Anti-Israel Group Increases Outreach to High School Students

American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), a Chicago-based anti-Israel organization, is planning to host a joint conference on “Palestine activism” with the High School Muslim Student Association of Southern California (HSMSA), an inter-high school network of Muslim student organizations.

The conference is scheduled to take place on June 24 at the University of California, Irvine, a center for virulently anti-Israel campus activity in recent years. It is part of AMP’s 7th annual campaign to commemorate the “Nakba,” an Arabic term that means “catastrophe” and is used by Palestinians and their supporters to describe Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

AMP organizers say the conference is designed to help “train high school, college, and non-student activists on issues pertinent to Palestine activism.” The list of speakers invited to “educate” students on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict include several anti-Israel activists known for their use of rhetoric to delegitimize Israel.

Speakers include Ali Abunimah, co-founder of the anti-Israel Electronic Intifada blog; Taher Herzallah, AMP’s National Campus Coordinator and one of the 11 students arrested for shouting down Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren during a 2010 speech at UC Irvine; and Osama Abu Irshaid, an AMP board member who has previously expressed support for Hezbollah and conspiratorially alleged that the U.S. government makes decisions based on the “influential Jewish community.”

AMP targeted high school students earlier this year when it held its first high school training session in Villa Park, Illinois. The workshop was similarly organized to the upcoming conference at UC Irvine and included workshops on subjects such as the Islamic significance of Palestine, activism, and how to utilize the media.

This year’s AMP Nakba campaign consists primarily of educational and training sessions designed to “raise awareness about the occupation” and to “help bring justice and liberty to the Holy Land.” These events will be held throughout the month of June across the Southern California region, which include the cities of Hawthorne, Corona-Narco, Anaheim, Temecula, and Lomita.

AMP has increasingly made an effort to engage in facilitating student activism on college campuses and high schools nationwide. The importance of encouraging AMP’s presence among students was the central theme of the organization’s 2011 national conference, where a number of sessions were dedicated to how students can discuss the issue of Palestine in schools and on campuses. AMP’s concerted effort to engage with students has led to increased collaboration with on campus anti-Israel groups, such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

A Round-Up of Israeli Apartheid Week Events

With Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) drawing to a close in cities around the United States, here is a sampling of what took place on college campuses and elsewhere this past week:

• Brandeis University: Ali Abunimah delivered a talk in which he discussed his support for a one-state solution and described Israel as a “sectarian government.” Abunimah was quoted saying: “The claim that Israel should be a Jewish state can be asserted, not defended—not legally, politically or ethically…Israel has reached a moral, political and ethical dead-end. The notion that Israel can be both Jewish and democratic violates the rights of Palestinians, which is fine if you don’t see Palestinians as humans, but, if you do, it is wrong.” He also offensively compared the Holocaust to the “Nakba,” a term Palestinians use to describe the 1948 War of Independence and the establishment of the state of Israel. He said, “We must condemn Nakba denial as strongly as we must condemn Holocaust denial.”  

• George Washington University: Members of the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter tried to disrupt an event organized by GW’s pro-Israel organization MEOR. The event hosted a former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier, Sergeant Benjamin Anthony.

• Columbia University: Members of SJP staged a “house demolition act” that was intended to mimic Israel’s demolition of illegal Palestinian homes. One of the activists argued that these demolitions are made possible by U.S. tax dollars and Columbia University’s investments, which fund “special Caterpillar bulldozers for Israel to demolish Palestinian homes.”

• New York City: Approximately 100 members of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QAIA) gathered in the lobby of the LGBT Center to protest the Center’s decision not to host events related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [In March 2011, the Center had decided not to host an IAW event.] Protesters held signs that read "Stop Pinkwashing Israeli Apartheid" and "End Israeli Apartheid," and accused the center of “succumbing to the outspoken in power” and “betray[ing] its historic mission.” After an hour indoors, the protest moved outside to the sidewalk.

Be sure to check out our other posts on IAW, which can be accessed here.

