It was left out of the platform in 2012. There was a big campaign with it. They tried to get the people to vote for it. It took three votes. All of them were saying no, no, no. Finally, the chair said, i say it was yes. It was an oral vote. I dont have too much time. I am not going to go through all the members. There were polls. When 60 members of congress skipped the speech of the israeli prime minister, that was sanctions israel. It was because of bds that it made it possible, because there were movements out there. The policy again has not shifted but the political shifts press forward the work of those movements that have made these broader shifts possible. Why now . Because the israeli violations are more violent, more visible, partly because of social media. More people are aware. The political situation of the world is different. Young people, not only young jews, young palestinians, young people in general are not accepting the socalled conventional wisdom that led to single minded approach that is says, israel is our friend and thats all you need to know. We saw it this year in the debates around the Democratic Party platform. Partly because of the Bernie Sanders campaign. Bernie sanders made the issue of palestine. His only major Foreign Policy issue. That was huge. In my view, it wasnt necessarily the right decision, because it was an isolating decision. If he had made ending u. S. Wars in the middle east his main Foreign Policy decision, it might have gotten more support than it ultimately did. From the Vantage Point of changing the political discourse on palestine, this was unprecedented and amazing. It led to what we saw at the Platform Committee where you had jim zugby and all these people debate debating in a serious way the question of palestine. When you have cornell west on the democratic Platform Committee, you know there has been a change. The filmmaker, josh fox said about that debate, all of our real gains are movement gains. These are not gains that democratic establishment politicians came into office with. I want to end with this sense about where our movement is right now. Thats whats really fundamental here. We are at a moment where this norm normal i zation gives you incredible opportunities. When we started, we had 7, 8, 12 people in a room. We were scared. We didnt know what we were doing. Three months later came 9 11. We were really scared. We thought, what the hell are we doing . It was the wrong time. It was the right time. Now, we are seeing that kind of growth. The u. S. Peace movement is not in good shape, has not been able to fully take on the challenge thats needed for u. S. Involvement in the wars in syria, in iraq, in yemen, support for the saudi war inem en, all of that. We see the creativity, the young people, the people of color are centered in the movement for palestinian rights, the most creative tactics and strategies. It is not only bds. Bds is huge. It is about direct challenges to the u. S. Military aid to israel. Its direct challenge to the legitimacy of the lobby, challenging the insistence of the u. S. In supporting israeli violations in the u. N. So that israeli officials are never held accountable. All of this is now up for grabs in a way that it has never been before. Its the movements that have made that possible. The goal is not just to change discourse, obviously. The goal is to change policy. Our democracy, as we know, is very seriously flawed. It is very, very broken. As our elections have shown. Nonetheless, one of the things that has to happen before there can be policy change, there has to be a change in discourse. It is not enough but it is the first step. Boy, have we gotten well on our way. Nang you. Hi, everyone. Im really happy to be here and phillies is a tough act to follow. It is interesting, because i think what she said, what she said, built up nicely to what im gonna say. I think it is very true that the gains that have been made here in the u. S. On the palestine issue are largely, you know, due to popular movements to a growing u. S. Movement, a growing u. S. Movement for palestinian rights. Onned other on the other hand, what phyllis hadnt gotten to yet was the reaction to this movement. Thats what im going to focus on today. I dont want to rain on any parades. I think it is important to understand what we are dealing with right now, given the strength in movement. Right now it seems like there has been a tectonic shift now that trump is president elect. It doesnt feel right to say that. Certainly, when it comes to israel palestine, we just dont know. We dont know what. Is going to happen. It will be potentially worse than clinton, i think, if only because he seems entirely willing to torpedo whatever u. S. Policy was there before him. He doesnt care about the u. N. He doesnt care about even appearing to stick with decades of u. S. Foreign policy. So i think thats part of whats most threatening about him that, he will go his own route entirely without any respect for whats come before. Im going to talk a little bit how the u. S. Role in israel pal stin has shifted for the growing role of movement for palestinian rights. As a tactic but not exclusively bds. As phyllis mentioned, this has been cat tallized by success if i have, horrific wars on gaza, the mobilization of tens of thousands of people protesting. I think a couple of points about this u. S. Movement that i want to make. One of them is how centered the movement is on campuses, how critical students have been in bringing this issue to peers on their campuses, how creative, what kinds of Creative Strategies they have come up with, as phyllis mentioned, mock check points to show what it is like to be a palestinian in occupied territory. Mock eviction notices, posted on dormroom doors to show what it is like to be forcibly removed from your home. Of course, divestment campaigns, all