Todd May

Overview

Todd May [Todd Gifford May] has demonized Israel and is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

He is a professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Clemson University (Clemson).

Demonizing Israel

In an interview published on August 6, 2007, May stated “My belief is that Israel is at least as influential on US policy as vice versa, probably more so. If we follow that line of thought, then Israel is a destabilizing factor that the US has to deal with.”

May went on to claim: “I would say that Israel stands as a great performative contradiction: held up to the rest of the world as a beacon of democracy while it oppresses Palestinians inside and outside its borders and terrorizes the region.”

Finally, May concluded that “The hold the pro-Israel lobby has on Congress cannot be overestimated.”

On September 15, 2005, May wrote an article in which he alleged that “Palestinians in Israel are oppressed in all kinds of ways… They are routinely brutalized... If the occupation is apartheid, the situation for Palestinians inside Israel is largely one of Jim Crow.”

May went on to express hope to “finally spell the end of the nineteenth century project of forming a Jewish state to the detriment of its indigenous people.”

In an article published on September 9, 2004, May wrote that “It is precisely the privileging of Jews to which Zionism is committed that fosters the idea that Israelis are justified in their horrific treatment of Palestinians. That is the tenet that needs to be attacked. We should not seek to welcome Israel into the community of nations.”

In 2003, May co-authored a book titled “Operation Defensive Shield: Witnesses to Israeli War Crimes.”

According to the book’s description, the stories told in it seek to illustrate “Israel's ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.”

On April 24, 2002, May published an article in which he stated: “Two facts are clear: that Israelis have needlessly killed many Palestinians civilians in their recent incursion into the West Bank and that the United States has greatly assisted in those killings.”

May went on to state that “Palestinian civilians are no more able to resist their killing than the child could resist the waves. And Americans, through our taxes, are helping to stir the water.”

May then wrote: “Palestinian civilians didn't beat up anybody. And we know, Israeli denials to the contrary, that the Israeli army killed many of those civilians needlessly.”

Supporting BDS

On May 15, 2002, May published an article titled “Why the U.S. Should End Aid to Israel.”

In the article, May explained “how to respond to the unfolding crisis in Israel and Palestine. The solution is this: end all aid to Israel. Not just military aid. All aid. Not just all aid until Israel ends its military occupation… All aid. Period.”

May went on to argue that “Israel has had thirty-five years to consider their actions; that seems to me plenty long enough. The longer a criminal uses my support to commit crimes, the more urgent it becomes that I stop supplying that support.”

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:http://www.clemson.edu/caah/departments/philosophy-religion/people/facultyBio.html?id=386