U.S. Students Ramp Up BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) Movement In Wake Of Gaza War

Operation Protective Edge triggers growth of anti-Israel student groups - including Jewish members; Pro-Israel groups counter movement by boosting leadership training.

By Debra Nussbaum Cohen | Aug. 17, 2014 | 5:26 PM

NEW YORK – On Monday, Mia Warshofsky will start her sophomore year in Orlando, at the University of Central Florida. One of the first things the 19-year-old plans to do is launch chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine, two groups that advocate for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. Warshofsky, who is Jewish and has not been to Israel, is eager to advocate for BDS on her 59,000-student campus, though she’s concerned about the reception she’ll face. “Because of the rise in anti-Semitism right now people get very frightened and I worry that the Zionist groups on campus will not be very happy with us. My biggest concern is people being antagonistic,” she said in an interview from Oakland, California, where she was attending a BDS Student Leadership Training conference co-sponsored by JVP and the American Friends Service Committee.

In the aftermath of Operation Protective Edge, which leaders of BDS advocates refer to as a massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, groups like JVP, which has grown by nearly half over the summer, and SJP, with chapters on 114 campuses across the U.S., are ramping up their presence at universities and planning on introducing more BDS resolutions. Pro-Israel groups like Hillel, The American Israel Public Affairs Committee [AIPAC,] J Street U and the Israel on Campus Coalition are focusing their own student leader training on ways to respond to the Gaza emphasis.

“On those campuses which are politically active there will be more tension than there has been probably since the early 1970s,” said Rabbi Howard Alpert, CEO of Hillel of Greater Philadelphia, which covers 15 campuses including University of Pennsylvania and Swarthmore. The 15 institutions are attended by roughly 12,000 Jewish students, of a total student population of about 100,000. Alpert spoke with Haaretz shortly after reviewing security protocols with his director of facilities. “There is scary [anti-Semitic] stuff that has happened in other places. One would be naïve or foolhardy to simply assume that it can’t happen on their home campus.”

This summer’s conflict has been a boon to anti-Israel student groups’ membership.

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