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Iran, Israel, and the Houthis: What’s Happening on the World’s Seas
Houthi military helicopter flies over the Galaxy Leader cargo ship in the Red Sea in this photo released Nov. 20, 2023. Photo: Houthi Military Media/Handout via REUTERS
The global maritime arena is undergoing a period of change and upheaval. This includes Iranian aggression and Houthi piracy, conflict in the Black Sea, maritime border disputes over energy deposits in the Mediterranean Sea, tensions in the South China Sea, Russian and Iranian shadow ships, drought in the Panama Canal, and new emissions standards for vessels, all of which are hindering global trade while adding to the cost of energy transit and insurance.
Nathan Bowditch’s American Practical Navigator is required reading. First published in 1802, the book remains a comprehensive guide to maritime navigation and is still studied at the top naval academies.
In the phrase “The seas are confused,” Bowditch describes a state in which waves come from multiple and sometimes unpredictable directions, often due to storms. He could have been describing the current state of global maritime affairs, which in recent years has faced challenges on many fronts. These include increased threats to critical maritime straits from Iranian and Houthi attacks; maritime conflict in the Black Sea between Russia and Ukraine; emerging major power competition and tensions in the South China Sea; maritime border disputes over energy deposits in the Mediterranean Sea; climate change and droughts affecting the Panama Canal; and the rise of new environmental standards and emissions quotas for vessels that affect their profitability.
Countries wishing to navigate these “confused seas” must develop a cohesive maritime strategy to adapt to the challenges and capitalize on the opportunities they create.
In recent months, Houthi attacks have been disruptive to global trade, emphasizing the need for global cooperation to ensure the security of critical maritime straits. Backed by Iran, the Houthis have intensified maritime provocations in the Red Sea and near the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, conducting drone and missile attacks on both commercial and military ships and engaging in piracy.
The Houthis’ maritime campaign began on November 19, 2023, when their forces captured the commercial vessel M/V GALAXY LEADER, and they have since conducted dozens of similar attacks. These actions led major shipping companies to bypass the Red Sea by rerouting their vessels around the African continent, creating delays of 10-30 days to ongoing shipments.
US CENTCOM has labeled these hostile actions an overt menace to both international trade and maritime security, though trade has largely adjusted to them. Despite the attacks, global oil prices are now lower than they were before the war began. This is due primarily to predictions of decreased economic growth in China and the quick reaction of US oil producers, which set new records of production and exports to compensate for any loss.
The US, in collaboration with other countries, has been actively addressing the recent escalations in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait; other maritime powers have shied away from direct conflict while hoping to profit from these events. The US, UK, and other coalition partners have conducted several strikes against Houthi positions. The intervention of the US and other coalition ships, including the USS CARNEY (DDG-64) and USS MASON (DDG-87), an American destroyer, limited the damage of potentially catastrophic Houthi missile and drone attacks. These strikes are unlikely to deter future Houthi aggression; rather, by destroying military targets used in attacking shipping, they are designed to degrade the Houthis’ ability to conduct future operations successfully.
The European Union has approved a naval mission to protect Red Sea shipping that will be in operation on February 19. The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) People’s Liberation Army Navy, by contrast, has chosen a cautious path in the hope of avoiding conflict. The PRC is hoping the restricted use of the Suez Canal will translate into more traffic on its overland Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which connects it with Europe through Russia, Pakistan, and the Central Asian states. The BRI initiative is one of the most extensive development programs in history but has been rife with corruption, human rights violations, and major cost overruns. So far, the BRI has forced the PRC to spend $104 billion in bailouts for the failed projects that comprise it. As such, the current Red Sea crisis, which is forcing trade to seek alternate routes, has been a boon to the PRC.
Iran’s activities near the Straits of Hormuz have also added to regional maritime tensions. Although Iran tends to use surrogates when being provocative, it is increasingly choosing direct action.
