EMERGING TRENDS ON AMERICAN CAMPUSES
During the 2015-2016 academic year, American campuses experienced an overall decline in
anti-Israel activism, with fewer anti-Israel events on campuses than the previous year. Despite
a slight increase in the number of schools that experienced detractor activity, detractors hosted
fewer speakers with national notoriety than in 2014-2015, and anti-Israel “theme weeks” reached
their lowest point in three years.2 While such changes appear to suggest a decline in anti-Israel
sentiment, most reflect unusual patterns of detractor activity during the 2014-2015 year – a year in
which the war in Gaza triggered an exceptional surge in anti-Israel activity on American campuses.
Since then, anti-Israel activism has returned to levels observed in previous years, with ICC noting
significant increases in certain types of activity.
Pivot: BDS Measures to Event Disruptions
ICC observed a sharp decline in BDS activity on college and university campuses throughout
the school year.3 Across the country, many SJP students challenged the value and efficacy of
BDS efforts, identifying “Palestinian solidarity” as the movement’s primary aim. Activists in this
camp shifted their focus beyond BDS resolutions and referenda, redirecting their efforts to rallies,
demonstrations, and other types of disruptive activism. For the first time since 2012, anti-Israel
students organized fewer BDS campaigns than in the previous academic year. Students from large
schools and Ivy League institutions, once considered the nation’s most vocal BDS advocates,
reduced their involvement in divestment initiatives.
Despite the recent decline in BDS activity, public displays of anti-Israel campus activism have
continued to rise gradually in recent years. Throughout the 2015-2016 school year, demonstrations, interruptions, and “die-ins” enabled Israel’s detractors to increase the visibility of their
anti-Israel efforts. During the school year, anti-Israel activists carried out 24 disruptions, marking
a 33 percent increase from the number recorded last year. On campuses across the country,
Israel’s detractors staged walkouts, shouted over Israeli guest lecturers, and deliberately interfered
with Israel-related educational activities. In several cases, pro-Israel speakers were subjected to
heckling, name-calling, and other forms of verbal harassment. Widely distributed – and in some
instances, doctored – videos of a number of these disruptions amplified protesters’ messages,
turning disruptions into international propaganda tools.
2.
A “detractor event” is an event on campus related to Israel that has as one of its primary organizers a group that
A) clearly denies the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state with secure and recognized borders and/or B) actively promotes an agenda of boycott, divestment and sanctions against the State of Israel. A
“supporter event” is an event on campus related to Israel that has as one of its primary organizers a group that
A) supports the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state and B) respects the right of the Israeli
people to make their own decisions within their democratic process.
3.
A BDS campaign is an organized effort by students or faculty on campus that is designed to bring about a specific political result in support of the BDS movement.
6
www.israelcc.org