Robert Tignor

Overview

Robert Tignor [Robert L. Tignor] promotes the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement at Princeton University (Princeton). He is professor emeritus and the Rosengarten Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Princeton.

Tignor sits on the advisory board of the United States chapter of Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (FFIPP), which works towards "an end to the occupation in Israel/Palestine" and supports BDS.

Princeton Divests Campaign

In April of 2015, Tignor was part of Princeton Divests — a coalition of Princeton students and faculty "committed to divesting from companies committing human rights violations in occupied Palestine" — that initiated a BDS referendum at Princeton. The referendum, voted on by Princeton students, was narrowly defeated.

On April 8, 2015 — several weeks before the referendum — Tignor spoke in favor of divestment on a forum organized by Princeton Divests, titled: "The Time to Divest: Palestine, South Africa, and the Moral Duty of the University."

Faculty Divestment Petitions

On November 5, 2014, Tignor signed a petition entitled "An Invitation to the Tenured Faculty at Princeton" in Princeton’s student newspaper, The Daily Princetonian. The petition invited tenured faculty to support divestment from companies “that contribute to or profit from the Israeli occupation of the West Bank until the State of Israel complies with UN Resolution 242, ends its military occupation of the West Bank and lifts its siege of Gaza.”

The faculty petition was rejected by the Resources Committee of the Council of the Princeton University Community, because it did not meet guidelines for consideration. It was reported that organizers of the faculty petition “plan to press on.”

According to Professor Max Weiss, a co-founder of the faculty divestment initiative, the “faculty petition urging divestment set the stage for the student referendum.”

In 2002, Tignor was signatory to another divestment petition at Princeton targeting Israel.

Justifying Terrorism & Portraying Israel as a Settler-Colony

On May 6, 2002 Tignor wrote an essay titled “Palestine and Israel: A Case of Incomplete Decolonization.” Tignor’s essay, written during the second intifada, normalized Palestinian terrorism against Israelis: “Violence has accompanied decolonization whenever the goal of political independence is blocked… At its core the Palestinian-Israeli clash is about political independence and ending colonial status.”

Tignor’s essay also implied that Jews have no historic connection to Israel and argued for the need to categorize Israel together with settler states “such as the former colonial Algeria, Kenya, Southern Rhodesia, Angola, Mozambique and apartheid South Africa.”

It further claimed that "Zionists insist on Israel’s historic right to Palestine, but in fact only Europe’s imperial power made Israel’s creation possible. Starting with the Balfour Declaration in 1917, the British promoted the settlement of European Jews in Palestine much as European colonial states encouraged settlers to migrate to Africa" and recommended that a two-state solution should be imposed on Israel by an “imperial power.”

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

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/robert.tignor.33

University Website:https://history.princeton.edu/people/robert-tignor