The following piece on an incident at the University of Minnesota campus is part of our report on “An Epidemic of Jew Hatred on Campus: the Top Ten Neo-Nazi Incidents.” This report chronicles horrifying instances of anti-Semitism on prestigious American campuses including UCLA, Columbia University, the University of Nevada-Reno, and Tufts University, among others. The report’s introduction stresses the role that the terrorist-funded BDS movement plays in promoting anti-Semitism on campus and draws parallels between BDS and the rhetoric and methods employed by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. In a stealth campaign conducted on Monday, May 6, 1000 copies of a printed newspaper containing this report were distributed to public locations on the University of Nevada-Reno campus. The newspapers also contained a poster highlighting the links between the BDS movement and Adolf Hitler’s “final solution.”
University of Minnesota: Academic Department Supports Hamas-Funded BDS Movement
On March 2, 2018, the Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota held an event dedicated to Hamas propaganda titled “BDS, Racial Justice, & Pinkwashing in the Trump Era.” The forum capped off “Divest Week” at the University, a week organized by Students for Justice in Palestine and supported by other campus organizations to promote the anti-Semitic, Hamas-funded Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel and to garner votes in a campus-wide referendum on the topic (the BDS resolution passed by a narrow margin).
The event description which was posted on the department’s Facebook page demonized Israel by accusing it of “daily human rights abuses” and made clear that attendees are expected to learn how to “work in solidarity with the global BDS movement.” The topic of the event, ‘pinkwashing,’ is a term used by Israel’s enemies to accuse Israel of using its support for gay rights as a shield to cover for other alleged abuses.
Further down on the official event page, a section of text titled “What is BDS” again demonizes and delegitimizes Israel. It states falsely that “Israel is occupying and colonizing Palestinian land, discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes.” It again promotes the BDS movement, stating, “BDS is having a major impact and is effectively challenging international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.”
A large image of a pink banner with the words “No to Pinkwashing. No to Israeli Apartheid” accompanies this text.
The Amcha Initiative, an organization dedicated to tracking anti-Semitism on campus, revealed that “The official GWSS department Facebook page additionally promoted the event by posting a demonizing image to the event page’s wall about Pinkwashing that also contained the image of a poster saying ‘Israel Out of Palestine’ as well as an image saying, ‘No Pride in Zionism, Israeli Apartheid, Occupation. Justice for Palestine.’”
This rampant support for the anti-Semitic and genocidal BDS movement on the part of an official university academic department is a flagrant violation of the proper role of an academic institution and reveals the depths of Jew hatred on the University of Minnesota campus.
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