The Anti-Israel Commonalities Amongst Universities – May 2020

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Newsletter – April 2020

Over the month of May, more than a dozen articles by our CAMERA Fellows and campus staff members have been published in university, local, national and international media outlets. CAMERA Fellows have led a half dozen public events and private workshops providing op-ed writing training to Israel activists.

This newsletter will highlight just a handful of the many creative activities and articles our students have shared over the last month.

Palestinian Prisoners Day Misleads Students Worldwide

The “Adalah Justice Project” (AJP) published the above graphic in support of PPD, which was then widely shared by student activist organizations.

CAMERA's International Campus team co-wrote the below op-ed highlighting the many grave inaccuracies shared by pro-Palestinian activists during the annual Palestinian Prisoner's Day as well as highlighting how the anti-Israel propaganda that is distributed world-wide is picked up and shared by university professors and student activists.

"This year’s Palestinian Prisoners Day (PPD) took place on April 17th. Every year, activists use this occasion in an attempt to draw international attention to the hundreds of Palestinians arrested and detained annually by Israel in the West Bank. Yet much of this campaign is dominated by blatant inaccuracies and exaggerations regarding Israel’s behavior, and its supporters all but ignore endemic violence against the Jewish state’s citizens.

Support for PPD emanated from around the globe. In Israel, the Balad chapter at Tel Aviv University pledged its support for the cause. In the United Kingdom, Warwick University’s Friends of Palestine and King’s College London Action Palestine Society (KCLAP) joined the party. Meanwhile, in the United States, joining the attack were Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) founder and University of California, Berkeley professor Hatem Bazian; assistant professor at the University of Illinois Maryam Kashani; and the Facebook page of national SJP.

The “Adalah Justice Project” (AJP) also published an infographic to mark the occasion; numerous individual activists and campus-based organizations around the world shared the material and voiced support for PPD. It’s worth noting that the founder of AJP, Nadia Ben-Youssef, has leveled outrageous accusations against Israel, such as: “There’s no right to equality in Israel—it’s not enshrined in law because [Israel] cannot protect equality and protect [Jewish] privilege.” This alone speaks volumes about AJP’s lack of credibility."

To read their full piece, please follow this link.

Watch: In Defense of the Truth: A Discussion with Ambassador Mark Regev

Something positive that has come out of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the ability to connect student activists together from around the world.

Hebrew University CAMERA Fellow, Matanya Harow, led a fascinating discussion with Israel's Ambassador to the UK, Mark Regev. Students from around the world were given the opportunity to ask the Ambassador for advice on how to answer some of the most challenging questions they have come across while studying at university. The event was co-sponsored by 14 different Israel student groups from across Canada, Israel, UK, and the US.

To view the whole discussion, please click here.

CAMERA Fellows Host Workshops for Israel Activists

Each year, CAMERA Fellows provide an exclusive op-ed writing workshop for student activists, advising their peers on how to identify biased language within their campus media, classroom syllabi, or within lectures provides by guest speakers.

The goal of each workshop is to help enable students to utilize their voice, expose and correct inaccurate information found on campus by penning and publishing articles in various media outlets.

Below are examples from two of our current CAMERA Fellows doing just that.

In this first piece, written by UCL UK CAMERA Fellow, Aaron Seitler, which was published in the UCL newspaper, PI Media, Seitler exposed the hypocrisy of the BDS movement and its co-founder, Omar Barghouti, who spoke at nearby King's College London this past February.

In this piece, published in The Algemeiner, Cornell University CAMERA Fellow, Josh Eibelman, exposed the continued spread of antisemitism by SJP at the Ivy League university, even during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Watch: Addressing Miconsceptions about Israel with Alex Safian, Ph.D.

George Mason University CAMERA Fellow, McKenna Bates, hosted CAMERA's Associate Director, Alex Safian. The event was geared towards the George Mason University community and offered insight into some of the most complex issues surrounding the Arab-Israeli conflict.

To view the whole conversation, please click here.

Mckenna was recently published in JNS unpacking one of the most common anti-Israel diatribes, the myth of "Israeli apartheid."

Unpacking the Hebrew University Hadash Student Chapter's Falsehood-Ridden Video

"Quite the commotion has been stirring at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem after the student group representing the Hadash political party released a propagandistic, anti-Israel video. The four-minute long clip portrays a series of noteworthy events since Israel’s inception from a Palestinian perspective. Condemning the administration for allowing IDF soldiers to study on campus during their service, the Hadash students assert that “Hebrew University is a partner in the Palestinian Nakba.”

Hadash students were accused of putting the soldiers’ safety at risk by showing their faces in the video. Following complaints to the university’s administration, the Hadash students published the same video with the faces of the soldiers blurred out, accompanied with a defiant statement:

“You can erase their faces, but not the truth and their crimes…"

They are correct about one thing – the questions raised do require answers, because they are the same standard tropes seen in Palestinian propaganda for decades. Some are demonstrably false, others grossly one-sided, and some grievously omit key parts of history that are less flattering to their narrative.

We have heeded Hadash’s call for answers and are happy to oblige."

Please click here to read the full piece by CAMERA Presspectiva Senior Research Analyst, Shlomi Ben-Meir.

Watch: The Evolving Coronavirus Situation in Israel

As a follow-up to CAMERA's zoom webinar in March, CAMERA's Senior Research Analyst, Sean Durns, provided an exclusive update to the Duke University community on the current situation in Israel regarding COVID-19 and the consistent support and cooperation Israel has been providing its neighbors and the international community.

