BDS on Campuses

Campus BDS activists work to exploit communities of color, progressive organizations, campus media, and student governments into aiding their malicious agenda. Students from the BDS movement try to create coalitions and political blocs with social justice groups and run for student government, sometimes winning a majority for themselves and their allies. As a result, dozens of student councils across the United States and Canada have debated BDS resolutions based on disinformation about Israel. These resolutions call on schools to divest endowment funds from companies doing business in Israel. BDS campaigns have also taken the form of referendums where all students can vote to remove Israeli products from campus stores and dining halls, to shut down study abroad at Israeli universities, and more. In pursuing their agenda on campuses, anti-Israel groups aim to make Israel a pariah state in the eyes of future leaders. Even when divestment campaigns are defeated, BDS activists still advance their goal by essentially putting Israel on trial in a public forum for weeks at a time.

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is the most prominent campus voice promoting BDS. It operates a national network of over 150 campus clubs across North America that work together to demonize Israel by sponsoring “Israel Apartheid Week” events and promoting a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea” to replace Israel. Most troublingly, SJP has been able to recruit allies by manipulating social justice-minded student groups that tend to flourish in left-leaning college environments. Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a nominally Jewish anti-Israel group, is frequently called upon to inoculate SJP and its allies against deserved charges of antisemitism by claiming that there is substantial Jewish support for the BDS movement. In fact JVP is a fringe organization, and the vast majority of American Jews support the rights of the Jewish people to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. SJP falsely associates Israel with the worst grievances expressed by communities of color in America and elsewhere. It often uses euphemisms like the “right of return” to mask its support for Israel’s elimination. It uses highly emotional and inaccurate terms like “genocide” and “apartheid” to misinform the public and promote anger against Israel. BDS activists aggressively campaign for student council seats with the intention of passing anti-Israel resolutions in student government. They seek to create a toxic, binary political environment where all those who believe in justice must support BDS, and all those who defend Israel are considered supporters of oppression.

Most pro-Israel students, on the other hand, do not go to college expecting to have to fight for Israel’s good name and the rights of the Jewish people. But due to the attacks against Israel on campuses, combined with the bullying of Jewish and pro-Israel communities by SJP members, increasing numbers of pro-Israel students are becoming engaged in this struggle. To succeed, these students must be motivated, well organized, strategic, and informed, and they must have the strength of the pro-Israel community behind them. They need education, effective strategies, engaging and informative content, funding, and crisis intervention as needed. Because students graduate every four years, the struggle against BDS must be sustainable and not dependent upon the individual student leaders who are leading their groups during any particular year. As long as BDS remains a serious threat, the Jewish community must develop and carry out a long-term strategy that proIsrael students can use each year without having to reinvent the wheel every time BDS brings a new campaign to their campuses