APRIL 16th - Students for Justice in Palestine | National Day of Action
1) BACKGROUND: Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is a student led, campus based organization that is pro-Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) against Israel. They have more than 80+ local chapters in the United States and are growing. They are behind recent efforts to push universities to divest from Israel this past month (Loyola Marymount, University of Michigan). On April 16th, SJP is calling for a day of national action on campuses, focused around supporting academic boycotts of Israel and university divestment from Israel. TheSJP notice is also posted below for your reference.
This is the first time we have seen a BDS national day of action that is campus focused. Additionally, this past month we have already seenSJP coordinating their BDS efforts in a more sophisticated way than in years past (coordinated campaigns involving multiple chapters that are sharing resolution language, materials etc.).
While the BDS movement has organized national days of action in the past without much acclaim or success, we recommend communities be aware of April 16th as a precautionary measure.
2) ACTION TO TAKE:
· Alert local Hillel Directors and relevant campus partners to be prepared in the event there are public activities or disturbances and possible inquires from the campus media or the community.
· If there is a SJP Chapter on campus, we expect that you will likely face a divestment effort at some point as part of their concerted effort to introduce resolutions on as many campuses as possible.
· In the event there aren’t any SJP led activities on your campus come April 16th, it is still a good idea to familiarize yourself with divestment activities happening on campuses generally.
· As always, IAN is available to consult and can provide supplemental materials that can help with your efforts. Below are resources for your review.
Resources
The Chicago Federation’s – Playbook Tackling the Delegitimization of Israel on Campus. (Click here to download.)
-"Rutgers University and a Strategic Approach to Israel Apartheid Week" and "Countering Delegitimization in Philadelphia: A Campus-Community Model" - both from IAN FACTs 2. (Click here to download.)
- The ADL's Handbook for Responding to Anti-Israel Campaigns on College & University Campuses (Click here to download.)
- The David Project’s White Paper: A burning Campus? Rethinking Israel Advocacy at America’s Universities and Colleges (Click to download.)
- The Israel on Campus Coalition's "The Thriving Campus" guide to effective Israel advocacy (Click here to download.)
SJP LINKS:
SJP National Wikipedia: http://en.
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