Pro-Terror Antisemite Running for Office

Herzallah was personally named in a current lawsuit alleging he provided material support for Hamas through his activism with AMP and the pro-terror campus group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

At the University of Minnesota, where he is a graduate student and teaching assistant, he participated in and spoke at the school’s illegal encampment. (Campus police ultimately arrested nine people for trespassing at the encampment, as school policy and state law prevent the setting up of tents on campus without permission.)

Yet on his website speaking to voters, Herzallah paints a picture of himself as a family man and a studious PhD candidate with a “deep connection” to the community.

On the site, Herzallah describes himself as a person “passionate about building connections…and working together.” His goal, he claims, is to ensure that all residents “can live with dignity and security.” He mentions his values, which include “inclusivity” and “transparency.”

One of his goals, he says, is “enhancing public spaces and recreational facilities to meet the diverse needs of our community.” Does this include allowing unfettered encampments by Hamas supporters?

On October 7, 2024, the anniversary of the Hamas massacre, Herzallah affirmed in a post on Instagram his belief that “the Palestinian people will emerge victorious. He continued, “In my campaign for Anoka County Commissioner, I carry this belief in justice and humanity forward…where every voice matters and every life is valued.”

Does this include the type of “justice” envisioned by the antisemitic hate group Students for Justice in Palestine?

Herzallah is not the politically correct progressive he purports himself to be. Rather, he is a prominent leader in the pro-terror, anti-American and antisemitic movement overtaking America – a label he embraces proudly and without apology.

See Taher Herzallah featured in Canary Mission’s film and report, “Bringing the War Home: The Palestinian War on America.”

Normalization of Terrorism

At AMP’s 2014 annual conference, Herzallah defended terrorists as “freedom fighters.”

In an undated Facebook post, Herzallah commented on a picture of bloodied Israeli soldiers, writing, “The most beautiful site in my eyes”

In another undated Facebook post, he whitewashed Hamas’ indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli civilians as “an oppressed people’s audible cry for help.”

As a keynote speaker at AMP’s New Jersey Conference in February 2023, Herzallah defended Palestinian terrorism as a “God-given right.”

In September 2024, speaking at the 19th Annual Minnesota Muslim Convention, Herzallah chided participants, “If you remove yourself from this jihad in this moment, then you may lose the path…[if] you don't believe you are the person to be engaged in this historic fight against the enemy then you yourself are removing yourself from the opportunity to engage and to learn and to be guided by Allah.”

At the same conference, Herzallah extolled Palestinians willing to be martyrs, including mothers happy to sacrifice their children.

Promoting Palestinian “Martyrs” in America

Herzallah was a featured speaker at the May 2024 People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit, Michigan. The conference attracted more than 3,000 participants and was open about its agenda to “prepare for the requirements of the next phase of our struggle" and coordinate a mass movement to cause the collapse of America from within.

To this end, Herzallah opined about the purpose of Palestinian immigrants to America as well as the job of his fellow activists:

“We are an integral part of the Palestinian liberation struggle and the people who came to North America, the Palestinians who came to the United States, understood their role immediately upon arrival.”

“...I want to make it clear that the Palestinian diaspora in North America has committed its martyrs for this cause.”

Herzallah continued ominously:

“There are people among us today who might not be with us next year at this conference. And this is a reality. Because the liberation struggle requires sacrifice. And I know everyone here is prepared to make that sacrifice.”

How Does Herzallah View America?

Herzallah’s view of America is laced with antisemitic conspiracies and the precepts of Critical Race Theory. Speaking at the People’s Conference, Herzallah contended,

“... the long tentacles of Zionism have always reached deep into the American heartland. Like no other place in the world. Zionism has penetrated the depths of American society, economics and politics for decades … at its core, the Zionist settler colonial project is based on the white European settler colonial project of North America.”

Purported “Inclusivity”; Antisemitism in Reality

Although the majority of Americans living in Anoka County (where Herzallah is running for commissioner) are most likely not Islamist Muslims like Herzallah, he openly declared on October 17, 2023, just 10 days after the Hamas massacre,

“Anybody who has any relationship or any support or identifies themselves as a Jewish person or as a Christian Zionist, then we shall not be their friend. I will tell you that they are enemy number one and our community needs to recognize that as such.”

