Ritika Goel

As of February 2024, Goel’s LinkedIn said she was located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Hatred of Israel

Goel retweeted an October 28, 2023 tweet from the anti-Israel activist group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) that accused Israel of committing “genocide” during its war against Hamas terrorists after the October 7, 2023 terror attacks.

On Saturday, October 7, 2023, approximately 2,900 heavily armed Hamas terrorists breached Israel’s border with Gaza. They executed numerous war crimes on civilians, including mass murder, beheadings of children, rape of men and women, torture, kidnappings and mutilation. Hamas broadcast videos of their butchery on social media, often to victims’ accounts for families to see. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.” As of November 10, 2023, over 1,200 Israelis, the vast majority of them civilians, were murdered during the attacks. Hamas kidnapped 242 Israelis, including at least 30 children. At least 3,500 people were wounded, many severely.
On May 20, 2021, Goel tweeted about Israel: “As a Canadian citizen, I feel a responsibility to hold *my* government accountable as it provides military aid to a country which has been repeatedly accused of war crimes, and is imposing a situation which concerningly meets the legal definition of apartheid…”

In May 2021, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists fired over 4,300 rockets from Gaza at major population centers in Israel. Israel responded by launching “Operation Guardian of the Walls (OGW),” carrying out targeted military strikes in Gaza.

In the same May 20, 2021 thread, Goel tweeted: “As a health community in Canada, we must support human rights and justice, denounce war crimes and support international law. Civilian attacks, the siege on Gaza, destruction of infrastructure, and Canadian military aid to Israel must end.”

The United Nations approved [pp. 39–41] the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza in 2011 as a security measure to stop Hamas from acquiring sophisticated rockets. Multiple flotillas have attempted to breach the blockade, with at least one flotilla initiating a violent confrontation with Israeli forces. 

Also on May 20, 2021, Goel tweeted: “I am incredibly proud today to join over 1000 colleagues in the health community across Canada expressing solidarity with Palestinians living under occupation, and upholding human rights and international law. There is #NoHealthUnderOccupation.”

Goel’s tweet linked to a statement she had signed that accused Israel of “the destruction of medical facilities and the deaths of health care workers” as part of “a long and deadly history of bombings, supply blockades and state-inflicted power outages, control of the movements of patients and providers…”


The statement Goel signed also said: “The current bombardment and its health impacts represent an acute exacerbation of a chronic condition rooted in the ongoing occupation.”

The same statement also called on “all health workers, educators and scholars to join us in denouncing the recent attacks on Palestinians, including the ongoing siege on Gaza, and the systematic undermining of health and civilian infrastructure in the Palestinian territories” and called on Canada “to end its military support to Israel.”

On October 3, 2015, during the Knife Intifada, Goel tweeted: “Claiming to support human rights while unequivocally supporting the state of Israel despite valid critiques. #BarbaricCulturalPractices.”

In October 2015, there was an upsurge in violence across Israel incited by Palestinian political and religious leaders. The wave of stabbings, known as the “Knife Intifada,” was characterized by young Palestinians throughout the country stabbing and attempting to stab Israeli civilians. The attacks were incited by Palestinian leaders propagating the libel that Israel intended to desecrate the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

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.