Israeli Soldiers Accused Of Harassing Activists On California Campus
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Sam Kestenbaum June 21, 2017
Pro-Palestinian activists in California claim that they faced harassment and intimidation from Israeli soldiers who were invited to their school last month amidst a weeklong anti-Zionist protest.
In May, University of California Irvine’s chapter of Students Supporting Israel invited members from the Israeli organization Reservists on Duty to campus. Their visit coincided with an “anti-Zionism week” being organized by Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, which involved setting up a mock wall modeled on Israel’s separation wall in the West Bank.
The local SJP group allege they were then “subjected to days of racial and sexual slurs,” according to the website Electronic Intifada.
One soldier was accused of calling a black student an “18-year-old punk-ass bitch” and taunting a “female demonstrating at the wall in a sexually threatening tone in Arabic.
Jewish student leaders deny the charges. “These are blatant lies, a load of baloney,” Kevin Brum president of UCI’s Students Supporting Israel, told the Algemeiner.
The website of Reservists on Duty says it was founded in 2015 by “Israeli reserve combat soldiers” with the mission to counter the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement on college campuses.
Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
