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Anti-Israel Protesters Celebrate One-Year Anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 Attacks

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Anti-Israel protesters demonstrate in Los Angeles, CA, on October 5, 2024, in celebration of the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. (source: Instagram)

On Saturday, October 5, 2024, anti-Israel protesters around the world held an “International Day of Action” to kick off a multi-day celebration of the anniversary of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Across more than 80 U.S. cities, protesters gathered for demonstrations that were largely characterized by explicit support for terror, including the October 7 attack itself. The weekend’s protest activity reflected the larger trends that emerged in the anti-Israel…

October 06, 2024

The Slippery Slope of Divestment Campaigns

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Let’s say that a university decides to acquiesce to the demands of anti-Israel protestors and divest its endowment from companies with business ties to Israel. It’s a plausible scenario, despite the many political, economic, and legal reasons to reject the idea: its unfair singling-out and demonization of Israel; the likelihood of reduced endowment returns and lower donations from alumni; state measures discouraging boycotts of Israel; and potential legal risk from…

September 09, 2024

The Impact of Divestment Campaigns on Rising Antisemitism

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Campus activism surrounding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict often presents a skewed narrative, painting Israel as the sole aggressor and magnifying its flaws beyond those of any other nation. While all countries have their shortcomings and deserve scrutiny, Israel stands out as a unique target of widespread university divestment campaigns, suggesting a disproportionate focus on its actions and policies. Through their rhetoric and demands, anti-Israel divestment campaigns can feed into the…

September 06, 2024

The Legal Risks of Divestment from Israel for University Endowments

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There are many reasons why it’s a bad idea for university endowments to divest from Israel. Divestment serves to delegitimize Israel and puts the onus for solving the longstanding Palestinian-Israeli conflict on only one side. It could also likely lead to economic ramifications, such as reduced alumni giving and lower returns, as well as open up the potential for heavier taxation of endowment income. Beyond all of these arguments, universities that decide to divest…

September 04, 2024

The Economic Risks of Divestment from Israel for University Endowments

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As encampment protests riled college campuses throughout the Spring 2024 semester, some universities agreed to formally consider protestors’ demands that their endowments divest from companies with business interests in Israel. It is the latest iteration of the years-long Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign that seeks to isolate Israel economically. Brown University reached an agreement for student protestors to take down their encampment and refrain from…

August 30, 2024

Campus Divestment Campaigns: JLens Unpacks the Demands and Consequences

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As students start returning to campuses with expected continuation of anti-Israel protests, JLens unpacks the demands and consequences of divestment campaigns.

August 27, 2024

What Do Anti-Israel Student Organizers Really Want? Examining the Extreme Demands Behind the Campus Protests

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IntroductionAs university encampments and other forms of student protests against Israel capture attention across the United States, protest organizers have made it clear that, on the majority of campuses, their goals go far beyond urging their universities to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war or to denounce Israeli government policies. The ADL Center on Extremism analyzed statements published by the organizers of more than 130 university encampments nationwide…

May 15, 2024

Anti-Israel Protesters Use International Women’s Day to Praise Female Terrorists

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Friday, March 8, 2024, marked the annual commemoration of International Women’s Day. Over the weekend of March 8–10, anti-Israel activists nationwide used the occasion to celebrate female Palestinian terrorists, including glorifying individuals affiliated with recognized terrorist organizations and whose acts of anti-Israel violence have included bombings, plane hijackings and more. As previously noted by ADL, in the months since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on…

March 15, 2024

Anti-Israel Protesters Glorify Terror Groups, Violence

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UPDATE: April 26, 2024 Explicit support for recognized terror groups and the glorification of prominent individuals affiliated with those groups continues to feature prominently at anti-Israel protests across the country. As documented by ADL, notable recent examples of this support for terror have surfaced at “Popular University for Gaza” campus encampments and Quds Day protests in April 2024 and at International Women’s Day protests in March 2024. There have been numerous…

February 27, 2024

Blood Libel on Wheels: Anti-Israel Activists Using Digital Billboard Trucks to Share Antisemitic Messages

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In recent years, activists have harnessed the marketing power of digital billboard trucks to promote their messages. Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, anti-Israel activists have increasingly used these vehicles, adorned with propaganda, to spread anti-Zionist and antisemitic themes, including a modern form of the blood libel: that Israelis harvest Palestinian organs. These trucks, bearing a variety of anti-Israel and antisemitic messages, are sponsored by U.S…