Last year, the M/V Suez Rajan (recently renamed the ST. NIKOLAS) was at the center of a sanctions violation incident in which it was illegally carrying crude oil from Iran to Turkey. The US intercepted the tanker and diverted it to Houston, Texas, where the oil was confiscated. On January 11, 2024, the vessel found itself in the midst of a retaliatory action by Iran in the Gulf of Oman. The Iranian navy took control of the ST. NIKOLAS, detaining the vessel along with its crew of 15 and escorting them to Iran. Like the GALAXY LEADER, the ST. NIKOLAS and her crew remain detained. The fact that Iran feels more emboldened to take such direct action is a red flag for US deterrence in the Arab Gulf region.
Away from the Middle East, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has created another volatile maritime arena in the Black Sea region. The Black Sea is a vital shipping route for Ukraine. The war has disrupted the country’s ability to export goods, including grain. The conflict has also introduced new maritime war technologies, such as unmanned “suicide” vessels. As these have proven very effective, they are likely to be a permanent feature of future maritime conflicts.
More ominously, the conflict has led to the deployment of naval mines, which pose a serious threat to people and shipping routes. The extent of mining operations remains unknown, but a recent article in the Guardian estimates that Russia has deployed an estimated 400 to 600 sea mines in the maritime areas of Ukraine. Chains moor some mines while others float free, though even the fixed mines can come free due to weather, adding to the danger. Mines are indiscriminate. They are designed to detonate upon contact with the hull of virtually any ship. Even if the conflict were to end soon, it would take years to de-mine the Black Sea.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has also created a global “dark fleet” problem. One way Russia has been circumventing US and EU sanctions since 2020 has been to turn to a fleet of around 1,400 “shadow ships” that operate outside regulations. These merchant ships are old and inadequately insured, their true ownership is concealed, and their flags of registry are often swapped. These shadow ships are a hazard to themselves, other ships, and the environment. They are used in newly created alternative logistics networks by countries currently banned from the normal global system, including Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela.
Much of this dark fleet is made up of crude oil tankers. These ships are estimated to carry as much as 10% of the world’s crude oil trade. However, in addition to allowing the circumvention of oil sanctions, the dark fleet also enables an illicit arms trade and the transportation of equipment used in the development of nuclear technologies. The fact that this dark fleet may be carrying nuclear technologies to Iran, and that Iran itself has been employing such a fleet for its own oil exports, closely ties the Russia-Ukraine war to the growing Iranian threat to the maritime straits in the Middle East.
Adding to these new challenges are existing trends that have been exacerbated in recent years, such as the conflict over Taiwan and great power competition over the South China Sea, which remains a focal point of international tensions. These tensions are largely fueled by the PRC’s territorial claims and assertive maritime activities, which it views as vital to maintaining the security of its maritime trade routes and to the pushing away of competing claims by US-backed rivals.
The South China Sea region, which is known for its strategic maritime routes and significant untapped natural resources, has witnessed increased militarization and island-building efforts by the PRC. These efforts have challenged the sovereignty claims of neighboring Southeast Asian nations and prompted concerns over freedom of navigation. This assertiveness has led to frequent confrontations with the US and other global powers that conduct freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) to challenge the PRC’s maritime claims as each side tests its rival’s red lines.
The relationship between the PRC and the Philippines has become particularly strained. Despite its relatively modest military capabilities, the Philippines has been vocal in opposing the PRC’s territorial assertions, especially around features like the Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly Islands. Incidents involving the harassment of Filipino fishermen by Chinese vessels, the presence of large fleets of Chinese maritime militia, and the PRC’s disregard for the 2016 arbitral tribunal ruling that invalidated China’s expansive claims under the “nine-dash line” theory have all contributed to the tensions.
US strategists fear that the PRC is using its conflict with the Philippines as a testing ground to improve its maritime capabilities and experience, as well as to send a message to larger powers. The oft-quoted Chinese idiom, “Kill the chicken to scare the monkey,” seems to apply to this strategy.