kinds of interesting tactics to raise wearness aboawareness. The other point is how diverse the movement has come. Phillies alluded to this. The kind of intersectionality that is happening and the crossmovement work that is happening is critical. And phyllis point about how important it will be moving forward. I want to really hold that up. Palestine, in my view, will continue to be a central issue but we are going to see so many communities under direct attack. What has with the real movement, the real organizing between communities will demand this kind of support, this kind of standing up for the most vulnerable among us. Then, finally, bds, as a tactic, has really shifted the way that folks here are active on the issue of palestine. So ill talk a little bit more about bds. Specifically, in the u. S. Of course, it is global all over the world. We know that boycotts are not a new tactic. Certainly, palestinians have used them before. During the british mandate, et cetera. But the bds movement, which dates to 2005 and the call from over 178 Palestinian Civil Society organizations to the International Community has created a new level of engagement on this. I think the demands of the bds movement are also important to recognize and how instrumental those demands have been in widening the focus of the movement for palestinian rights. It is about ending the occupation and taking down the wall but it is also about guaranteeing equal rights for palestinian citizens of israel and recognizing the apartheidlike regime that currently exists and also respecting the right of return for Palestinian Refugees. I think the fact that it encompasses all of these demands is really important in the way that it has shaped activism and the kind of political conversation that is happening. Since 2005, this call for boyco boycott divestment and sanctions has been heeded by organizations around the world. We have seen significant victories. Just in the u. S. , we have seen academic boycotts, academic associations going through years of organizing to resolve in the end to accept resolutions that call for an academic boycott of israeli academic institutions. You have the american studies association, the asianamerican studies association, the National AssociatioNational Association of chicano and ciacana studies. There are many of them. This has been a Significant Development i think just in the last three years, really. Divestments. The lutherans have called for end of aid to israel. In universities have called on their companies to divest from company that is profit in israeli human rights investigations. These are huge victories. They have caught the attention of israel and its allies. We have artists and musicians and actors speaking out on this issue. So lets talk about the response to this movement. I think what is most important to realize here is that this is a testament to how successful the movement has become. How much it has changed Public Discourse to the point where a president ial candidate can say what he said. The backlash we are seeing originates with israel itself, which has pledged millions of dollars to combatting bds specifically and is supported by dozens of groups in the United States that specifically support israel and the zionist agenda. We have sheldon aidle son raising over 20 million to combat palestinian activism and millions of dollars dedicated by a number of organizations to undermining this growing movement. I think the thing that when we are thinking about the u. S. Role in this, what is dictating how the u. S. In the form of government officials, in the form of Public Institutions like universities in the form of Government Agencies is responding to this. There are a few things to think about. It seems the u. S. And its officials are really listening to the israeli alarmism about bds. Thats kind of the boogeyman that represents, i think, a larger movement. What has resulted is that israel has labeled bds as a strategic threat of the first order. It has labeled bds as antisem mittic. It has attempted to link it to terrorism or to imply it is just as bad. The u. S. , weve seen, that it has followed suit. Well discuss some of the wayls in which it has done that. My organization, palestine legal, put out a report last year documenting what we have seen around the country to the suppression of speech on palestine, of activities on palestine. We termed it the palestine exception to free speech. It seems like you can talk about basically anything in this country but if you criticize israel, hold on. You are vulnerable to a lot of attacks. It has really presented a challenge to our First Amendment rights and the enforcement of these rights. What we have seen is, you know, since 2014, we have documented nearly 600 incidents of suppression. A lot of these are happening on campuses but not all of them. The way that these, this plays out is in several ways. We see Academic Freedom suspended. How many of you have heard about the case of steven sarita, fired, terminated. He hadnt yet started teaching but he had a contract and was getting ready to start teaching at the university of illinois, champagne, urbana. His contract was terminated, because he was tweeting in the summer of 2014 about the horrific attack on gaza. How many of you have heard about the recent incident at university of california, berkley. Yes. A student proposed a course on palestine flew a colonial settler analysis. An administrator arbitrarily suspended it after, of course, significant pressure from Israel Advocacy groups. It was reinstated a week later after a lot of uproar and pressure. Thats significant but we see that kind of thing all of the time. Where any talk or any study of palestine is immediately biased, is immediately onesided, is propaganda, et cetera. We are seeing this in legal complaints, in lawsuits. So we have several organizations