Sonya Rose

Overview

Sonya Rose has demonized Israel and is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. She has also advocated for vocal pro-Hamas Professor Imad Ahmad Barghouthi.

Rose is a professor emerita in the Department of History at the University of Michigan (UMich).

Demonizing Israel

Rose added her name to a list of supporters of Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JFJFP), published on April 26, 2018.

Signatories of the list endorsed JFJFP’s “About Us” statement, which claimed that “Peace requires ending Israel’s illegal occupation and settlement of Palestinian land, including its illegal blockade of Gaza.” The statement also said that “The humanitarian values of Judaism have been corrupted by the Israeli state’s abuses of human rights.”

As of May 24, 2018, JFJFP “What We Do” page said the organization worked to “counter Israel’s ‘Hasbara’ (self promotion) strategy, designed to present Israel as a ‘normal’ advanced democracy” and to “morally and financially” support other anti-Israel groups.   

Rose signed another JFJFP petition, published on October 1, 2013, which stated that, among other things, the organization seeks “to ensure that Jewish opinions critical of Israeli policy are heard in Britain” and “work to build world-wide Jewish opposition to the Israeli Occupation, with like-minded groups around the world.”

Rose signed a petition, published on December 7, 2012 by Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), which accused Jewish communal organisations of consistently putting “support for the policies of an occupying power above the human rights of an occupied people.”

The petition went on to “reject the collective punishment of the population of Gaza, the continuing occupation and the expansion of the settlements in violation of international law.”

Rose signed another letter, published by numerous organizations including IJV on December 1, 2009, in “support of the Goldstone Report.”

The Goldstone Report was the product of a 2009 United Nations Fact-Finding Mission, sent to investigate Operation Cast Lead (OCL), which Israel commenced in 2008-09 in order to stop Hamas rocket fire from Gaza targeting Israeli civilians.

Following widespread criticism and rejection of the report for its “methodological failings, legal and factual errors, and falsehoods.” Judge Richard Goldstone, who authored the, expressed “regrets about his report” and retracted its central thesis.

In an article published in April 2011, Goldstone wrote that while “the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying.... The allegations of intentionality by Israel… had no evidence on which to draw.” Goldstone concluded that “If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.”

Supporting BDS

Rose signed a letter, authored by the anti-Israel Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) organization and published on January 25, 2017, condemning Fordham University’s decision to block the establishment of a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at its campus.

Signatories specifically defended SJP’s BDS activity, characterizing their efforts to boycott Israel as “a time-honored non-violent mode of political expression.”

The JVP letter went on to demand that Fordham “immediately rescind the rejection of SJP as a student group on campus, apologize to the students affected by this harmful decision, and reaffirm Fordham’s commitment to free speech and academic freedom.”

Rose signed an open letter to United States President Barack Obama and the American Congress, dated July 31, 2014, condemning “the disproportionate harm that the Israeli military, which the United States has armed and supported for decades, is inflicting on the population of Gaza.”

The letter exclusively blamed Israel for the Gazan civilian crisis  and called upon the administration “to suspend US military aid to Israel, until there is assurance that this aid will no longer be used for the commission of war crimes.”

The letter was in response to Operation Protective Edge (OPE).  

Israel commenced Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in July 2014, to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.  

Rose also signed a controversial petition submitted to the American Historical Association (AHA) in 2016, which alleged that “Israel’s restrictions on the movement of faculty, staff and visitors in the West Bank impede instruction at Palestinian institutions of higher learning,” and that “Israel routinely refuses to allow students from Gaza to travel in order to pursue higher education abroad or at West Bank universities.”

The petition went on to demand “That the AHA commits itself to monitoring Israeli actions restricting the right to education in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”

Supporting Imad Ahmad Barghouthi

Rose signed an open letter addressed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in support of vocal pro-Hamas professor Imad Ahmad Barghouthi.

The letter was co-published by JVP and USACBI.

The signatories called upon Prime Minister Netanyahu “to order the immediate release of Dr. Imad Ahmad Barghouthi from Israeli military custody.”