Richard Burt
Overview
Richard Burt has promoted anti-Israel campus activism, demonized Israel anddefended disgraced anti-Israel Professor Steven Salaita. He is also a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.Burt is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Florida, Gainesville (UF).
Promoting Anti-Israel Campus Activism
Burt signed a letter, authored by the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) organization and published on January 25, 2017, condemning Fordham University’s decision to block the establishment of a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at Fordham. In 2016, Fordham reportedly blocked the formation of a Fordham SJP chapter “based on the reported behavior of other [SJP] chapters on other campuses,” indicating that “the establishment of a local branch could be ‘polarizing’ and pose a safety concern to students and faculty.”Signatories demanded that Fordham “immediately rescind the rejection of SJP as a student group on campus, apologize to the students affected by this harmful decision, and reaffirm Fordham’s commitment to free speech and academic freedom.”
The petitioners also highlighted SJP’s BDS activity, characterizing SJP’s efforts to promote anti-Israel boycott as part of “a time-honored non-violent mode of political expression.” The petition accused Fordham’s administration of a “fundamental misunderstanding of what boycotts are, the purpose of a university, and the goals of SJP.”
Demonizing Israel
In a tweet published on May 28, 2018, Burt referred to Israel as “the pariah nation.”On the same day, Burt tweeted: “yay, millennials! It's about time criticism of Israel's illegal occupation took hold.”
On February 28, 2018, Burt tweeted: “Now that Trump has appointed a pro-settler guy as ambassador to Israel, there are no restraints on Bibi.”
On January 27, 2018, Burt contributed to a thread on Twitter, advising others to “Check out the Jewish supremacist Bill Maher's ugly, insane defense of Trump moving Israel's capitol to Jerusalem.”
Television talk show host Bill Maher had broached the topic on his program earlier that day.
On January 13, 2018, Burt tweeted: “‘Supremacist’ has migrated. Now HRC [Hillary Rodham Clinton] is a female supremacist. Bibbi Netanyahu is a Jewish supremacist. And so on. It's a very useful adjective.”
Defending Steven Salaita
Burt 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.”On November 10, 2015, Burt tweeted a link to another petition supporting Salaita and wrote: “Reinstate Professor Steven Salaita - Sign the Petition!”
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.
Supporting BDS
As of January 2020, Burt was a signatory to a list of individuals endorsing the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI).In 2016, Burt signed an open letter calling for the academic boycott of Israel.
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.”
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
Twitter:https://twitter.com/hamletmachin [Private]LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-burt-9a9a554/
University Website: https://english.ufl.edu/richard-burt/
