Q: How long did you teach mathematics at Cal State University, Northridge?

David Klein:  I was there for a little more than three decades. Before that, I taught at UCLA and USC, and before that at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. There, I got into some trouble. I was arrested for taking over a U.S. Senator’s office along with half a dozen Quakers in protest of weapons to the Nicaraguan Contras. I also had a little run-in with the Ku Klux Klan and was sued by right-wing Central American students for bringing in speakers they didn’t like. They sued me for “mental anguish”. Of course, the suit was thrown out of court, but it was a distraction. So, when I got the position at CSUN, I was very happy to get a permanent position there.

Q:  So “mental anguish” …. that’s a recurring theme of the critics.

DK:  Yes, it’s one of their tools. Claiming to feel bad about what we talk about.

Q:  How did you become interested in Israel-Palestine?

DK:  Well, it was kind of gradual. When I was a kid, I was very pro-Israel. And then in college, I started to have doubts and talked to more people. And the more I learned, the more obvious it was that this was a settler colonial state that was engaged in pretty much what the United States did to the Native Americans. And then there was a real spike in my understanding and activity with the 2009  “Cast Lead” assault on Gaza by Israel. That really increased my activism. It was just a new level of outrage that I and many people felt.

Q:  I understand you didn’t talk about politics in your mathematics classes, but that you were otherwise active. What did you do, and what attacks or censorship did you experience?

DK: That’s right. I was careful not to bring it up in my classes since it didn’t really have direct relevance. But I was the faculty advisor for Students for Justice in Palestine and for the Student Green Party and a few other student groups. So, I created a webpage, a BDS resource webpage on the university server from my faculty webpage. Then, I wrote an open letter that was signed by many CSU faculty, administrators, and students to the chancellor of the entire CSU system, demanding that CSU end the study abroad program in Israel for a variety of reasons.

That got some news coverage and brought a lot of attention to my website. So, that was the start of a lot of attacks.

There were hundreds of calls to my university president that I be fired. There were some threats, some kind of death threats. There were some threats to the administration to withhold financial contributions. There was just lots of slander. Some of it came from the campus itself, but it was mostly outside from the Zionist Organization of America, a group called AMCHA, and other groups. And then there were some politicians who joined in the attacks. The local congressman, Brad Sherman, and a California assembly member, Bob Blumenfield, who later became a city council member.

An Israeli-supported law firm pressured then Attorney General Kamala Harris to prosecute me. And they separately asked the Los Angeles City attorney to do that. But those requests came to nothing. Still, I was required to produce massive amounts of emails, anything regarding Israel-Palestine, and regarding logistical planning to bring in guest speakers Ilan Pappe and Norman Finkelstein. These threats and demands went on and on for a long time. And on my website, I  posted a page of the threats, the nasty comments, and the calls for my removal. They were signed by doctors and other professionals, but used really low-level language.  The ugliness that it brought out was amazing.

Q: So you were part of organizing and hosting famous academics such as Norman Finkelstein and Ilan Pappe. How did those visits go, and what were the results?

DK: The Norman Finkelstein visit lasted a week. He gave three lectures, and there was a group of us who wanted to hire him at CSUN after he lost tenure at DePaul University. And so that included 30 faculty members from various departments, including the science departments and social studies, social science departments, and a wide range. And it was going well. We got the approval of a department that wanted to hire him, the journalism department, and it went up to the top, and we were all set to go. And then, at the last minute, it was vetoed by the campus president. Norman asked me to write an article about the whole thing, which I did.

The visit of Ilan Pappe came later in 2012.  We had to have campus police escorts because of the threats. But he was very persuasive and compelling. Both of these guests were. The students were very engaged and it went well.

Q:  I know that there was a big campaign to prevent the tour by Ilan Pappe, but ultimately, the presidents of several CSU universities defended his right to speak. Is that correct?

DK: Three of the campus presidents wrote a letter defending academic freedom. It was an open letter, but it went to the chancellor of the entire CSU system. The visits went smoothly logistically because of that. And it was pretty rare that campus presidents would stand up for academic freedom and freedom of speech for speakers like Ilan Pappe, who very strongly promotes Palestinian human rights.

