Pro-Palestinian students issue ‘antisemitic’ demand for UC Santa Cruz to cut ties with Jewish groups

The pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel group Students for Justice for Palestine issues a call for UC Santa Cruz to boycott both Israeli and Jewish community organizations, in a list of “demands” posted to social media.

Under its call for a “complete academic boycott,” SJP demands that the California university, “Cut ties UC wide with all zionist organizations — including study abroad programs, fellowships, seminars, research collaborations and universities. Cut ties with the Hellen Diller foundation, Koret foundation, Israel Institute and Hillel International.”

Local Jewish organizations label the demand as antisemitic.

“Three of the four organizations cited in the academic boycott demand by encampment activists at UCSC are Jewish charities and communal groups,” the Bay Area JCRC writes on X, formerly Twitter.

“They are pillars of the Jewish community. This isn’t just about opposing Israel’s Gaza actions but seems aimed at Jewish institutions, revealing underlying antisemitism,” the Jewish group adds.

The SJP post also calls for the university to divest from weapons manufacturing companies, to “end the targeted repression and policing of pro-Palestinian advocacy on campus” and to “sever all ties” with the Santa Cruz Police Department.

It also demands that the university call for a ceasefire in Gaza and “an end for the occupation and genocide in Palestine.”

Israel and its supporters have branded many of the anti-war protests sweeping US university campuses in recent weeks as antisemitic, while Israel’s critics say it uses those allegations to silence opposition.

Although protesters have been caught on camera holding controversial signs, making antisemitic remarks and violent threats, protest organizers say it is a peaceful movement to defend Palestinian rights and protest the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Columbia University suspended its campus chapters of SJP and the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace earlier this year for repeatedly violating university policies by holding unsanctioned protests.