Cornell grad student union backs 'armed resistance by any means necessary'
Cornell’s graduate student union is considering an anti-Israel resolution that endorses full BDS measures and repeatedly labels Israel with terms like 'genocide,' 'apartheid,' and 'state-sponsored white supremacy.'
The proposal comes amid other recent controversies on campus involving faculty defending anti-Israel actions and artwork critics say normalized Holocaust inversion.
Cornell University’s graduate student union is in the midst of discussing an anti-Israel resolution that supports the pro-Palestine Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
The Ithaca, New York-based union discussed the resolution at a town hall on Nov. 20, according to The Times of Israel.
Cornell Graduate Students United — UE Local 300 voted on a resolution titled “International Solidarity with the Palestinian Liberation Struggle,” a statement that adopts an explicitly anti-Israel posture and integrates the Palestinian cause into its labor platform.
The resolution claims that “solidarity with Palestine” is “the most effective means of defending Cornell graduate workers,” and commits the union to enforcing full BDS guidelines aimed at “dismantling” what it calls the occupation of Palestinian land” and “facilitating the return of Palestinian refugees.”
The statement repeatedly characterizes Israel’s actions as “genocide,” “apartheid,” and “state-sponsored white supremacy.” It accuses Israeli officials of “compar[ing] Palestinians to animals” and asserts that accusations of anti-Semitism are merely “weaponizing false allegations” to suppress pro-Palestinian activism.
Campus Reform has reported, however, that incidents of anti-Jewish discrimination have remained at an all-time high following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks against Israel.
The union also endorses what it calls “UN-backed human rights” in order to “resist oppression by any means necessary including armed resistance.” It also argues that the U.S. government and “the ruling class” likewise support Israel at the expense of workers worldwide.
In the statement, Cornell is depicted as complicit in Israeli “war crimes” through its endowment, research partnerships, and especially its collaboration with Technion, which the statement claims helped develop “weaponized bulldozers and drones.”
The BDS movement, which the grad students express support for, advocates “withdrawing support from Israel’s apartheid regime” and withdrawing “investments from the State of Israel and all Israeli and international companies that sustain Israeli apartheid.”
William Jacobson, a professor of law at Cornell, tells Campus Reform that the union’s “anti-Israel aggressiveness” is “not surprising.”
“Unfortunately, the prior administration did nothing to fight this noxious affiliation and instead celebrated it,” Jacobson added. “Now we are paying the price as a campus because the hateful and bigoted BDS movement has captured a key institutional player on Cornell’s campus.”
Two recent controversies also underscore persistent anti-Israel activism at Cornell.
The Faculty Senate narrowly failed to condemn the university for disciplining a professor who removed a Jewish student from his “Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance” class—an effort critics say was pushed by “anti-Israel faculty defending” the professor.
Days earlier, The Cornell Daily Sun retracted a professor’s artwork depicting a bloodied Star of David with a Nazi “SS” symbol carved into a Palestinian figure, a graphic critics called a normalization of “Holocaust inversion.” Both incidents highlight escalating anti-Israel sentiment on campus.
Campus Reform has contacted Cornell University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
