that “Israeli academia has never been a catalyst for change; it is at the core of Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies... We must refuse support for all institutions that downplay, whitewash, or contribute to Israel’s criminal actions against Palestinians.”
In 2009, Bose also signed an open letter published by the USACBI to former US President Barack Obama urging him to join the BDS Movement.
The USACBI letter accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and compared Israel to Apartheid South Africa and concluded that “Israel too maintains an apartheid regime.”
After charging Israel with inflicting “one of the most massive, ethnocidal atrocities of modern times,” the signatories called upon Obama to join in the BDS movement.
Defending Steven Salaita
Bose signed a petition titled: “A Call to People of Conscience Not to Speak at the University Of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Until Chancellor Wise Honor [sic] the Contract to Hire Professor Steven Salaita,” a petition published on August 21, 2014 by the BDS movement.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:https://english.indiana.edu/about/faculty/bose-purnima.htmlSecond University Website: https://hls.indiana.edu/faculty/directory/bose-purnima.html
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- Univ Indiana, Bloomington UI
- Organizations:
- BDS
- Related Profiles:
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
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