Q: You’ve been an active supporter of the cultural and academic boycott of Israel. Why do you think this is important?

DK: It’s an important part of the general Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. Academics and culture are very important within Israel. And so this particular aspect of BDS lends what we think is special leverage to isolate the Zionist state because of its actions. Israeli universities are deeply complicit in the persecution and genocide of Palestinians. Maya Wind’s new book, “Towers of Ivory and Steel”, documents that very clearly. Focusing on academics is very pertinent to what’s going on. And the cultural boycott has a very large impact. Everybody recognizes when a famous artist, a singer, or a musician refuses to go to Israel and states the reasons.

Q: But critics of Israel and supporters of BDS are under attack. Do you think the censorship and attacks are the same as in the past? Or is it getting worse?

DK:  It’s getting much worse. The accusation of anti-semitism has been weaponized. Students, teachers, and professors are facing frivolous lawsuits. Students are facing expulsions. Faculty are facing job loss. Both are facing arrests and deportations for opposing genocide because it might hurt the feelings of the killers. Zionist students and outside advocates of genocide claim to feel unsafe because of demonstrations against Israel’s genocide. And they call human rights activists “anti-semitic”.  Even the Jewish activists. And so it’s much more intense now than in the past. They were just sort of getting warmed up on people like me, and now they’ve really sharpened their knives.

Q:  Do you have any strategy suggestions for campus activists who oppose the genocide happening in Gaza?

DK: Yes. I think we would do well to be less defensive and go on the offense. Pleading academic freedom and denying that we’re anti-semites is not really going very far. I think we need to move in the direction of accusing the accusers. Israeli soldiers are intentionally killing babies and children, shooting boys in their testicles, torturing doctors to death, and more broadly, carrying out the extermination of the entire Palestinian people. These are the worst of the worst. And we need to point to them, not just defend ourselves from their empty accusations.

By defining opposition to genocide as antisemitic, they’ve turned antisemitism into a virtue. Hitler could have only dreamed of this kind of linguistic transformation. And in this sense, the Zionists are the biggest antisemites on the planet. They’re the worst of humanity. So I think that the least vulnerable among us should take the lead, especially US-born tenured professors.

And we should focus on where the real power is.  For K-12 schools, it is the school boards. But for almost all colleges and universities in the United States, whether they’re public or private, the board of trustees is the institution’s highest decision-making or governance body.

Members of the board are typically very rich. They have a lot of political power within the country, not just in universities. To give one example, Miriam Adelson is on the USC Board of Trustees. Miriam Adelson was married to the late Sheldon Adelson. He was a very rich billionaire. Both of them are rich billionaires. And Miriam Adelson’s Foundation contributes $200 million each year to Israel. And she was one of the biggest Trump donors as well. So, there are a lot of university trustees like that. They come from weapons manufacturers, the oil and gas industry, and other major corporations. And they’re overwhelmingly Zionist.

University presidents, who appear to be in charge of their campuses, serve at the pleasure of the boards and can be hired and fired at the whim of these boards of trustees. So the boards of trustees are the real power at universities. They are behind the persecution of opponents of genocide. The college presidents who do cave in to the Zionist censors should face no-confidence votes from their faculty senate on campus. But, there really hasn’t been enough focus on the boards of trustees. And I think that’s the next step. There are a number of people who are coming to the same conclusion on campuses and universities.

A lot of research would be involved to find out who these people are, what their background is, expose them to the public, and show what they’re doing, and try to get them kicked out. Replace them with decent human beings. It’s like you’re either for genocide or against it. If you don’t care, that doesn’t say much good about you. So being anti genocide is the minimal criterion for human decency. After all, if they’re going after and attacking people who are trying to stop a genocide, that makes them horrible human beings, and they shouldn’t be in charge of anything.

Q: Do you have any final comments?

DK: I think the importance of the Palestinians’ fight for survival can hardly be overstated. Their struggle is not only for themselves, but it’s at the forefront of a worldwide struggle against global fascism. And that includes the climate catastrophe, because global fascism can only accelerate planetary suicide.

David Klein is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). 

This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.