New York, NY, September 16, 2024, … A total of 2,087 anti-Israel incidents of assault, vandalism, harassment, protests/actions and divestment resolutions were recorded on college and university campuses in the United States between June 1, 2023, and May 31, 2024. This represents a 477 percent increase in those same categories compared to the prior school year, according to a new ADL (Anti-Defamation League) report released today. The annual campus report from the ADL…
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Let’s say that a university decides to acquiesce to the demands of anti-Israel protestors and divest its endowment from companies with business ties to Israel. It’s a plausible scenario, despite the many political, economic, and legal reasons to reject the idea: its unfair singling-out and demonization of Israel; the likelihood of reduced endowment returns and lower donations from alumni; state measures discouraging boycotts of Israel; and potential legal risk from…
Campus activism surrounding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict often presents a skewed narrative, painting Israel as the sole aggressor and magnifying its flaws beyond those of any other nation. While all countries have their shortcomings and deserve scrutiny, Israel stands out as a unique target of widespread university divestment campaigns, suggesting a disproportionate focus on its actions and policies. Through their rhetoric and demands, anti-Israel divestment campaigns can feed into the…
There are many reasons why it’s a bad idea for university endowments to divest from Israel. Divestment serves to delegitimize Israel and puts the onus for solving the longstanding Palestinian-Israeli conflict on only one side. It could also likely lead to economic ramifications, such as reduced alumni giving and lower returns, as well as open up the potential for heavier taxation of endowment income. Beyond all of these arguments, universities that decide to divest…
As encampment protests riled college campuses throughout the Spring 2024 semester, some universities agreed to formally consider protestors’ demands that their endowments divest from companies with business interests in Israel. It is the latest iteration of the years-long Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign that seeks to isolate Israel economically. Brown University reached an agreement for student protestors to take down their encampment and refrain from…
As students start returning to campuses with expected continuation of anti-Israel protests, JLens unpacks the demands and consequences of divestment campaigns.
IntroductionAs university encampments and other forms of student protests against Israel capture attention across the United States, protest organizers have made it clear that, on the majority of campuses, their goals go far beyond urging their universities to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war or to denounce Israeli government policies. The ADL Center on Extremism analyzed statements published by the organizers of more than 130 university encampments nationwide…
Friday, March 8, 2024, marked the annual commemoration of International Women’s Day. Over the weekend of March 8–10, anti-Israel activists nationwide used the occasion to celebrate female Palestinian terrorists, including glorifying individuals affiliated with recognized terrorist organizations and whose acts of anti-Israel violence have included bombings, plane hijackings and more. As previously noted by ADL, in the months since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on…
UPDATE: April 26, 2024 Explicit support for recognized terror groups and the glorification of prominent individuals affiliated with those groups continues to feature prominently at anti-Israel protests across the country. As documented by ADL, notable recent examples of this support for terror have surfaced at “Popular University for Gaza” campus encampments and Quds Day protests in April 2024 and at International Women’s Day protests in March 2024. There have been numerous…
In recent years, activists have harnessed the marketing power of digital billboard trucks to promote their messages. Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, anti-Israel activists have increasingly used these vehicles, adorned with propaganda, to spread anti-Zionist and antisemitic themes, including a modern form of the blood libel: that Israelis harvest Palestinian organs. These trucks, bearing a variety of anti-Israel and antisemitic messages, are sponsored by U.S…
In the aftermath of October 7, 2023, and the start of the Israel-Hamas war, some anti-Israel activists have boldly expressed support for terrorism against the State of Israel and Jews, which at first manifested in explicitly supporting Hamas. More recently, these activists and leftist groups have also expressed admiration for another group they consider allies in the fight against U.S. imperialism and Zionism: the Houthis. The Houthis, an Iranian-regime backed U.S.-designated terrorist group…
Since the Hamas-led terror massacre in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaigns directly targeting “Zionist” institutions, businesses or individuals, have persisted in response to Israel’s operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. BDS is a component of a long history of campaigns and efforts to delegitimize and isolate Israel. In recent years, this has explicitly focused on the rejection, isolation and marginalization of …
Hundreds of organizations from across the country marched in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, November 4, 2023. The official published demands of the protest included ceasefire to the Hamas-Israel war, an end of the “siege of Gaza” and the termination of all U.S. aid to Israel. Yet attendees, who numbered in the tens of thousands, went much further and leaned into rhetoric supporting the October 7 Hamas massacre and other acts of terror targeting Israel, calls for the end of Israel,…
Since the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas against Israel, the inverted red triangle has, in many cases, come to signify support for violent Palestinian resistance against Israel and against Zionists and Jewish people more broadly. It is used both offline and online, sometimes in the form of an emoji (🔻), and has been spraypainted on Jewish homes and institutions, often alongside antisemitic and threatening slogans. The symbol first appeared in propaganda videos from…
Definiciones de antisemitismo, antisionismo y prejuicio antiisraelí comúnmente utilizadas y malinterpretadas.
Estrategias para estar preparado ante situaciones antisemitas o antiisraelíes de la vida real a las que podrías enfrentarte y que han ocurrido en campus universitarios.
Preguntas frecuentes sobre la libertad de expresión, su protección y las diferencias entre universidades públicas y privadas.
Cómo mantener un debate concienzudo sobre el conflicto palestino-israelí y evitar los errores más comunes que podrían invocar el antisemitismo, el sesgo o la intolerancia.
Medidas proactivas que puedes tomar para disminuir el impacto de la actividad antisraelí en el campus y estar preparado en caso de tener que responder.
Consejos sobre cómo participar y desvincularte en la lucha contra el antisemitismo, los prejuicios contra Israel y el odio en las redes sociales.