Omar Barghouti
- Co-founder and Steering Committee member of Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI); doctoral student at Tel Aviv University.
- Very active in speaking on behalf of BDS on campuses around the world.
- Supports a one-state solution, which he labels the “more just, moral and therefore enduring alternative for peaceful coexistence.”
- Nazi rhetoric: “Many of the methods of collective and individual ‘punishment’ meted out to Palestinian civilians at the hands of young, racist, often sadistic and ever impervious Israeli soldiers at the hundreds of checkpoints littering the occupied Palestinian territories are reminiscent of common Nazi practices against the Jews.”
- At a Sabeel conference in a California church (March 2010), Barghouti alleged that Israel is committing “slow genocide” in Gaza by contaminating the water supply: “There are no death camps. Israel is too sophisticated for that. Israel is a more evolved war criminal. It does things slower.”
- Falsely claims a “right to resist”: “International law does give people under occupation the right to resist in any way, including armed resistance.”
- Uses racially-charged rhetoric: “Palestinian communities… have been recently subjected to some of the worst, ongoing Israeli campaigns of gradual ethnic cleansing intended to Judaize their space.”
- Uses “apartheid” to describe treatment of Israeli Arabs, saying “Apartheid is also alive and well inside Israel… it is legalized and institutionalized racism and that’s what makes it apartheid.”
- Makes false claims of discrimination, including that it is illegal for non-Jews to purchase property in “most places in Israel, I mean, in 93 percent”; that non-Jews are “not entitled to even apply” for most jobs in government ministries, healthcare and education; that “there are many bureaucratic rules that make it very difficult for [non-Jewish Israelis] to get service” in healthcare clinics in predominantly Jewish neighborhoods; and that “only a Jew can be a national in Israel. Non-Jews cannot be nationals.”
In the Media
- Palestinian Activist Urges University to Divest from Israel Michael Sugerman, The Michigan Daily, January 11, 2014