One-State “Solution” Conference to be Held at Harvard in March

Update: ADL welcomed Harvard University’s February 24 statement following receipt of a letter from ADL’s National Director to Harvard’s President, Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust. The Harvard University statement, which acknowledged ADL’s concerns, said in part: “We would never take a position on specific policy solutions to achieving peace in this region, and certainly would not endorse any policy that some argue could lead to the elimination of the Jewish State of Israel.” 

Just one month after the major BDS conference at the University of Pennsylvania, a conference to examine the “possible contours” of a one-state “solution” is scheduled to take place at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government over the first weekend in March. 

The event will feature Stephen Walt, the co-author of the 2007 book “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” which infamously asserted that the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. has excessive power and divided loyalties and uses its power to stifle criticism of Israel against America’s true interests. 

Walt is not the only anti-Israel academic who will speak at the conference. The list includes University of Exeter professor Ilan Pappe, Harvard Law School fellow Diana Buttu, Baylor University’s Marc Ellis and many others.  Several of the anti-Israel activists who headlined the Penn BDS conference will attend next month’s event as well, including Ali Abunimah, Dalit Baum and Sarah Schulman.

The conference program focuses on the inevitability of a one-state “solution” and strategies for overcoming the obstacles that might otherwise prevent it. Based on the speakers list and program, it seems likely that the messages propagated at both conferences will be virtually indistinguishable from one another with regard to their one-sided criticisms of Israel and lack of consideration for the complexity of the conflict.

One other thing to note: In contrast to last weekend’s BDS conference, the “One State” conference is receiving significant financial and institutional support from Harvard, including funding from two university departments, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Office of the Provost.

Anti-Israel Hostility Pervades Penn BDS Conference

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) conference held at the University of Pennsylvania last weekend featured speakers representing a wide range of strategies used to delegitimize Israel. As expected, many of the speakers promoted mistruths and biased narratives of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and offered strategies on how to advance BDS initiatives and to further delegitimize Israel.

Several of the anti-Israel activists who headlined the Penn BDS conference are scheduled to next month’s One-State “Solution” Conference at Harvard, including Ali Abunimah, Dalit Baum and Sarah Schulman.

Below is a sampling of statements made at the Penn conference:

• Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, claimed that Israel is governed by an “extremist ideology” and that it is a “racist oppressor” and an “apartheid state.” Barghouti also made reference to the disproportionate role “Israel’s lobby groups” play in the U.S., adding that “it is crucial to reveal how Israel is right at the center of the 1% agenda,” referring to the Occupy Wall Street movement. 

• Cyrus McGoldrick, Civil Rights Manager of the New York branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), reportedly said, “Zionism depends on Islamophobia.”

• Ali Abunimah, the founder and executive director of “Electronic Intifada,” an anti-Israel Web site,  reportedly said, “Nakba denial is the equivalent of Holocaust denial.”

• Professor Amy Kaplan, professor in the English department at the University of Pennsylvania, offered suggestions in a Q&A session on how BDS could be integrated into the classroom. According to an audio recording of her response, Kaplan said, “you take a thematic course and you bring in themes from this issue [BDS], and literature is really a great way to teach students about what’s going on.”

Two Days to the Penn BDS Conference

In advance of this weekend’s BDS conference at the University of Pennsylvania, we are highlighting five of the most anti-Israel individuals scheduled to speak at the conference.

Today we profile Ali Abunimah, the founder and executive director of “Electronic Intifada,” an anti-Israel Web site. Abunimah is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at this weekend’s conference.

In his book “One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse” and during various speaking appearances, Abunimah advocates a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which would dismantle the Jewish state. He has not hesitated to compare Israel to South African apartheid and Nazi Germany, including describing Gaza as a “ghetto” and a “concentration camp” and arguing that “Zionism is not atonement for the Holocaust, but its continuation in spirit.”

Abunimah also claims that many of Israel’s security-related policies are predicated on racism and not genuine security concerns. For example, in a June 2011 interview on the news channel Russia Today, he claimed that Israel imposes a blockade on Gaza “because they are not Jews” and described it as “fundamentally racist.”

Number 5: J Kehaulani Kauanui

Number 4: Helena Cobban

Number 3: Kristin Szremski