Please click here to view the presentation.

CAMERA's Campus Advisor and Strategic Planner, Yoni Michanie, exposed in JNS how some human rights organizations are bending the facts when it comes to the pandemic, specifically IfNotNow. He wrote, "But IfNotNow has conveniently chosen to disregard this exemplary joint cooperation in an attempt to simultaneously condone the terrorism propagated by the Palestinian leadership and vilify Israel."

To read his full article, please follow this link.

Click Here to Support Students

Watch: CAMERA Fellow Alumnus Donates Plasma to Help COVID-19 Patients

In celebrating the creativity of our current students and alumni, CAMERA on Campus will be highlighting some of the new projects by our CAMERA Fellows and leaders of CAMERA-supported Israel student organizations.

Hayeem Rudy, a graduate of Brooklyn College, an alumnus of CAMERA's Fellowship and a current medical student at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, decided to donate his plasma after recovering from a thankfully mild case of Covid-19.

We commend the many medical workers who are on the frontlines working to save the lives of many suffering from the pandemic. Thank you Hayeem, for doing your part to help protect others against the virus.

You may follow Hayeem at @hayeemrudy.

Support CAMERA Fellows in Combating Hate

"… Tufts University’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) became the first campus group to submit a referendum condemning and ultimately attempting to end all security training for campus police by Israeli security forces. (A decision on the referendum was delayed until the fall due to COVID-19).

This is merely SJP’s latest endorsement of the “Deadly Exchange” campaign, which they have openly supported since 2018. The campaign is rooted in antisemitism. Essentially, it claims that Israel and American Jewry contribute to police brutality in the United States, and that university police have become “militarized” to implement “discriminatory and repressive policing” used by the Israeli defense establishment. This is a “j’accuse” par excellence devoid of any evidence, and utilizes classic antisemitic tropes of Jewish power and money."

To read the rest of this article, which was published in The Algemeiner and written by Hebrew University CAMERA Fellow, Dov Guggenheim, please click here.
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"The UC Davis Cross Cultural Center (CCC) is committed to the idealistic goal of building a just and liberated world. The building provides a space for many unique communities to pursue advocacy, identity exploration, and — most importantly — cultural competency. Despite its genuinely good goal, the Cross Cultural Center has consistently failed to extend its mission to Jewish pro-Israel students on campus due to blatant acts of exclusion and hostility.

Last year on May 16, two Jewish pro-Israel students found inflammatory posters in a CCC window facing a path that thousands of students pass through daily. The posters portrayed the complex conflict between Israel and Hamas, the world-recognized terrorist organization in control of the Gaza Strip, in simplistic terms, portraying Israel as the clear aggressor."

To learn more about UC Davis CAMERA Fellow, Jacob Greenstein's experience with the Cross Cultural Center at his university, please follow this link.

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"Last November, a few members of the Occidental (Oxy) College football team posed for a picture with an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) flag, sharing it on their personal Instagram feeds. The pictures were captioned “@oxyfootball stands in solidarity with our Israeli brothers in their fights against terror @IDF” and “Stand up against terror @IDF.”

As a result, a number of things transpired."

To learn more about the heavily hostile and intimidating environment at Occidental College, exposed by Hebrew University CAMERA Fellow, Matanya Harow, please click here.

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"In February, the Endowment Justice Collective (EJC) at Rutgers University, made up of student groups and community partners, petitioned the university’s Joint Committee on Investments (JCOI) to engage in broad ethical divestment from the military-industrial complex, prison industrial complex, fossil fuel industry, sweatshops, and “Israeli apartheid.” The petition portrays Israel as an oppressive regime, and by lumping it in with everything else, creates a binary choice: either you support all of EJC’s causes, or none of them.

Click here to read the full article in The Times of Israel published by CAMERA's Israel Campus Coordinator, Eitan Fischberger.

Click Here to Support Students

10th Annual International Student Leadership Conference

Though COVID-19 has cancelled our annual conference in Boston, we are pushing forward with a virtual conference set for August 9-10 that will bring together and connect Israel activists from across North America, UK and Israel.

Exclusively for CAMERA Fellows and members of our CAMERA on Campus Coalition, the conference teaches students how to effectively combat anti-Israel and biased propaganda on college campuses. Register here for the 10th annual International Student Leadership Conference!

A Fellowship Made For You

CAMERA on Campus is excited to announce that we now have 7 different Fellowship Tracks! Whether you love to write, host events, create social media campaigns or want to focus on educating a specific community, you can find your place at CAMERA.

Please visit this link to apply to become a 2020-2021 CAMERA Fellow. Make sure to apply by July 1st.

#ThisIsWhatAZionistLooksLike

"Hey. My name is Millie, I'm a second year student at the University of Leeds studying Ancient History. I grew up between London and Switzerland but have always called Israel my true home. I love to bake for my friends and family, paint my nails sparkly colours, and watch makeup videos. I'm so proud to be fighting antizionism on campus and to support our homeland. Despite being shy my vocal efforts of supporting Israel have allowed me to come out of my shell and become a leader on campus." –@milliewalker

This Is What A Zionist Looks Like” is a CAMERA on Campus Instagram project which aims to show the world that Zionists come from diverse backgrounds and have diverse interests. We showcase different Zionists, their stories, their interests, and their beliefs. Click here to read Millie's op-ed on why you should get involved!

To be featured in our #ThisIsWhatAZionistLooksLike campaign, please follow this link.

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