Yali Amit
Overview
Yali Amit has promoted campus-based anti-Israel activism, shown support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and demonized Israel. He has also condoned terror acts and expressed support forProfessor Imad Ahmad Barghouthi, who is affiliated with Hamas.Amit is a professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of Chicago (U of C)
Promoting Campus-Based Anti-Israel Activism
Amit 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
Amit signed a letter expressing support for the recent success of a BDS initiative.On May 14, 2013, Amit moderated a panel discussion, titled “From South Africa to Israel: The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement.”
The event was organized by the University of Chicago’s (U of C) chapter of SJP and sponsored by JVP. Featured on the panel were anti-Israel activists Brant Rosen and Andrew Kadi.
Amit signed a letter, published on January 22, 2008, of Israeli citizens to the United Methodist Church, applauding the body for the passage of a statement condemning Israel at their annual conference in 2004.
The letter went on to urge the church to join the BDS movement, writing that “we denounce the international community’s continued economic investments in our country which directly and indirectly support Israel's daily violations of international law and colonization of the occupied territories.”
The letter declared that the “international community” must impose a “workable peace” on Israelis and Palestinians who are “unwilling or unable to negotiate a workable peace.”
Justifying Terrorism
In April 2001, during the second intifada, Amit signed the “Israeli Citizens Appeal: International Intervention in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” which stated that “While we totally condemn acts of terror against innocent civilians, we regard Palestinian violence as being, on the whole, a legitimate revolt against colonial occupation.”The second intifada (2000-2005) was characterized by more than 120 suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians on buses and in cafes.
Demonizing Israel
In July of 2014, Amit signed an open letter to Israeli academics, accusing Israel of having provoked Palestinian violence.The letter, addressed to Israeli academics, claimed “The government of Israel, having provoked the firing of rockets by its rampage through the West Bank, is now using that response as the pretext for an aerial assault on Gaza which has already cost scores of lives.”
Signatories of the letter went on to claim: “An atmosphere of hysteria is being deliberately provoked in Israel, and whole communities are being subject to collective punishment, a war crime.”
The letter was created in response to Operation Protective Edge (OPE), which Israel commenced in July of 2014, to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.
In September 2002, during the second intifada, Amit signed a petition of Israeli academics which stated that “We are deeply worried by indications that the "fog of war" could be exploited by the Israeli government to commit further crimes against the Palestinian people, up to full-fledged ethnic cleansing.”
Support for Imad Ahmad Barghouthi
Amit signed an open letter, co-published by JVP and USACBI to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on behalf of Imad Ahmad Barghouthi.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.
