The Algemeiner reports that April saw the BDS movement launch multiple assaults on Israel and its supporters; this was achieved through “human rights” organizations, the United Nations, students and faculty on campus, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) bureaucracies. These many fronts are often designed to manufacture a narrative and consensus in which Israel is the greatest conceivable evil, and turn the world against Israel and Jews.

April saw a variety of campus BDS developments. Among the most important was at George Washington University, where a university sponsored investigation by a Washington law firm exonerated psychology professor Lara Sheehi of charges that she harassed Israeli and Jewish students and then retaliated against them when they complained. At the same time, the US Department of Education announced that it was continuing its investigation of antisemitic incidents at the institution.

The University of Vermont resolved a Department of Education investigation that stemmed from 2021 complaints regarding the treatment of Jewish students by a teaching assistant and by two student groups, which deliberately excluded “Zionists.” The university agreed to revise its Title VI policies and training and its overall anti-discrimination policies to include antisemitic harassment.

At the same time, the Department of Education has announced plans to weaken rules that condition Federal aid on campus free speech policies. These rules, which were relevant to the Vermont case, have also helped pressure other institutions to address incidents of discrimination against Jewish students.

American university programs in Israel also continue to come under attack by BDS supporting faculty and students. In one case, Columbia University’s announcement of a new “global center“’ in Tel Aviv was attacked by a group of faculty members, who complained that “The state of Israel, through formal and informal law, policy and practice, refuses to abide by international human rights laws and norms both domestically and in its treatment of Palestinians.” The university maintains 10 other global centers in cities such as Nairobi and Beijing. In a characteristic move, The New York Times emphasized the number of Columbia faculty who opposed the center while failing to note than a much greater number wrote in favor.

Elsewhere, the Pitzer College Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter resumed its campaign against the school’s study abroad program at the University of Haifa. The group decried Israel’s existence and claimed that Arab students at Haifa, who comprise more than 30% of the student body, are subject to discrimination. Pitzer SJP later complained that the college had painted over its “apartheid wall” display, which constituted “anti-Palestinian racism” and “silencing.”

At Fordham University, a study abroad partnership with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was angrily criticized by the school’s SJP chapter as a “blatant endorsement of the apartheid & genocidal state of Israel.” The chapter, which remains an unrecognized club thanks to the administration’s refusal to extend recognition, added “we hope that he [sic] Jewish Studies Department recognizes that this trip to occupied Palestine directly impacts the Palestinians on campus & their families within the diaspora and apartheid.”

Source - The Algemeiner/Twitter - Image - CC BY-dignidadrebelde, Flickr