Flotilla U

On November 4, 2010, more than 300 students, teachers, and activists packed a student center on Rutgers University’s Busch campus in Piscataway, New Jersey. They were treated to three hours of speeches assailing Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza and asked to open their hearts and their wallets for an organization called USTOGAZA. The organization was attempting to raise enough money to join the latest trend in anti-Israel activism: flotillas. But the event’s organizers—most prominently the Rutgers student group BAKA—did more than support a run-of-the-mill political rally. They may have encouraged everyone in attendance to run afoul of federal terrorism laws. How and why this is the case represents the dangerous turn campus anti-Israel activism has taken in the age of the flotilla.

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