JTA – Student governments are considering proposals to boycott, divest and ban Israel from 17 college campuses in the United States during the 2020-2021 school year, according to a new report from the Anti-Defamation League.
The watchdog group, which released the data as part of its annual reporting on Wednesday, called the BDS proposals “a cornerstone of anti-Israel compound activity over the past year.”
During a school year that saw conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in May, as well as widespread criticism of Israel on and off college campuses, the number of student governments entertaining BDS proposals was dramatic compared to recent times. was not much.
According to the report released on Wednesday, 11 of the bills supporting the boycott of Israel were passed.
According to the ADL report about that year, this was lower than the 2015-2016 school year, when it documented 23 BDS resolutions, of which 14 were passed. The following year, student governments considered 14 BDS resolutions, of which six were passed; A year after that, five of the 12 resolutions were passed. (In the 2020-2020 school year, student governments faced just four BDS proposals; the lower number is likely explained by the pandemic’s sudden school closures.)
According to the U.S. Department of Education, there are approximately 4,000 “degree-granting post-secondary institutions” in the United States, meaning that .425% of BDS proposals were offered on college campuses and passed on 275% of campuses in the past year. went.
BDS supporters protest in New York, October 2015. (BDS Facebook page)
None have been implemented, noted the ADL, which also noted that in some cases university presidents rejected student government proposals.
The ADL’s position is that not all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic, but the BDS movement. Its report concludes that anti-Israeli activity on campus last year continued “from legitimate criticism of the policies of the Israeli government to expressions of anti-Semitism by some activists”.
The report said student leaders from at least two universities faced “excommunication calls because of their expressions of support for Israel and Zionism” and that one of them resigned over it.
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said, “As we saw intensified during the conflict with Hamas in May, the anti-Israeli movement’s rhetorical attacks on Zionism and Zionists could actually hurt and humiliate and humiliate many Jewish students.” You can feel isolated.” In a statement accompanying the report.
In a separate report released this fall, the ADL found that a third of Jewish college students said they had personally experienced anti-Semitic sentiment in the past year.