Other than great power politics, another source of increased maritime conflict that has fueled tensions in the South China Sea derives from the rise of cheaper and more efficient drilling and exploration technologies for oil and gas deposits in the deep sea. Over the past two decades, major deep-sea energy discoveries around the world have pushed countries to better define their previously neglected exclusive economic zones (EEZ) through maritime border delimitation 200 nautical miles from shore, creating overlaps and tensions with neighboring countries. Recent tensions between Turkey and Cyprus, Guyana and Venezuela, Ghana and the Ivory Coast, and in the South China Sea were exacerbated by the promise of rich offshore energy deposits. These tensions were also sharpened by weak definitions and even weaker enforcement of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) regarding how EEZ borders are set and who gets to set them. As a result, the concept of “international waters” is almost gone from the Mediterranean Sea, the South China Sea, or the Arctic Ocean, as each littoral country tries to lay claim to as much of its offshore area as possible.
Not all current maritime problems have arisen from conflicts. The Panama Canal is grappling with significant drought problems that are affecting its operational capacity and thus the global shipping industry. Drought has caused dire declines in water levels in the Alajuela and Gatun lakes, which play a crucial role in the canal’s function. The decrease in water reserves has necessitated reducing the number of ships passing through the canal. Additionally, the canal faces the challenge of balancing water usage between its operations and providing for local cities, including Panama City, as these lakes and rivers also serve as vital water sources for those areas.
The ongoing drought has also led to restrictions on the maximum ship depth allowed in the canal. Large vessels must now take alternative routes, like the Drake Passage or the Magellan Straits. Maersk Lines, one of the world’s largest shipping companies, has used a “land bridge” by moving containers from ships to trucks and trains that cross the isthmus instead of taking the longer shipping route. All this significantly adds to time, costs, and environmental impact.
The longer routes, necessary wartime insurance, and environmental compliance measures have all added to the likelihood of delays, disruptions, and costs. Vessel war insurance, which usually hovers around 0.02% of the cost of the vessel, has risen to 0.75% and, in some cases, as much as 1.0%. For a large container ship, the extra insurance can cost shippers an extra $1 million or more.
While climate change is creating challenges to international shipping, the solutions to climate change are also rife with challenges to the industry, especially when it comes to laws and regulations regarding emissions reduction. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has called for “a just and equitable transition” to a decarbonized shipping industry and full decarbonization by 2050. Global shipping regulations like the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) regulations from 2020 have been implemented to address this. IMO 2020 mandates a significant reduction in the sulfur content of marine fuels, from 3.5% to 0.5%, to decrease marine pollution and protect coastal communities.
Despite these efforts, UNCTAD’s recent review of maritime transportation says CO2 emissions caused by the shipping industry are getting worse, not better. UNCTAD points to the rising average ship age – just over 22 years – which adds to the pollution problem. These older ships cannot be retrofitted with emissions controls and remain profitable. Thus, the industry is relying on recapitalization (replacement of older fleets), which has added to demand and backlogs for builders.
The confluence of headwinds described above will likely raise transport costs and affect shippers throughout the coming year, but they will also help the current global shipping recession come to an end. CNBC reports that Vessel-Operating Common Carriers (VOCC) like Maersk, COSCO, and Evergreen are anticipating a rise in rates to levels not seen since before the COVID disruptions of 2021 and 2022. While it is true that the industry has been in a slump, with rates halved since the pandemic, industry experts forecast that current conflicts and other challenges will end the freight recession by the third quarter of 2024.
Regional provocations and environmental challenges mark the “confused seas” of the maritime landscape, but the international community’s collective action, the shipping industry’s resilience, and regional geopolitical responses to these challenges will determine the future of the global maritime commons.
CDR. David Levy, a retired US Navy Commander and former US diplomat, is a senior research fellow at the BESA Center. He was Director of Theater Security Cooperation for US Naval Forces Central Command and was US Air and Naval Attaché in Tunis. CDR. Levy is a former RAND Corp. Federal Executive Fellow and a Ph.D. candidate at Bar-Ilan University in the Politics Department.
