#BDS: SJP Press Release: Students denounce demonization of student activism by Anti-Defamation League

On campuses around the country, groups promoting Palestinian freedom respond to attack by the Anti-Defamation League

UNITED STATES (October 17, 2010) – Representing campus organizations at over 60 campuses around the country, university students promoting Palestinian freedom have responded to a vilifying report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) listing “Students for Justice in Palestine” (SJP) and a variety of other American organizations as the “Top 10 Anti-Israel Groups in America.” The report was released the same day the ADL honored Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul who owns Fox News Network.

The report – which also names prominent Muslim-American organizations, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Christian ecumenical organization Friends of Sabeel – criticizes SJP chapters for “regularly organiz[ing] activities presenting a biased view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including mock ‘apartheid walls’ and ‘checkpoint’ displays.” SJP chapters have independently proliferated across the country as awareness about the brutality and violence of Israel’s occupation grows on university campuses. In an unprecedented statement, 60 student groups around the country affirmed, “we are unified by our purpose of confronting these wrongs that cause so much death and suffering.”