February 14, 2024

Anti-Israel Activists Applaud Houthi Violence

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In the aftermath of October 7, 2023, and the start of the Israel-Hamas war, some anti-Israel activists have boldly expressed support for terrorism against the State of Israel and Jews, which at first manifested in explicitly supporting Hamas. More recently, these activists and leftist groups have also expressed admiration for another group they consider allies in the fight against U.S. imperialism and Zionism: the Houthis. The Houthis, an Iranian-regime backed U.S.-designated terrorist group…

January 25, 2024

Post 10/7, BDS Activists Are Refocused on Attacking Israeli, Jewish Businesses and Individuals 

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Screenshot from the spreadsheet “is your fav author a Zionist”, circulated in May 2024

Since the Hamas-led terror massacre in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaigns directly targeting “Zionist” institutions, businesses or individuals, have persisted in response to Israel’s operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. BDS is a component of a long history of campaigns and efforts to delegitimize and isolate Israel. In recent years, this has explicitly focused on the rejection, isolation and marginalization of&nbsp…

December 07, 2023

At Anti-Israel March in D.C., Explicit Expressions of Support for Terror and Antisemitism

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Hundreds of organizations from across the country marched in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, November 4, 2023. The official published demands of the protest included ceasefire to the Hamas-Israel war, an end of the “siege of Gaza” and the termination of all U.S. aid to Israel. Yet attendees, who numbered in the tens of thousands, went much further and leaned into rhetoric supporting the October 7 Hamas massacre and other acts of terror targeting Israel, calls for the end of Israel,…

November 04, 2023

Anti-Israel Activists Co-opt American Tragedies to Target Israel

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This spring and summer, as headlines across the United States have focused on urgent issues like the dangers of gun violence and threats to reproductive care, prominent anti-Israel groups and individuals have sought to tether these American issues to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, doubling down on anti-Zionist tropes and false accusations against the state of Israel. These groups include Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), both of which…

July 26, 2022

President Biden’s Visit to Israel Sees Uptick in Anti-Zionist Rhetoric

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U.S. President Joe Biden, who is currently visiting Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Saudi Arabia, reiterated the strong friendship and strategic alliance between Israel and the United States, paid tribute to Holocaust survivors, and even self-identified as a Zionist, at a time when the term is being demonized by Israel’s detractors. Outraged by this show of support for the Jewish State, individuals and groups in the anti-Israel movement in the United States assailed President…

July 14, 2022

You Don’t Need a Map to Find Antisemitism

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The Boston “Mapping Project” is not a one-off from a fringe group. Rather, it exemplifies how the increasingly aggressive purveyors of anti-Zionism are spewing raw antisemitism into the mainstream. The movement barely attempts to use the fig leaf of opposition to Israeli policies to cover a venomous hostility to the Jewish people.

June 14, 2022

Some 2022 Left-Wing Candidates Espouse Troubling Rhetoric on Israel

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April 05, 2022 Introduction In recent years, American public life has been increasingly marked by the rise of extremism and the erosion of democratic norms. A torrent of white supremacist activity and the growing prevalence of conspiracy theories have spurred some individuals and groups to commit acts of violence. American society has been further compromised by rampant misinformation, resulting in a deeply divided and polarized electorate. Concomitantly, antisemitism has been at a…

April 05, 2022

2022 Israeli Apartheid Week: Overview

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April 04, 2022 Source: Boston University Students for Justice in Palestine The 16th annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), a series of worldwide anti-Israel events, took place in the United States and Canada March 21-28, 2022. This year’s theme, announced on the BDS Movement’s website, was "the role of culture, and art in particular, in decolonizing our minds in our collective struggles against cultural appropriation and oppression." While some events reflected the week…

April 04, 2022

PayPal, ADL Investigate Extremist Funding; Swastika Grafitti at the State Department; Reactions Grow on Ben & Jerry's Israel Decision

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July 29, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3PayPal is partnering with ADL to investigate how extremist and hate movements in the U.S. take advantage of financial platforms to fund their criminal activities. A swastika was found carved into an elevator at the State Department, prompting President Biden to speak out. Unilever’s CEO wrote a letter to ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt in which they made clear the company will continue to do business in Israel despite its subsidiary Ben & Jerry’s…

July 29, 2021

Center on Extremism: As It Happens

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May 12, 2021 Some at Anti-Israel Protests Express Antisemitism, Support for Terror Antisemitism and support for terror among a small but vocal segment of protesters at nationwide demonstrations sparked by ongoing violence in Israel and Gaza Last Update: 5/23/21 10:30 am ET 5/22/21 Philadelphia, PA: Video from a protest in Philadelphia shows a demonstrator declaring, “Israel controls the media.” Such a claim plays into the…

May 12, 2021