Dr. Elai Rettig is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Studies and a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. He specializes in energy geopolitics and national security. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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Vast Majority of US Jews Reject Jewish Voice for Peace, Other Anti-Zionist Groups, Polling Data Shows

Pro-Hamas protesters led by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) demonstrate outside the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 14, 2024. Photo: Derek French via Reuters Connect
A new poll released on Wednesday underscores how far removed Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and other anti-Zionist organizations that claim to represent Jews are from mainstream Jewish views on Israel, Zionism, and the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians.
Commissioned by The Jewish Majority, a nonprofit founded by a researcher whose aim is to monitor and accurately report Jewish opinion on the most consequential issues affecting the community, the poll found that the vast majority of American Jews believe that anti-Zionist movements and anti-Israel university protests are antisemitic.
The findings also showed that Jews across the US overwhelmingly oppose the views and tactics of JVP, a prominent anti-Israel group which has helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza.
Founded in 1996 at the University of California, Berkeley, JVP describes itself as “the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world.” It was infamously one of the first organizations to blame Israel following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the deadliest single day for Jews since the Holocaust.
“Israeli apartheid and occupation — and the United States complicity in that oppression — are the source of all this violence,” JVP said as Israelis were still counting their dead and missing.
American Jews who responded to The Jewish Majority’s poll overwhelmingly reject this line of thinking. Seventy percent said they believe that anti-Zionism of any stripe is antisemitic; 85 percent believe that Hamas, whom JVP described as “the oppressed,” is a genocidal group; and 79 percent support vocally pro-Israel groups such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an organization JVP has defamed as “not a credible source on antisemitism and racism.”
Additionally, JVP’s methods of protest are unpopular among American Jews, The Jewish Majority added, noting that 75 percent disapprove of “blocking traffic” and only 18 percent approve of protesters’ wearing masks to conceal their identities. Sixty percent also disagree with staging protests outside the homes of public officials, a common JVP tactic.
“Plain and simple, Jewish Voice for Peace is an extremist group that does not represent the views of the overwhelming majority of American Jews,” Jonathan Schulman, The Jewish Majority’s executive director, said in a statement accompanying the poll results. “American Jews share a strong and consistent stance against anti-Zionists as well as a deep concern over rising antisemitism and the tactics used by organizations like JVP.”
He continued, “It is high time people see through the charade: JVP is not representative of anyone but a marginal fringe, even if a few radical Jews are involved in their movement.”
The Jewish Majority’s poll was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies.
Jewish Voice for Peace’s inner workings, messaging, and political activities were recently documented in a groundbreaking report on the group published last month by StandWithUs, a Jewish civil rights group based in Los Angeles, California.
Titled, “A Shield for Hate, Not a Voice for Peace,” the report noted that JVP has promoted a distorted history of Zionism and Israel, accusing the movement for Jewish self-determination of everything from training US police officers to violate the rights of African Americans to abusing “Jewish history.” In doing so, it has allied with extremist groups such as WithinOurLifetime — whose founder has threatened to set Jews on fire and led a movement to harass Jews on New York City’s public transportation — and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), which celebrated Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre and has proclaimed that “the Zionist entity has no right to exist.”
The report also stated that JVP has collaborated with anti-Israel entities such as Samidoun, which identifies itself as a “Palestinian prisoner solidarity network,” to hold rallies. Samidoun described Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities in Israel as “a brave and heroic operation.” The United States and Canada each imposed sanctions on Samidoun in October, labeling the organization a “sham charity” and accusing it of fundraising for designated terrorist groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
JVP has also compared Zionism to Nazism.
“This is Holocaust inversion — an antisemitic tactic in which the genocide Jews faced in the past is used to promote baseless hatred against Jews today,” the StandWithUs report said. “The only group benefiting from JVP’s Holocaust inversion is Hamas — a truly genocidal terrorist group. JVP has helped shield them from accountability for launching the war, ruthlessly militarizing civilian areas across Gaza, stealing humanitarian aid, and rejecting nearly every proposed ceasefire and hostage release deal.”
