Adrian McAfee

Overview

Adrian McAfee has shown support for a terrorist, promoted the Boycott, Sanctions, Divestment (BDS) movement and participated in a protest against the Israeli Mayor of Jerusalem.

McAfee is a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Columbia University (Columbia) and attended the 2018 National SJP Conference.

The 2018 National SJP conference was held on November 16-18, 2018 at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The conference was themed “Radical Hope: Resistance in the Face of Adversity.” The conference website stated: “[t]he reason we can have hope is that Zionism...can be destroyed.”

McAfee attended the 2017 National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) conference, held October 27-29, 2017 in Houston, TX. 

On November 4-6, 2016 McAfee attended the 2016 National SJP Conference held at George Mason University. McAfee also attended the SJP East Regional Conference held in Philadelphia in March of 2016.

As of January 2019, McAfee’s LinkedIn page said he was a student at Columbia majoring in “Economics,” slated to graduate in 2020.  

Supporting a Terrorist

McAfee retweeted a January 11, 2016 tweet in support of a campaign seeking to block the extradition of terrorist Omar Nayef Zayed from Bulgaria.

Zayed, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), murdered an Israeli yeshiva student in 1986. Zayed escaped from custody after being hospitalized during a hunger strike, in 1990.


In February 2016, Zayed died while hiding the Palestinian embassy in Bulgaria in February 2016.


Promoting BDS

On February 1, 2016, McAfee updated his Facebook cover photo to an image of the outline of the State of Israel with the words “Apartheid Divest apartheiddivest.org” and wrote: “Demand that Columbia divest from Israeli apartheid. Sign our petition today” and included a link to a BDS petition created by Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a student initiative to rebrand BDS.

CUAD is comprised of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and SJP members, who joined forces in February of 2016. 

The group called upon Columbia to divest its equity holdings and endowment funds from companies that “profit from the State of Israel’s ongoing system of settler colonialism, military occupation, and apartheid law.” 

CUAD lists eight target companies that it believes “*likely* to be invested in by a university like CU,” without knowing whether Columbia actually had holdings in the corporations.

Also on February 1, 2016, Adrian shared the CUAD page on Facebook.

Protesting the Mayor of Jerusalem

On April 9, 2016, McAfee participated in the protest of a speech given by then-Israeli Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, at Columbia. McAfee held a sign that read: “Stop Resource Theft.”

Members of SJP and CUAD held signs for the duration of Barkat’s speech and then walked out.

On November 18, 2015, McAfee posted pictures on Facebook of SJP banners accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and “apartheid.” 

SJP displayed the banners opposite an “Israel Week” event at Columbia.

Attending the 2018 National SJP Conference

On November 22, 2018, McAfee was featured in a photo of the 2018 National SJP Conference Steering Committee members. 

2018 National SJP - Celebrating Violence  

During the 2018 National SJP conference, anti-Israel activist Mohammed Nabulsi led the attendees in the chant [00:00:52] “Long Live the Intifada! Intifada! Intifada!”

Since the early 2000’s, the term “intifada” has carried the connotation of violence. The second intifada was characterized by more than 120 suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians on buses and in cafes.

Anti-Israel activist Omar Zahzah also reportedly [00:00:07] led National SJP attendees in chanting, in Arabic, “With our bodies and our blood, we will free Palestine.”

As of November 2018, the 2018 National SJP website glorified “radical hope and upfront defiance of Zionism,” citing as examples the “early revolts through the Intifadas to the Great Return March.”

The Great Return March of 2018 was organized and funded by the terror group Hamas as a campaign of violent protests along Israel’s border to spotlight the demand of Palestinians to “return” to Israel. 

Tens of thousands of rioters gathered on Israel’s Gaza border, attempting numerous breaches of Israel’s border fence, with leaders andparticipants declaring their intention to harm Jews. 

National SJP originally promoted a conference logo featuring a keffiyeh-wearing bear, looking toward a kite bearing the colors of the Palestinian flag. 

On October 27, 2018, National SJP said the kite signified “the power in the Gaza March of Return.” 

Since March 2018, March of Return participants and Hamas’s “Kite Unit” have sent hundreds of kites bearing incendiary devices and IEDs (improvised explosive devices) across the border into Israel to terrorize Israelis. The kites are often marked with swastikas.

By the time National SJP produced its 2018 conference logo highlighting the kites in October 2018, Gazan terror kites and balloons had ignited more than 1,300 fires in Israel, over seven months.  

