Rebecca Karl

  
Karl is a professor in the Department of History at New York University (NYU).

Supporting Anti-Israel Campus Activism

Karl signed a petition, published on April 28, 2014, expressing support for NYU’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), specifically for its anti-Israel activism on the NYU campus that targeted students in their dorm rooms.

The petition stated: “We, the undersigned NYU faculty members, believe that the First Amendment right of NYU students to express, and advocate for, their opinions on issues of public concern must be respected and protected. This includes the mock eviction notices that members of the NYU chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a recognized student organization, recently distributed in NYU dormitories.”

Karl also signed a petition of NYU faculty claiming that supporters of BDS had been targeted and unjustly disqualified from an upcoming election. The petition went on to call upon local executives to protect BDS activists and “to take a political position on the BDS resolution.”

Supporting BDS

Karl signed a petition stating that “NYU must divest itself of any holdings it may have” in Israeli companies.

The petition claimed that “Israel has turned the impoverished and densely-populated Gaza strip into the world’s largest open-air prison and launched repeated military assaults against it.”

Karl 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 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 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.”

Demonizing Israel

Karl signed a controversial petition submitted to the American Historical Association (AHA) in 2016, which alleged that “Israel’s restrictions on the movement of faculty, staff and visitors in the West Bank impede instruction at Palestinian institutions of higher learning” and that “Israel restricts the right to lecture or teach at Palestinian universities.”

The petition went on to demand that “the AHA commits itself to monitoring Israeli actions.”

Defending Steven Salaita

Karl signed a petition published on August 21, 2014, by the BDS movement 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.”

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://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/faculty/rebecca-karl.html