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Sunday, May 3, 2020
Boston students vilified for tackling how Israel trains US cops
1 May 2020
Tufts University officials have denounced student human rights activists. (Tufts SJP)
Officials at Tufts University in Boston have denounced Students for Justice in Palestine for helping expose collaboration between the US police and Israel’s forces of occupation.
The SJP group at Tufts was given an award on 22 April by the university’s Office for Campus Life.
The award recognized the years-long work that SJP has undertaken in the Deadly Exchange campaign.
A project of Jewish Voice for Peace, Deadly Exchange aims to end collusion and training between US policing agencies and Israeli forces.
We are so excited to win the Collaboration Award at this year's student organization awards ceremony! We have worked so hard this year alongside our AMAZING coalition working to #EndTheDeadlyExchange, and we want to thank everyone who has joined us in this campaign!
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Israel lobby groups, including StandWithUs, AMCHA and CAMERA on Campus, swiftly condemned SJP, labeling Palestine rights advocacy as incitement of “hatred and intolerance.”
The groups urged the president at Tufts to rescind the award.
The pressure seems to have prompted university officials to throw their students under the bus.
In the administration’s first statement about
an issue other than COVID-19 since February, Anthony Monaco, the
university’s president, and other senior figures at Tufts repeated
Israel lobby talking points to smear the boycott, divestment and
sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights as anti-Semitic.
The administrators claimed that the award “should not have” been given
to SJP and that it “has caused a great deal of pain and concern for
Jewish members of our community and others who share concerns about
SJP’s policy positions.”
They added that they will begin supervising the awards process “to ensure proper oversight and review going forward.”
The Anti-Defamation League, a major Israel lobby organization which has boasted that
since 2004 that it has sent hundreds of “law enforcement executives” to
be trained by Israeli forces, thanked the Tufts president and asserted
that SJP fosters anti-Semitism.
We appreciate the leadership from @MonacoAnthony & @Tufts here. It's ironic for SJP to win an award for collaboration when they routinely alienate Jewish students and others who don't submit to their rigid worldview and regularly foster #antisemitism. president.tufts.edu/news/2020/04/2…
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“The domineering of Tufts officials here reflects the growing rift
between campus support for Palestinian freedom and removed college
bureaucrats,” said Amira Mattar from the organization Palestine Legal.
“It is patently absurd that high-level administrators are micromanaging
those on the ground who see the day-to-day efforts of these students,”
Mattar added.
Along with student groups and human rights organizations, Palestine Legal is calling on Monaco to revoke the statement.
TLC is disappointed in Tufts’ response. We are proud to be one of the many clubs that supported and collaborated with SJP, and we are offended by the admin’s statement. We call upon @TuftsUniversity to revoke its statement and apologize immediately. We stand in #solidaritywithSJP twitter.com/sjptufts/statu…
See Tufts Labor Coalition's other Tweets
CONGRATS @SJPtufts for being honored with the Collaboration Award for "breaking down barriers between diverse student populations and fostering greater communication."
SHAME on Tufts admin for its repression and baseless smears.
Take action in support: buff.ly/3aKHLqz twitter.com/SJPtufts/statu…
See PACBI's other Tweets
Saying it is “appalled and saddened” to be falsely accused of
anti-Semitism for its work defending Palestinian rights, Tufts SJP – in a
statement supported by more than 40 student organizations on campus – notes that
it is particularly shameful “that the university has focused on
condemning a justice-driven club when the university has not adequately
supported our community during this pandemic.”
While students struggle to afford tuition, and don’t know yet whether
campus housing will be available, “the administration has waged
unsupported allegations against students who believe all people deserve a
safe campus, from Tufts University to Palestine,” the group writes.
To see the Tufts administration adopt these anti-Semitism smears against
Arab students who are already targets of racism, and erasing Jewish
students involved in the Deadly Exchange campaign is, according to the
SJP group, “extremely disheartening.”
Campus police chief trained in Israel
In 2017, Tufts’ campus police chief attended a “counter-terrorism seminar” in Israel.
The trip was funded by the ADL.
When news of that trip emerged, Tufts SJP helped build a coalition of
more than 15 student groups working to end police militarization, the abuse of students of color on campus and these types of police training trips.
They demanded that the university issue a formal apology for the campus
police chief’s participation in this exchange. The groups are planning
to launch a campus referendum after the university is reopened following
the coronavirus shutdown.
Tufts SJP has met with the administration several times, seeking to end the militarization of campus police.
Yet officials refuse “to publicly condemn it or commit to never sending
police on military training trips again,” Molly Tunis, a Tufts SJP
member, told The Electronic Intifada in March.
Israel lobby organizations have taken scores of officials from US police departments and federal agencies to Israel to learn “counterterrorism” techniques Israel has developed through decades of occupying Palestinians and systematically violating their rights.
Notably, the ADL has for years turned its attention to pressuring university administrations to crack down on Palestine solidarity organizing in US universities.
Students at Tufts say that this backlash against students who advocate for Palestinian rights is nothing new.
But since December, when US President Donald Trump signed an executive order allowing
mere accusations of anti-Semitism against campus critics of Israel to
result in lengthy inquisitions by the government, that backlash is being
amplified.
However, so is student solidarity.
“Students from other groups on campus are starting to understand why the
treatment of SJP has been so unfair,” Tufts SJP member Julia Asfour
told The Electronic Intifada.
