Smadar Lavie

Overview

Smadar Lavie has authored several articles that define Israel as a colonial state, refer to Israel’s security barrier as the "Apartheid Wall" and deny the Jewish people’s connection to the land of Israel.

Lavie is a professor at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and supports the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

She is co-founder of the Mizrahi-Palestinian Coalition Against Apartheid in Israel in Anthropology (CAAIA).

Identifying Zionism as European Colonialism

In an article published on November 6, 2007, entitled *Colonialism and Imperialism: Zionism, *Lavie stated: "Zionism is a European ideology of Jewish nationalism whose main goal was to colonize Palestine in order to establish a Jewish state."

In the same article, Lavie went on to claim, "The Jewish state in Palestine was to redeem the Persecuted Eastern European Jews through importing European cultural technology."

She also claimed that "it [Zionism] planned to reinforce its conception of European superiority through primitivization of the native Palestinians."

On April 24, 2011, Lavie published an article, in which she discussed"the Zionist expulsion of most Palestinians from their homeland in order to carve out the State of Israel."

Later in the same article, Lavie referred to "Israel’s colonial practices against non-Jews in the West Bank and Gaza" and to “Israel’s occupation of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza.”

Accusing Israel of Apartheid and Ethnic Cleansing

On of November 17, 2014, Lavie was the guest speaker of an event co-sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP).

At the event, Lavie was reported to have "accused Israel of racism, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing, and urged audience members to engage in activism to achieve a ‘one-state’ solution that would require the dismantling of the Jewish state."

In an article published June 16, 2011, Lavie referred to the "Euro-Zionism," “Ashkenazi Zionist hegemony” and “Apartheid Wall”.

Supporting BDS

Lavie expressed her personal support for BDS by signing a 2017 petition entitled: "Anthropologists for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions".

In 2014, Lavie stated on Facebook in regards to BDS: "unofficially, most Mizrahim don't mind the BDS, given it is targeting the wealthy, well placed Ashkenazim -- the high tech and bio tech industries, academia, agro-business, etc. These are mainly for-whites-only domains in racialized 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

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/Smadar.Lavie.18/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/smadarlavie/

University Website: https://anthropology.ucdavis.edu/people/smadarlavie