In June 2024, the Anti-Defamation League filed a complaint with the US Federal Election Commission (FEC) accusing the political fundraising arm of JVP of transgressing federal election law by misrepresenting its spending and receiving unlawful donations from corporate entities, citing “discrepancies” in the organization’s income and expense reports.
The complaint lodged a slew of charges against Jewish Voice for Peace’s political action committee (JVP PAC), including spending almost no money on candidates running for office — a political action committee’s main purpose. From 2020-2023, JVP PAC reported spending $82,956, but just a small fraction of that sum — $1,775, just over 2 percent — was spent on candidates, according to the complaint. The money went elsewhere, being paid out in one case for “legal services” provided by a company which “doesn’t appear to practice law” and other expenses.
JVP continues to have the support of powerful friends in the world of progressive philanthropy, a formidable subset of the American elite, amid these scandals and controversies.
Since 2017 it has — according to a 2023 report by the National Association of Scholars — received $480,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a philanthropic foundation whose endowment is valued at $1.27 billion. Between 2014 and 2015 alone, JVP brought in over half a million dollars in grants from various foundations, including the Open Society Policy Center — founded by billionaire George Soros — the Kaphan Foundation, and others.
According to the recent StandWithUs report, JVP has received substantial financial assistance from organizations tied to Lebanon and Iran.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Turkey’s Erdogan Demands Israel Pay Reparations for Gaza, Says Palestinian State ‘Must Not Be Delayed’

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a joint statement to the media in Baghdad, Iraq, April 22, 2024. Photo: AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/Pool via REUTERS
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday demanded Israel pay reparations “for the harm it inflicted through its aggressive actions in Gaza” and urged the immediate establishment of a Palestinian state.
During a press conference with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in West Java, as part of his Asian tour to Malaysia and Pakistan, Erdogan rejected US President Donald Trump’s plan to “take over” the Gaza Strip to rebuild the war-torn enclave while relocating Palestinians elsewhere during reconstruction efforts.
Like many other Middle Eastern leaders who rejected Trump’s proposal, Erdogan also advocated for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The creation of a sovereign, territorially united State of Palestine within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital cannot be delayed any further,” he said during the press conference, as aired by the Turkish TRT Haber TV channel.
“Any step, proposal, or project that undermines this matter is illegitimate in our view, and it means more conflicts, bloodshed, and instability,” he continued.
During Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House last week, Trump called on Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab states to take in Palestinians from Gaza after nearly 16 months of war between Israel and Hamas.
“Until there is peace in Gaza, until the Palestinians achieve peace, peace in the region is impossible,” the Turkish president said.
With talks underway to extend the fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire, Erdogan also demanded that Israel must pay reparations “for the harm it inflicted through its aggressive actions in Gaza.”
“The cost of Israel’s 15-month attacks in Gaza is about $100 billion,” he said. “The law dictates that the perpetrator must compensate for the damage.”
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the war in Gaza when they murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages during their invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
Last month, both sides reached a ceasefire and hostage-release deal brokered by the US, Egypt, and Qatar.
Under phase one, Hamas agreed to release 33 Israeli hostages, eight of whom are deceased, in exchange for Israel freeing over 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom are serving multiple life sentences for terrorism-related offenses.
So far, 16 of the 33 hostages have been released during the first phase, which is set to last six weeks.
During the press conference, Erdogan also announced that Turkey and Indonesia will join forces in the reconstruction of Gaza.
Last month, Erdogan met with Hamas leader Muhammad Ismail Darwish in Ankara.
Turkey has been one of the most outspoken critics of Israel during the Gaza war, even threatening to invade the Jewish state and calling on the United Nations to use force if it cannot stop Israel’s military campaign against Hamas.
Last year, Ankara also ceased all exports and imports to and from Israel, citing the “humanitarian tragedy” in the Palestinian territories as the reason.
Erdogan has frequently defended Hamas terrorists as “resistance fighters” against what he described as an Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. He and other Turkish leaders have repeatedly compared Israel with Nazi Germany and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with Adolf Hitler.
