Anti-Zionist group Punishment for Justice Movement offers bounties on Israeli academics

The Punishment for Justice Movement, a radical anti-Zionist and anti-Israel group offers $US50,000 to potential assassins for murdering an Israeli academic listed on its list, and up to $100,000 for the elimination of “special targets.” It also offers financial incentives to individuals who can either intimidate or provide additional information on the targeted Israeli academics. 

The website reportedly lists personal information and details about hundreds of Israeli academics from institutions including Israeli universities, Harvard, Oxford, and the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

The organization’s “special targets” list names former Weizmann Institute President Daniel Zajfman, Ben Gurion University President Daniel Chamovitz, and physicist-activist Shikma Bressler. The group claimed the academics are “legitimate targets” because they "use their knowledge to kill innocent people and children by spreading weapons of mass destruction to the Israeli military."

"The movement, with the participation of both its thinkers and allies, is working to eliminate these goals and destroy all their interests and assets in the whole world, which through good financial capital funded by the help of the freedom-loving people, invites all unofficial military groups, armed groups and fighters to join the movement to confront these criminals and benefit from the rewards of punishing these victims and killers while trying to defend human rights and help the oppressed children of Gaza," the anti-Israel group stated.

Many of the Israeli academics on the organization’s hit list declined to comment on the threat against them and their families. 

"The competent government agencies should suggest more comprehensive solutions, because walking around with targets on our heads puts at risk not only us, but also our families," one Israeli academic said on condition of anonymity.

By contrast, Oxford computer science professor Michael Bronstein argued that he didn't "give a damn" about the threat against him, suggesting that it emanates from "nutcases who have a lot of free time and no serious job."

"I was profoundly disturbed and shocked that my head was valued so cheaply, considering my standing in the academic community. I find anything below a seven-figure highly offensive," Bronstein told the Jerusalem Post. "I am however consoled that I am at least in a good company," he added.

Public information about the anti-Israel website is limited. Launched in August, it has experienced technical issues and is reportedly based in Drenthe, the Netherlands.

The number of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incidents worldwide have increased dramatically since the Hamas Oct. 7, 2023, attack. University campuses in the U.S. and other Western countries have become hotbeds for anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda. 

Pamela Nadell, a professor of Jewish history at the American University in Washington, D.C., argued in September that Jews in the United States and elsewhere are facing a “high tide” of Jew-hatred that focuses on the Jewish state. 

“For me, calling for Israel’s destruction is absolutely antisemitism. Criticizing Israeli policies is not; Israelis themselves do that every day. But increasingly, 'Zionist' has become a slur, a new code word, just as 'Jew' was pejorative in the 19th century, so that Jews themselves preferred to call themselves 'Israelites.' NYU’s student conduct code even recognizes that 'Zionist' can be used as a term of hate,” Nadell explained.

Comparing current antisemitism with the 1930s, she is nevertheless cautiously optimistic that things will eventually improve. 

“I take solace in history. After the high tide of the 1930s, things improved. My hope is that it will happen again. My concern is the unprecedented role of social media, which amplifies antisemitism in ways we’ve never experienced. Campus encampments declined last year, vandalism declined, but antisemitism online exploded. That’s what worries me most,” Nadell concluded.

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