Rosalind Morris
Overview
Promoting BDS and Defending Joseph Massad
CUAD is comprised of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) members, who joined forces in February 2016. The group called on Columbia to divest its equity holdings and endowment funds from companies that — in CUAD’s words — “profit from the State of Israel’s ongoing system of settler colonialism, military occupation, and apartheid law.”
CUAD lists eight target companies that it believes “*likely* to be invested in by a university like CU,” without knowing whether Columbia actually had holdings in the corporations.
In February of 2014, Morris signed a letter written in opposition to anti-BDS legislation in New York.
In an April 2010 interview with the Electronic Intifada, Morris defended anti-Israel professor Joseph Massad after he was accused of intimidating pro-Israel students in his classroom. After his statements were publicized, Morris described Massad as a victim of intimidation and claimed he was a target of a “hunting expedition.”
Demonizing Israel at Columbia
During the second intifada, Morris signed a statement calling on Columbia to “(1) to use its influence — political and financial — to encourage the United States government to suspend its military aid and arms sales to Israel, and (2) to divest from all companies that manufacture arms and other military hardware sold to Israel.”
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
Website:
http://rozmorrisprojects.comUniversity Website: http://anthropology.columbia.edu/people/profile/353
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- Columbia
- Organizations:
- BDS
- Related Profiles:
- Marianne Hirsch,
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
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