We Bear Witness: Episode 6

Unmasking SJP and BDS

Today we present the sixth video in a series of documentaries produced by a member of the Circle in collaboration with JFrg (the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group at UCLA).

The previous episodes, posted on our Substack, were: “Masking Identity,” “What Starts on Campus Spills Into the Streets,” “Peaceful Protests,” “Rabbi Dovid Gurevich's Encounter with Protesters at UCLA,” and “Landmark Ruling Against Antisemitism at UCLA.”

This episode, “SJP and BDS Unmasked,” is about the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement and the groups that promote its agenda. The international BDS campaign seeks to delegitimize the State of Israel (see here and here for comprehensive reports of BDS activities). In the context of universities, they lobby to cut all ties with Israel—economic, academic, and cultural. They claim to promote freedom, justice, and equality for Palestinians, but a closer look into their actions reveal something completely different—plain old Jew hatred.

BDS campaigns go far beyond criticizing Israeli policy and boycotting the government. Their divisive and false rhetoric—such as “settler colonial apartheid”— demonizes Israel. They reject the Jewish people’s right to self determination and the right of Israel to exist. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP), and other groups that promote BDS under the guise of “Social Justice” seed discord, antisemitism, and anti-American sentiment on college campuses (we wrote about groups operating on USC campus here). They demonize the State of Israel, along with all Israelis and anyone who supports Israel, which amounts to intimidation and discrimination against Jews and Zionists on college campuses. They also call for the boycott of Jewish organizations such as Hillel and academic programs on Jewish culture and/or history. They organize disruptions of the academic and cultural events (as recently happened in Berkeley; see also here for several recent cancellations of “Zionists”—in reality, Jews).

Social media post of USCSCALE, calling for “Week of Rage” on October 7. The “Rage” is against Jews, not Hamas.

SJP and BDS Unmasked

Just six-and-a-half minutes long, the video amply documents, through their own words and deeds, the true nature of SJP and BDS. Focusing on UCLA and USC, the episode debunks the falsehood of their narratives. It also reveals their relationship with labor unions (which we wrote about here).

Enough Is Enough!

How much longer we will tolerate these thugs, who openly support terrorism (“The Only Solution—Intifada Revolution”), celebrate the horrific, barbaric violence of October 7, vandalize our campuses, and brazenly discriminate and harass fellow students and faculty on the basis of their religion and national origin? It’s time for universities to act and hold these groups accountable.

A Bit of History

Year 1933: SA members next to the Jewish store. The poster says “Don’t by from Jews.” Image source: Alpha History.

Boycotting Jews and all things Jewish is not a new invention. Nazis practiced these tactics to dehumanize and marginalize Jews in the years before the Holocaust. In the renowned diary, “I Shall Bear Witness,” Viktor Klemperer narrates:

March 31st 1933

The boycott begins tomorrow. Yellow placards, men on guard. Pressure [on Jewish employers] to pay Christian employees two months salary [and] to dismiss Jewish ones. No reply to the impressive letter of the Jews to the President of the Reich [Hindenburg] and to the government… No-one dares make a move.

The Dresden student body made a declaration today… the honour of German students forbids them to come into contact with Jews. They [Jews] are not allowed to enter the Student House. And how much Jewish money went toward this Student House only a few years ago? In Munich, Jewish university teachers have already been prevented from setting foot in the university.

The proclamation of the boycott committee decrees ‘Religious is immaterial’, only race matters. If, in the case of the owners of a business the husband is Jewish [and] the wife Christian or the other way around, then the business counts as Jewish…

On Tuesday, at the new Universum cinema on Prager-Strasse… Beside me, a soldier of the Reichswehr, a mere boy, and his not very attractive girl. It was the evening before the boycott. Conversation during an advertisement:

He: “One shouldn’t really go to a Jew to shop.”
She: “But it’s so terribly cheap.”
He: “Then it [the product] is bad and doesn’t last.”
She: “No, really, it’s just as good and lasts just as long, just like in Christian shops – and so much cheaper.”

He falls silent. When Hitler, Hindenburg, etc. appeared [on the cinema newsreel], he clapped enthusiastically. Later, during the American jazz band film, with a touch of Yiddish at points, he clapped even more enthusiastically.

April 3rd 1933

On Saturday, red posters on the shops: ‘Recognised German-Christian Enterprise’. In between them, closed shops, SA men in front of them with triangular boards: ‘Whoever buys from the Jew supports the foreign boycott and destroys the German economy’.

People poured down Prater-Strasse and looked at it all. That was the boycott… Excluding banks, including doctors and lawyers. Called off after one day [but] it has been a success and Germany is magnanimous… I have the impression of a swiftly approaching catastrophe.

Year 2024: List of demands of USC protestors. Image source: LA Taco, “‘We Will Win:’ USC Students Won’t Back Down, Committing To Their Fight For Palestine Despite Arrests.”