Suvir Kaul
Overview
Suvir Kaul has expressed support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS), has demonized Israel and has defended disgraced anti-Israel Professor Steven Salaita.As of August 2019, Kaul was the A. M. Rosenthal Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn).
Supporting BDS
Kaul signed a petition, published by the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) in October of 2017, in support of BDS activist and member of the USACBI Organizing Committee, Professor Bill Mullen.In 2016, Kaul signed an open letter in support of a BDS Resolution.
The open letter was addressed to the Modern Language Association (MLA), “calling on the association to pass a resolution endorsing the boycott of Israeli academic institutions.”
In January 2017, the MLA Delegate Assembly approved a resolution (2017-1) acknowledging “the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel contradicts the MLA’s purpose” and conflicted with another resolution (2002-1), that condemned boycotts against scholars. Therefore, the Assembly “resolved that the MLA refrain from endorsing the boycott.”
Therefore, the Assembly “resolved that the MLA refrain from endorsing the boycott.”
In March 2015, Kaul signed another open letter calling for the adoption of BDS by the MLA.
The letter, signed by members of the MLA, accused Israel of “Detentions without trial, torture and war crimes, and use of deadly force by the Israeli military against non-violent protesters” and called upon Israel to “Honor the right of Palestinian refugees to return.”
Kaul signed his name to a list of individuals endorsing the USACBI.
Kaul signed an open letter, authored by anti-Israel activists Judith Butler and Rashid Khalidi, published on March 5, 2014: “Condemning Censorship of Israel Critics.” Signatories of the letter called upon “cultural and educational institutions to have the courage and the principle to stand for, and safeguard” BDS activism.
Demonizing Israel
In 2003, Kaul signed a petition demonizing Israel.The petition, published on January 30, 2003, stated: “With an average of more than $10 million dollars per day of American tax dollars going to Israel, we believe Americans cannot remain silent while crimes as abhorrent as ethnic cleansing are being openly advocated.”
Defending Steven Salaita
Kaul signed a petition published on August 21, 2014 by the BDS movement titled: “A Call to People of Conscience Not to Speak at the University Of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Until Chancellor Wise Honor [sic] the Contract to Hire Professor Steven Salaita.”In 2014, The University of Illinois withdrew an offer of employment to Salaita after becoming aware of his anti-Semitic tweets. One tweet, posted shortly after Hamas kidnapped three teenage Israeli high school students, read: "You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f**king West Bank settlers would go missing.” In 2017, Salaita posted to Facebook: “People ask if I would go back in time and change anything. I would not…I will die unapologetic.” In February 2019, Salaita stated that he had become a school bus driver in the Washington, D.C., area.
Kaul also signed a petition titled: #StudentsforSalaia.
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://www.english.upenn.edu/people/suvir-kaulSecond University Website: https://complit.sas.upenn.edu/people/suvir-kaul
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- Pennsylvania
- Organizations:
- BDS
- Related Profiles:
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
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