In December 2023, speaking at the San Diego Mosque, Herzallah accused Jews of choosing to be “colonizers” to gain “acceptance into whiteness, into Europe.”

Yet to further his goal of the destruction of the State of Israel, he will deign to partner with Jews in the anti-Zionist group IfNotNow (INN). (See section below, “Disruption as a Tool of Protest”)

In the same speech, he stated, “We are clear about our objectives … we go by a different moral code… We will enforce, we will bring the rules that Allah gave us to this earth, because that’s what we were sent for.”

On October 6, 2020, Herzallah compared Israel to Nazi Germany, a common antisemitic trope, according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition has been adopted by multiple influential countries, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and France.

“Putting people in concentration camps, besieging people, wholesale execution of people. These are all, you know, very common trends between what Nazi Germany did and what Israel is doing today.”

On October 18, 2014, Herzallah posted on X: “...Israel was always racist. Racism is the foundation of the state of Israel.” The accusation that the State of Israel is a “racist endeavor”, as well as the denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination, also falls into the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism.

Disruption as a Tool of Protest

Herzallah believes in and has engaged in “disruption” as a tool of protest for more than a decade.

In December 2023, at the Islamic Center of San Diego, Herzallah threatened Jews, saying “Zionists are really going to regret the day they made Muslims their enemy” and declared, “This is the time to agitate, to make Zionists very uncomfortable on campus.”

On October 11, 2023, The New York Times quoted Herzallah as saying, “Every Muslim needs to get out of their comfort zone. We will shut this city down if we have to.”

On February 16, 2017, Herzallah, along with AMP official Kareem El-Hosseiny, and activists from INN and CODEPINK, two radical anti-Israel groups, disrupted a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on David Friedman’s nomination for United States Ambassador to Israel.

Herzallah, along with El-Hosseiny, was arrested and charged with unlawful conduct and disrupting the U.S. Congress.

On January 29, 2015, Herzallah, along with other AMP activists, shouted down Israeli soldiers who were invited to speak at the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, about their personal experiences fighting terrorism. Herzallah shouted, “You’re not welcome on our campus!” Others screamed, “There are two war criminals in this building!”

In February 2010, Herzallah, as one of the “Irvine 11,” was arrested and prosecuted for his role in disrupting a speech given by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren at the University of California, Irvine.

During Oren’s speech, Herzallah shouted at Oren that he was a “mass murderer” before being escorted out by police. Herzallah was convicted and sentenced to community service.

Why Is Herzallalh Running for Elected Office?

Herzallah has long outlined his calculated strategy of working with progressives to achieve an anti-American, anti-Israel and pro-terror agenda. It is simple and not hidden: to speak and act like progressives to get a seat at the table, then slowly work it to his advantage.

“Parks and Recreation” projects a message of concern about the environment; the role of county commissioner telegraphs community engagement and advocacy. Both masks appeal to Herzallah’s intersectional allies, the gatekeepers to his entry into public office, behind which Herzallah can gain legitimacy and vie for positions of higher political influence.

Since 2014, Herzallah has made clear his ultimate goal to be the establishment of an “Islamic state.” In the context of working with progressives, Herzallah decried how these allies don’t go far enough in sharing his Islamist goals and how “the freedom fighter,” (i.e. violent actors) who he defines as “anybody opposed to the current global order,” is “relegated to the category of terrorists.”

It was also in this context that Herzallah asked at the 2014 AMP conference, “What if as Muslims we wanted to establish an Islamic state? Is that wrong? What if as Muslims we wanted to use violent means to resist occupation? Is that wrong? What if as Muslims, we wanted to express and assert our narrative and in Islamic fashion, is that wrong? To many of our progressive allies, that might be something that they might be uncomfortable with, not recognizing that this is something fundamental to the identity and agency of Muslims.”

At the People’s Conference, however, Herzallah made no attempt to hide this strategy, revealing,

“We carefully craft our language, especially here in the United States, not because … we'll create a critical mass and then finally, we will sing ‘Kumbaya My Lord’ and go on winning liberty for Palestine, no. But because of the legal and social realities that we contend with. For me, the most important thing is the longevity and the maintenance and the growth of our powerful movement.”

Watch Taher Herzallah in our video "Bringing the War Home."