STANDWITHUS BLOG
by Janet Cohen
May 27, 2014

As a mother of recently graduated college students, I wanted to see for myself what the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) looked like. So I went to DePaul University, Chicago, on Thursday May 22, the fourth day of a school-wide anti-Israel divestment resolution.  I was in front of the student center when I encountered intimidation up close and personal.
 
The referendum, which assumes Israel’s guilt as a premise, calls for divestment from Israeli companies-a meaningless call since DePaul  investments are held in mutual funds not individual stock holdings. Despite the biased anti-Israel language of the referendum, a vastly outnumbered group of anti-referendum students, most members of DePaul’s small Jewish population, attempted to educate students about the fallacies and dangers of the referendum. What I witnessed and experienced was mob intimidation to silence any dissenting voices.  
 
The following is an example of what went on throughout the day: A young man would politely ask students as they walked by if they had voted. Often he would engage them in conversation.  He explained that those who call for BDS really oppose coexistence, deny the consequences of terror attacks, and undermine the dialogue necessary for peace.  While this young man spoke to students, a student from Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the group which leads the national anti-Israel movement, hovered close by, listening into the conversations and often interrupting. At one point, around 25 SJP students were chanting anti-Israel slogans and dancing around a Kafieh-clad statue of Monsignor John Egan. Students who had been interested in engaging in a discussion about the referendum were flustered by the intrusions and mob atmosphere and generally hastened their departure. 
 
Then I went from being an observer of the silencing of opposition to a victim….

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