Roopali Mukherjee

Overview

Roopali Mukherjee is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and is an associate professor of Media Studies at Queens College (QC).

Supporting BDS

On November 14, 2014, Mukherjee signed a declaration titled: “Faculty Support Student-Workers of UAW 2865 in Standing in Solidarity with Palestinian Students and Workers and Voting YES on BDS December 4th!”

In signing the petition, Mukherjee and others called upon the university and UAW International “to divest their investments, including pension from Israeli state institutions and international companies complicit in severe and ongoing human rights violations, and on the US government to end military aid to Israel.”

On April 29, 2014, Mukherjee signed a petition to “Boycott Israeli Cinema and TV Studies Conference at Tel Aviv University.”

The petition called upon scholars to boycott an upcoming conference at Tel Aviv University (TAU) and provided a link to the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).

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: http://www.qc.cuny.edu/Academics/Degrees/DAH/MediaStudies/Pages/RoopaliMukherjee.aspx