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Over 30 New York scholars and activists spied on by former Mossad agents

Palestine Legal | February 28, 2019

NEW YORK — Palestine Legal confirmed today that a 2017 attempt to scare New Yorkers believed to support boycotts for Palestinian rights with bogus ‘cease and desist’ letters was the work of ex-Mossad agents. The Mossad is Israel’s foreign spy agency.

The New Yorker’s Adam Entous reported on how a private Israeli intelligence firm called Psy-Group spied on supporters of Palestinian rights. “The company said that its operatives drew up lists of individuals and organizations to target,” wrote Entous.

The article profiles UC Berkeley lecturer Hatem Bazian, who was targeted by Psy-Group along with eight other Palestinian rights activists.

Before expanding to California, the campaign initially targeted boycott supporters on college campuses in New York, according to the article.

One such attempt was the now-defunct blacklist website outlawbds.com, whose operatives sent dozens of fake letters threatening students, professors and grassroots activists with “legal proceedings” if they did not “cease and desist” from supporting boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) for Palestinian rights. The New Yorker article identifies Psy-Group as the operators of the site.

Screenshot of Psy-Group email

“It’s scary to think that ex-Mossad agents were behind this spying,” said senior staff attorney Radhika Sainath, who advised over 30 individuals targeted by the letters. “The Mossad itself has a history of surveilling, sabotaging and assassinating Palestinian activists around the world.”

The people targeted by former Israeli intelligence agents with Psy-Group include faculty at Columbia University, New York University, multiple City University of New York (CUNY) campuses as well Black, Jewish, and Palestinian volunteers from groups such as Adalah-NY and Jewish Voice for Peace.

“It is disgraceful that professors and students in American public universities are being spied on and intimidated by the former agents of a foreign nation,” said CUNY professor Sarah Schulman, who was targeted by Psy-Group. “Fortunately, the commitment of grassroots Americans to Palestinian rights is increasing everyday, and no level of threatening covert operations can stop it.”

Though outlawbds.com and Psy-Group no longer exist, the tactics and methods they employed —anonymous blacklisting websites, fake profiles used to target or influence people, and smear campaigns—are all still in use by other anti-Palestinian groups, some of which potentially share information with the Israeli government. The largest example is the blacklist site Canary Mission, which has targeted hundreds of students and faculty who advocate for Palestinian rights.

While it is unclear what relationship Psy-Group had with active Israeli intelligence or government agencies, coordinating with a foreign government to secretly spy on people in the US may violate federal laws. The Israeli government has itself encouraged and funded such activities to covertly undermine the movement for Palestinian rights.

March 8, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | 1 Comment

NYU grad student union votes to boycott Israel

Ma’an – April 24, 2016

A graduate student union at New York University on Friday voted in favor of joining the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights.

Two-thirds of the Graduate Student Organizing Committee cast a vote in support of the resolution, which calls on both NYU and its United Automobile Workers union affiliate to divest from all Israeli state institutions — including universities — and corporations “complicit in” Israeli violations.

The resolution proposes that NYU join the movement “until Israel complies with international law and ends the military occupation, dismantles the wall, recognizes the rights of Palestinian citizens to full equality, and respects the right of return of Palestinian refugees and exiles.”

Over 600 union members voted in the referendum, a reportedly larger-than-average turnout for union votes. The 2,000-strong union represents graduate teaching and research assistants at the university.

Some 57 percent of voters made a voluntary individual pledge to participate in the academic boycott against Israel.

The BDS movement has gained momentum over the past year, aiming to exert political and economic pressure over Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory in a bid to repeat the success of the campaign which ended apartheid in South Africa.

Major actors to join the movement this year include British security giant G4S and French telecom company Orange.

The NYU union’s support of BDS comes after US President Barack Obama in February signed into law an anti-BDS trade agreement reiterating that US Congress “opposes politically motivated actions that penalize or otherwise limit commercial relations specifically with Israel,” referring directly to BDS activities.

The Israeli leadership has widely condemned the BDS movement as antisemitic or carried out from “hatred of Israel,” while proponents of the movement argue divestment measures are necessary in pressuring Israel to end its decades-long military occupation.

Moves inside the US — Israel’s longstanding ally and number one provider of military aid — to criminalize BDS have meanwhile been slammed by human rights defenders as a violation of free speech.

April 24, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

New York professors join BDS movement

MEMO | April 11, 2015

Around 120 professors at New York University have joined the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement in calling for the institution to divest from companies linked to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, Al-Risalah newspaper has reported. The BDS movement has had some success in other parts of the US, notably in California.

According to Al-Risalah, the academics criticised the NYU policy of not disclosing the identity of the companies it is dealing with. This, they say, makes it harder to know whether they deal with the Israeli occupation or not. Students at NYU are pushing their professors to call for transparency in the university’s investments, and for divestment if and when links to the occupation are discovered.

“I support ‘NYU Out of Occupied Palestine’ because I am opposed to apartheid,” said Professor of English Elaine Freedgood in a press statement. “The international boycott of apartheid in South Africa was a significant factor in its demise.”

Other professors who signed the petition include Iraqi novelist Sinan Antoon, historians Greg Grandin and Zachary Lockman, and Ella Shohat, a well-known cultural studies scholar.

April 11, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , | 2 Comments