AMCHA Initiative
The AMCHA Initiative, founded in 2011, describes itself as 'dedicated to investigating, documenting, educating about, and combating antisemitism at institutions of higher education in America'.[1]. It includes 'demonizing Israel', 'delegitimizing Israel', 'applying double standards to Israel' and 'promoting boycott, divestment and sanctions' (BDS) against Israel as examples of anti-Semitism[2]
Contents
Activities
In September 2014, the group published a list of over 200 academics working in North American universities that it called 'anti-Israel Middle East Studies professors'.[3]
Criticism
The group had been accused of waging 'a McCarthyist repression campaign to silence discussion of Palestinian rights in campus' by Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi, a professor of ethnic studies at San Francisco State University.[4]
Co-founder Tammi Rossman-Benjamin has been accused of 'shocking hate speech against Arab [and] Muslim students' and been called a 'well-known anti-Palestinian racist'[5]
The organisation has been accused of spying on students and faculty engaged in pro-Palestinian solidarity activism.[6] Documents obtained and published by pro-Palestinian website Electronic Intifada show it gathered data on those involved in initiatives to promote the boycott of Israel because of its treatment of Palestinians.[7]
People
- Tammi Rossman-Benjamin - co-founder, University of California Santa Cruz Lecturer
- Leila Beckwith - co-founder, University of California Los Angeles Professor Emeritus
Resources
- Asa Winstanley and Nora Barrows-Friedman, Documents reveal Zionist group spied on US student delegation to Palestine, Electronic Intifada, 29 January 2014.
Notes
- ↑ Mission and Objectives, AMCHA Initiative, accessed 15 September 2014
- ↑ Identifying Antisemitic Activity, AMCHA Initiative, accessed 15 September 2014
- ↑ AMCHA publishes list of over 200 anti-Israel Middle East Studies Professors, AMCHA Initiative, accessed 15 September 2014
- ↑ 'AMCHA aims to suppress scholarship honestly discussing Israel's violation of Palestinian rights': Professor Rabab Abdulhadi responds to Israel lobby smear campaign, Mondoweiss, 23 June 2014
- ↑ Nora Barrows-Friedman, US university lecturer's shocking hate speech against Arab, Muslim students condemned, Electronic Intifada, 12 February 2013, accessed 15 September 2014
- ↑ Nora Barrows-Friedman, California students demand action against Zionist group AMCHA's spying, Electronic Intifada, 13 February, accessed 15 September 2014
- ↑ Asa Winstanley, AMCHA's secret files revealed, Electronic Intifada, 29 January 2014, accessed 15 September 2014
