Susy Zepeda

She has defended anti-Zionism on campus, promoted anti-Israel activists and expressed support for Hamas-affiliated anti-Israel activist Imad Ahmad Barghouthi.

As of September 2019, Zepeda was an assistant professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis).    

Supporting BDS

Zepeda signed a statement from University of California (UC) faculty, published on March 9, 2015, in support of a divestment resolution on campus and calling on the university “to refrain from investing in certain companies that openly assist the Israeli government and army in the occupation of Palestine.”

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

UAW 2865 is a union representing “19,000+ Tutors, Readers, Graduate Student Instructors and Teaching Assistants at the University of California.’

Signatories said they were: “supporting BDS as a vehicle to challenge Israel’s violations of human rights” and claimed that “Israeli universities are complicit with the occupation and the state’s human rights violations.” 

The statement further said that “Palestinian universities are regularly targeted by the Israeli state with violence and repression. There is a long record of Israeli universities arresting, harassing, and repressing Palestinian student protests and political activities. Similar racism in apartheid South Africa led to students and professors in the U.S. engaging in boycott and divestment; increasingly, they are doing the same to challenge bigoted Israeli policies and laws that are upheld by unconditional U.S. support.

Signatories of the statement 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.”

Defending Anti-Zionism on Campus

Zepeda signed a letter, authored by the anti-IsraelJVP, opposing the inclusion of anti-Zionism as an “intolerant position” in the University of California (UC)’s proposed “Statement of Principles Against Intolerance.”

Signatories of the letter argued that “The definition of ‘anti-Zionism’ as intolerance and/or bigotry is vague and overbroad” and stated that “We believe that this formulation is now being revived by seeking to include ‘anti-Zionism’ as a form of bigotry and intolerance, and we urge you to reject that view.”

Promoting Campus Anti-Israel Activists

Zepeda signed a 2017 letter, condemning a decision by Fordham University’s (Fordham) dean to block the establishment of a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter on campus. The letter was authored by the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) organization.

In 2016, Fordham reportedly blocked the formation of a Fordham SJP chapter “based on the reported behavior of other [SJP] chapters on other campuses,” indicating that “the establishment of a local branch could be ‘polarizing’ and pose a safety concern to students and faculty.”

Signatories demanded 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.” 

The petitioners also highlighted SJP’s BDS activity, characterizing SJP’s efforts to promote anti-Israel boycott as part of “a time-honored non-violent mode of political expression.” The petition accused Fordham’s administration of a “fundamental misunderstanding of what boycotts are, the purpose of a university, and the goals of SJP.”

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in cooperation with Palestine Legal (PL), and civil rights attorney Alan Levine sued Fordham on behalf of four students in April 2017. A New York court annulled Fordham’s decision in August 2019, mandating that the university recognize SJP as an official club. 
 
Fordham appealed the ruling to the NY State Supreme Court Appellate Division in January 2020. On July 24, 2020, Fordham SJP students filed a brief asking the appellate court to deny Fordham’s appeal of the lower court’s decision.
 
As of October 2020, a variety of groups, not directly involved in the case, filed amicus briefs with the Appellate Division for the court's consideration including JVP. 

Supporting Imad Ahmad Barghouthi

Zepeda signed an open letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in support of Professor Imad Ahmad Barghouthi, that was co-published in May 2016 by the anti-Israel JVP and the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI). 

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

Palestinian Astrophysicist Professor Imad Barghouthi of Al Quds University was sentenced in 2016 to seven months in prison for incitement to violence.

Barghouthi is a vocal supporter of Hamas's military wing — the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades — and has called for killing and being killed in the name of Islam.

An October 22, 2014 video showed Barghouthi at an Al-Quds university Hamas rally, draped in a Hamas banner, [00:00:33] urging students to design precision guided missiles, and sniper rifles as [00:01:11] “weapons ofthe resistance” to [00:02:35] kill “zionist soldiers” in their bedrooms.

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:https://chi.ucdavis.edu/people/susy-zepeda

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/1300288627