Deny the Use of the University of Wisconsin Campus to Supporters of Terrorism

As students, alumni, and concerned citizens, we urge you to deny the use of meeting space on the University of Wisconsin, Madison campus to the National Conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement, an anti-Semitic organization that condones terrorism and suicide bombing.

When the Palestine Solidarity Movement held its National Conference at the University of Michigan in October, 2002, delegates chanted "Kill the Jews."

When the Solidarity Movement planned to hold a meeting at Rutgers, swastikas appeared on campus buildings, including the Hillel House and the AEPi fraternity.

When the Solidarity Movement met at Duke, undergraduates felt empowered to publish flagrantly anti-Semitic editorial columns in the Duke Chronicle, and there was a staff editorial that approved of support for Palestinian terrorism as an effective means of furthering the (Palestine Solidarity Movements) goals.

The goals of the Palestine Solidarity Movement include the destruction of the State of Israel by any means necessary. Israel would be replaced with a Muslim state, this is sometimes referred to as a one-state solution. Movement tactics include advocating divestment and demonizing Jews with anti-Semitic rhetoric and canards. Delegates at the Duke conference cheered loudly when a proposal to repudiate terrorism as a guiding principle was voted down.

Speakers at PSM workshops refer to the national aspirations of the Jewish people as a disease, trot out hoary canards about Jewish control of the media, the United States government, or American universities, and spout hate-filled slogans about Israel being a Nazi state.

In 2003, the Solidarity Movement scheduled its National Conference for the Rutgers campus. University President Richard McCormick took a careful look at the goals and methods of this movement, which recruits students to travel to Israel where they work in coordination with Hamas and Islamic Jihad under the auspices of the terror-supporting International Solidarity Movement, and at the groups blatantly anti-Semitic rhetoric. In the words of the New Jersey Star Ledger (Sept. 13, 2003) McCormick kicked the meeting off campus.

The Conference was held at the Ramada Inn. Rutgers withheld its name and prestige from a Movement that condones terrorism and promotes the hatred of Jews.

At the October, 2004 meeting at Duke, the Palestine Solidarity Movement announced its intention to hold its Fifth National Convention at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

We urge you to deny this anti-Semitic, terrorism-supporting group the prestige of meeting space at the University of Wisconsin.
(The Jewish Action Task Force urges all signers of this petition to write directly to Chancellor Wiley [email protected] A sample letter and further information are available at:
http://UWisc.JAT-Action.org/