The post Turkey’s Erdogan Demands Israel Pay Reparations for Gaza, Says Palestinian State ‘Must Not Be Delayed’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Boston University Rejects Proposal to Divest From Israel

College students in the Boston, Massachusetts area hold dueling demonstrations amid Israel’s war with Hamas in April 2024. Photo: Vincent Ricci via Reuters Connect
Boston University has rejected the group Students for Justice in Palestine’s (SJP) call for its endowment to be divested of holdings in companies which sell armaments to the Israeli military, becoming the latest higher education institution to refuse this key tenet of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
“The endowment is no longer the vehicle for political debate; nevertheless, I will continue to seek ways that members of our community can engage with each other on political issues of our day including the conflict in the Middle East,” university president Melissa Gilliam said on Tuesday in a statement which reported the will of the board of trustees. “Our traditions of free speech and academic freedom are critical to who we are as an institution, and so is our tradition of finding common ground to engage difficult topics while respecting the dignity of every individual.”
Gilliam’s announcement comes amid SJP’s push to hold a student government administered referendum on divestment, a policy goal the group has pursued since Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Its hopes were dashed on Tuesday when what SJP described as “technical difficulties” caused the referendum to be postponed indefinitely. However, SJP hinted that the delay may have been caused by its failing to draw a “representative sample of BU’s undergraduate population” to the polls.
SJP’s relationship with the university is poor, according to The Daily Free Press, Boston University’s official campus newspaper. In November, the Student and Activities Office issued the group a “formal warning” following multiple violations of policies on peaceful assembly. SJP, the Free Press said, occupied an area of the Center for Computing and Data Sciences for two days and tacked anti-Zionist propaganda — which included accusations that Boston University profits from “death” — on school property inside the building despite being forewarned that doing so is verboten. Following the disciplinary action, SJP accused the university of being “discriminatory towards SJP and our events.”
American universities have largely rejected demands to divest from Israel and entities at all linked to the Jewish state, delivering a succession of blows to the pro-Hamas protest movement that students and faculty have pushed with dozens of illegal demonstrations aimed at coercing officials into enacting the policy.
Trinity College turned away BDS advocates in November, citing its “fiduciary responsibilities” and “primary objective of maintaining the endowment’s intergeneration equity.” It also noted that acceding to demands for divestment for the sake of “utilizing the endowment to exert political influence” would injure the college financially, stressing that doing so would “compromise our access to fund managers, in turn undermining the board’s ability to perform its fiduciary obligation.”
The University of Minnesota in August pointed to the same reason for spurning divestment while stressing the extent to which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict polarizes its campus community. It coupled its pronouncement with a new investment policy, a so-called “position of neutrality” which, it says, will be a guardrail protecting university business from the caprices of political opinion.
Colleges and universities will lose tens of billions of dollars collectively from their endowments if they capitulate to demands to divest from Israel, according to a report published in September by JLens, a Jewish investor network that is part of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Titled “The Impact of Israel Divestment on Equity Portfolios: Forecasting BDS’s Financial Toll on University Endowments,” the report presented the potential financial impact of universities adopting the BDS movement, which is widely condemned for being antisemitic.
The losses estimated by JLens are catastrophic. Adopting BDS, it said, would incinerate $33.21 billion of future returns for the 100 largest university endowments over the next 10 years, with Harvard University losing $2.5 billion and the University of Texas losing $2.2 billion. Other schools would forfeit over $1 billion, including the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, and Princeton University. For others, such as the University of Michigan and Dartmouth College, the damages would total in the hundreds of millions.
“This groundbreaking report approached the morally problematic BDS movement from an entirely new direction — its negative impact on portfolio returns,” New York University adjunct professor Michael Lustig said in a statement extolling the report. “JLens has done a great job in quantifying the financial effects of implementing the suggestions of this pernicious movement, and importantly, they ‘show their work’ by providing full transparency into their methodology, and properly caveat the points where assumptions must necessarily be made. This report will prove to be an important tool in helping to fight noxious BDS advocacy.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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