Israeli Soldiers Accused Of Harassing Activists On California Campus

Image by Facebook

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

Sam Kestenbaum is a contributing editor and former staff writer for the Forward. Before this, he worked for The New York Times and newsrooms in Sana, Ramallah and Beijing. Contact him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum and on Instagram at @skestenbaum.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO