BDS Movement
News about economic and academic attacks against the Jewish state
“I do think BDS is being beaten back here,” said MP Robert Jenrick of the Conservative Party.
Experts say the resolution ignores the reality of academic freedom in Israel. According to the Israeli Council for Higher Education, approximately 54,000 Arab students attend Israeli universities, comprising 17 percent of all students in Israel.
On Dec. 2, the LSGA passed a resolution that calls on CUNY to cut all ties with companies that “aid in or profit from Israeli colonization, occupation and war crimes.”
“The report hides behind misleading claims of ‘academic freedom’ to treat Jewish concerns with an extraordinary level of hesitation absent from similar university reports on other minority groups,” said Douglas Sandoval, managing editor of CAMERA on Campus.
“Many students have also witnessed hostile anti-Semitic tropes and rhetoric associated with aggressive BDS tactics here,” said Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.).
Seventeen colleges brought BDS measures up for a vote by the student government in 2020-21, and 11 have passed them.
“We now have a culture minister who is a close friend of the Iranians and who has bowed her head wearing a headscarf in front of the mullah regime, in addition to being a supporter of the boycotters of Israel,” said Sacha Stawski, head of the pro-Israel watchdog group Honestly Concerned.
Attorney generals from 12 U.S. states wrote to Unilever CEO Alan Jope expressing their concern over the company’s refusal to sell its products to Judea and Samaria, and parts of Jerusalem.
“We apologize for the distress that our miscommunication has caused the Jewish community on campus, and we understand their concerns,” said the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union.
“I think it is an embarrassment to society,” said Rabbi Nechemia Deitsch, director of Chabad of Midtown in Toronto, which services the student population. “The fact that there is this hatred in the air is due completely to a lack of education.”
“Unilever is a widely held company with a current market capitalization of $135 billion, which places in jeopardy the manifold institutions, pension funds and endowments [that] hold its shares on behalf of its beneficiaries,” said a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
A total of 68 percent voted against the motion while 32 percent voted in support of the BDS campaign.