filing complaints under title 6 of the Civil Rights Act claiming that universities are discriminating against jewish students by allowing a hostile antisemitic environment. The basis of these claims are that lectures and Film Screenings and protests threaten jewish students and leaves them vulnerable. So the most basic of activities, talking about palestine, are painted as antisemitic. We see students disciplined all the time with being antisemitic, and threatening jewish students and going through months of disciplinary processes and investigations. When we intervene, when universities investigate, they find, this is political speech. This is not an attack on jewish students. The same has happened actually with these title 6 complaints i have mentioned. The department of education investigates them and has found over and over that the First Amendment protects these activities. This is political speech and thats what the First Amendment is for, thank god. Then, i think very important that weve seen more recently smear campaigns against individuals. How many of you have heard about canary mission, for example, a website that profiles hundreds of students and academics claiming that they are antisem mystic and proterrorist, with the aim of preventing them from getting jobs. We see hundreds of students very worried about this. Their careers hang on it. Their future employers will google them and this is what will come up. Then, we have things like the David HorowitzFreedom Center plastering posters all over College Campuses naming individual students and saying these students are terrorist supporters. If you support them, you support hamas. Great. So this kind of public, black listing is going on a allot. Then, we have legislation. I think the legislation were seeing around the country is particularly representative of the length that government officials will go to oppose bds, in particular. So lets talk a little about about that. The alarmism about bds is evident in the legislation we are seeing. They are calling it discriminatory, antisemitic, andrew cuomo calling it worse than terrorism itself. We have seen a couple of waves of this. The first was starting in 2014 in response to the american studies academic boycott resolution. You had several states proposing legislation that tried to defund universities that support or participate in an academic boycott. Meaning any university that pays or subsidizes its faculty to go to a conference, an asa conference, for example. These all failed, partly because of the huge opposition, even the New York Times editorialized against it. Because it us r is just so blatantly unconstitutional, mainly. More recently, we have a new kind of legislation proposed in many states. We have dozens of pieces of legislation doing a few things. First, you have resolutions that are nonbinding that merely condemn boycotts. They dont really hold any weight. They cant do anything. They are an expression of the legislators position about bds. They are harmful in the Chilling Effect that they have for people who are talking about this or who want to talk about this. Then, we have bills that are proposed. They do one or all of the following. They create black lists of companies, nonprofits, institutions, individuals that p participate or promote bds. They required the state to divest its funds from those companies on the black list. Some dont have a black list. Some prevent the state from contracting with companies that engage in bds. There are 13 states now that have passed these laws, including new york, through an executive order of the governor. It is hard to say what the impact of these laws are. We think in practical terms it may not be so big but the Chilling Effect is huge. People think, oh, this bds has been criminalized. Oh, if i do this, i will put myself in danger. Thats their intention, to scare people off from engaging on this issue. Then, we have congressional legislation as well. A few bills. I think we are bound to see more. So trump im sorry to show you a picture. I feel like we have seen him a lot and we are going to see a lot more. We expect the assault on palestine activism to continue. One things that phillies didnt mention that he has said or his adviser has said, they plan to ask the department of justice to investigate campus activism. This is a step beyond the department of education. This is going to reinforce the surveillance, the targeting, the smearing of activists. There is hope. I will end on this note. There is increasing support for palestinian rights, as i phyllis talked a lot about. The opinion polls are showing that. Young people are more and more supportive. There is a shift. In order to keep that going, we have to remove this stigma that this legislation is helping to show that all these concerted attacks on palestine activism are making possible. We have to push back against that. Its possible and i think it is hopeful, because there is such an important history of boycotts used to further social justice. Its a timehonored tactic in the u. S. And globally. It has been used in the most important social Justice Movements in the u. S. Certainly. Then, there is the law. We have the First Amendment. Very clear Supreme Court precedents saying that boycotts are protected First Amendment activity, boycotts to affect political, economic and social change, which is what bds is. So, you know, it is our duty, responsibility to make sure those rights are protected. If we dont, they will be forsaken. Thats what palestine legals role is. Thats how we see our role. If we are able to do that, if we are able to keep this space for this movement to grow, for the Public Opinion to keep shifting, we can have an effect on u. S. Policy in the longrun. Thank you very much for the Palestine Center ab the Jerusalem Fund for inviting me. Thank you for the panelists and for all of you