2018 National SJP - Undermining U.S. Support for Israel  

On November 18, 2018, the US Palestine Community Network (USPCN) posted on Facebook the 2018 National SJP keynote speech by Hatem Abudayyeh, USPCN’s co-founder
 
Abudayyeh has supported [00:08:45] convicted terrorists, praised terror organizations, called for Israel’s destruction and is an activist in theBoycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

In his 2018 National SJP Keynote, Abudayyeh said [00:53:01] that the “specific role” of Palestinian and Arab students was to organize [00:53:42] in order to weaken “Zionist Israel” and force [00:54:23] the U.S. to “no longer provide it with diplomatic, political, financial and military cover and support.” 

Abudayyeh predicted [00:55:37] that once U.S. support to Israel ends, National SJP attendees would return to Palestine as “conquering heroes,” end [00:54:38] the “occupation and colonization of all Arab lands including the Golan Heights” and replace “Zionist Israel” with a Palestinian state. 

2018 National SJP - Whitewashing Terror Organizations  

During his keynote speech, Abudayyeh also painted [00:14:01] terrorist organizations as “liberation movements” and “resistance organizations,” stating [00:14:21] “what we also know is that the majority of the resistance organizations in Palestine are on the U.S. state department list of foreign terrorist organizations.” 

Abudayyeh also celebrated [00:52:00] that all of the “armed resistance” organizations in Gaza are part [00:52:14] of a “unified resistance in Gaza, that includes all of the resistance organizations, working together under a unified military command.”

2018 National SJP - Defending Terrorist Rasmea Odeh  

During his keynote speech, Abudayyeh claimed [00:08:28] that pro-Israel organizations “go after students like you,” adding [00:08:20] “just like they went after my friend and colleague, Rasmea Odeh.” 

Odeh was a key military operative with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization. In 1969, she masterminded a PFLP supermarket bombing that killed two college students. She also attempted to bomb the British consulate in Jerusalem. Odeh later moved to the United States but was deported to Jordan in 2017 for immigration fraud.

Abudayyeh added that he was asked [00:08:45] to talk about Odeh’s case, and praised SJP and SDS students who organized [00:09:15] “absolutely valuable” events on behalf [00:9:11] of Odeh, “as she was fighting to stay in the U.S.”

2018 National SJP - Demonizing Israel and Jews  

During his keynote speech, Abudayyeh defended [00:27:25] the “Irvine 11” — eleven Muslim Student Union (MSA)   members who were arrested in 2010 for repeatedly shouting down former Israeli ambassador Michael Oren during an address at the University of California at Irvine (UC Irvine). 

Abudayyeh referred [00:27:37] to Oren as a “racist fascist speaker, representative of a racist, fascist country.”

Abudayyeh went on to claim [00:29:48] that “today, even in the United States, Israel is finally being seen as the criminal, apartheid, racist state that it is.”

Abudayyeh also called for increased action in the face of President U.S. Donald Trump, and referred [00:48:41] to Jared Kushner, Trump’s Jewish son-in-law and senior advisor, as “that pig son-in-law of his.” 

2018 National SJP - Excluding Students  

The 2018 National SJP Conference welcomed only students who were verified and vouched for by an SJP (or otherwise named campus Palestine solidarity group). Media requests needed to be “approved by the NSJP press team” prior to the conference.

A November 7, 2018 Columbus Jewish News article reported that the Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed a resolution calling on UCLA to cancel the 2018 NSJP conference, stating that a “public university should not allow any group to implement a litmus test for event participation on their campus.”

On November 12, 2018, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block published an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times that criticized National SJP’s exclusion of members of pro-Israel student groups. 

SJP

SJP is a student organization engaged in anti-Israel activity on North American college and university campuses.


The first chapter of SJP was founded in 2001 at the University of California at Berkeley by Professor Hatem Bazian. Bazian has spread classic anti-Semitism, reportedly promoted religious anti-Semitism and defended the Hamas terror group. In 2004, Bazian called for “intifada” in America.


SJP organizes anti-Israel campaigns, including running annual Israel Apartheid Weeks, often in collaboration with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Muslim Students Association (MSA) campus chapters.


SJP has been a major force in pushing the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement on campuses. Chapters have initiated dozens of BDS resolutions in student governments, which have been proposed on or around Jewish holidays, a time when many Jewish students are off-campus.


SJP activists have reportedly physically assaulted, intimidated and harassed Jewish students, disrupted pro-Israel campus events and demonized pro-Israel campus organizations.


Chapters have often endorsed and campaigned for numerous terrorists and whitewashed terrorism.



BDS

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true. 

One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”  

Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”

In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”

The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.

BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.

The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.

Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.


BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.



Adrian McAfee
Status:
Student
University:
Columbia
Organizations:
BDS,
SJP

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Last Modified:
05/04/2026

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