BDS activists say they successfully pressured a college to end its Israel study-abroad program

• Published date: 05 April 2024
• Author: ANDREW LAPIN/JTA
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Anti-Zionist activists at Pitzer College and beyond are cheering the change as a victory for the movement to boycott Israel. Jewish Voice for Peace and the school's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine wrote on Instagram Monday that the decision was "historic" and said it "sets precedent for colleges and universities across the US to hold complicit Israeli universities accountable."

But administrators at Pitzer, part of the Claremont Colleges consortium of schools in Southern California, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the decision was not due to the boycott movement.

Rather, they said, it stemmed from student disinterest. No students have signed up for the program in the past eight years, a college spokesperson said, and Haifa was one of 11 study-abroad programs the school removed from its pre-approval list.

In a statement, the college emphasized that students can still elect to study abroad in Haifa if they wish.

"These programs are not closed to Pitzer students, nor do any of these actions reflect an academic boycott of any country or educational institution," the statement read.

Anti-Israel activity across the campus

The decision follows a swell of student anti-Israel activism on campus. In February, Pitzer's student government held a formal vote to insist the university discontinue its Haifa program along with all other associations with Israeli institutions.

Student and faculty groups held similar votes in 2018 and 2019, which Pitzer's president Melvin Oliver said he would ignore. But the latest came amid intense student activism around Israel since the outbreak of war in the Gaza Strip — and Jewish staff at the colleges said there have been tensions around Israel there for years.

"I learned from Pitzer Jewish students that going to Israel was 'social suicide,'" Bethany Slater, director of the Claremont Colleges Hillel, told JTA. "Those who had been before college spoke about hiding that information from their peers. They said if people learned of plans to travel to Israel they would be subject to verbal harassment from other students as well as shaming on the anonymous social media platform used by students at Pitzer. I believe this is a significant reason for why the program was underutilized."

Slater, who became the Claremont Hillel's first full-time independent director last year, said student hostility toward the Haifa program was indicative of a deeper "vitriolic anti-Hillel discourse that has a hysterical quality."

She said her...