Fifty student groups at New York University pledged on Monday to boycott Zionist clubs on campus and all goods produced by Israelis, in an expression of support for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign.
The coalition — led by the anti-Zionist group Students for Justice in Palestine — includes the African Student Union, Asian American Women’s Alliance, Black Students Union, College Libertarians, Divest for Climate Justice, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and Muslim Students Association, among others.
The groups committed to “boycotting Israeli goods and goods manufactured in the Occupied Territories, except for those manufactured by Palestinians” — an effort that would overwhelmingly impact Jews in Israel and territories considered by the international community to be occupied, including eastern Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights.
They nonetheless asserted that BDS — which opposes the presence of a Jewish homeland in the Levant — “does not target the existence and economic activity of Jews in historic Palestine but rather goods and companies complicit in occupation and apartheid.”
The coalition also pledged not to co-sponsor events with NYU’s pro-Israel clubs, Realize Israel and TorchPAC, and to boycott Zionist groups off-campus, including the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent Jewish civil rights organization. Israeli academic institutions and state-sponsored conferences were similarly blacklisted.
“We call on NYU to divest its holdings from companies and funds that are complicit in the Israeli occupation of Palestine,” the signatories urged. “BDS demands action by Israel to comply with international law.”
Rebecca Stern, president of TorchPAC, said her group was “disheartened” to be targeted “on the basis of differing opinions.”
“We believe in open and honest dialogue, and as such are saddened by the shutting down of differing opinions present in this resolution,” she told The Algemeiner. “Such a policy will only strengthen the divide between people who hold differing opinions on a very complicated issue.”
Read More: Algemeiner
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