Wendy Chapkis
Overview
Wendy Chapkis has defended anti-Israel campus activity, shown support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and demonized Israel.Chapkis is a professor of Sociology and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Southern Maine (USM).
Defending Anti-Israel Activism on Campus
Chapkis signed a letter, authored by the anti-Israel Jewish Voice 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 Fordham.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.”
Supporting BDS
Chapkis signed a letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, published in June 2016, in support of BDS.The letter, signed first by the “Palestinian BDS National Committee,” was titled “Urgent appeal of 23,000 citizens from across the world to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for protection of human rights defenders active in the BDS movement.”
The letter also urged the commissioner to “Encourage the office of the OHCHR [Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights] and the EU to extend protection under human rights defender mechanisms in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel to the human rights defenders of the BDS movement.”
Signatories went on to demand that the High Commissioner “Issue a public statement strongly condemning all intimidation and unlawful restrictions on BDS campaigners and affirming that the right of citizens to advocate for and carry out BDS campaigns.”
Demonizing Israel
On April 13, 2018, Chapkis tweeted to U.S. Senator Kristen GilliBrand: “We need your leadership on Gaza. Please speak out for unarmed Palestinian demonstrators and journalists being shot by the Israeli army. Condemn the killings. Call for an investigation. The world needs your leadership!”Chapkis’ tweet referred to the 2018 “March of Return.”
The “right of return” is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate 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.
