CAIR Joins Antisemitic Palestinian Advocacy Groups to Protest New Jersey BDS Bill

A proposed New Jersey bill banning anti-Israel rhetoric and Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) activities on college campuses and in public schools unfairly links such activities with antisemitism, officials with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) say.

CAIR’s partners protesting the legislation include American Muslims for Palestine of New Jersey (AMP), Jewish Voice for Peace of Northern NJ, and the Al-Awda NY: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, among others.

“The falsely-titled Prohibits anti-Semitism in public schools and institutions of higher education [legislation] would only create confusion between what are real and punishable anti-Semitic hate crimes and the protected free speech rights of American students and faculty members,” CAIR-NJ Executive Director Jim Sues said last week in a statement.

But evidence from college campuses across the country shows that anti-Zionist activities against Israel lead to antisemitic actions against pro-Israel Jews. According to the bill’s text, antisemitism includes:

Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jewish people or the power of Jewish people as a collective;
Accusing Jewish people as a whole or the State of Israel of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust;
Accusing Jewish people of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jewish people worldwide, than to the interest of their own nations.