Ahmad Daraldik

Overview

Ahmad Omar Daraldik [Ahmad Eldeek Daraldik] was the center of controversy following the exposure of his anti-Semitic social media posts after he became the Student Government Association (SGA) Senate President at Florida State University (FSU) in June 2020.

Daraldik also created an anti-Semitic website, reportedly as a high school sophomore in 2016, in which he compared Israel to Nazi Germany and suggested that Israel engaged in forced medical experimentation on Palestinians. The website was maintained in the public domain through at least mid-June 2020. 

While he was FSU SGA Senate President, Daraldik opposed a June 2020 FSU student senate resolution that recognized the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism and was designed to combat anti-Semitic hate speech and activity on FSU’s campus. Daraldik also attempted to bar two Florida state legislators from speaking at an online meeting leading up to the vote.

Daraldik remained FSU SGA Senate President until October 2020, when FSU’s Student Supreme Court ruled that the student senate and Daraldik, who presided over his former senate president Jack Denton’s removal, had violated the SFU student constitution and Denton’s First Amendment right to Free Speech.

As of June 2020, Daraldik was a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at FSU (FSU SJP). He also attended the 2019 National SJP Conference.

National SJP held their conference at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities (UMN), from November 1-3, 2019. The conference was themed: “Beyond Struggle: From Roots to Branches Towards Liberation.”  

Daraldik is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and was the Primary Sponsor of a BDS resolution launched by the FSU Student Senate, in January 2021.

As of December 2021, Daraldik indicated in his Instagram bio that he was a student at FSU CARE [Center for Academic Retention and Enhancement (CARE)], slated to graduate in 2022. He also wrote that he was “SGA 72nd Senate President.” In January 2021, Daraldik said he was “a third year (student at FSU) majoring in International Affairs.”  

In June 2020, Daraldik used the name “Ahmad Eldeek” on Facebook.

As of December 2021, Daraldik used the handle “deeko_the_ palestinian” and the screen name “🇵🇸حمد دارالديك🇵🇸” [Ahmad Daraldik] on Instagram.  

Anti-Semitism Controversy

While serving as FSU Senate President, Daraldik’s public anti-Semitic social media posts were brought to a wide audience and a petition was started by an FSU student that called for Daraldik’s removal. The petition garnered over 10,000 signatures. 

On July 24, 2020, BDS Report tweeted that Daraldik had “just shared a new video on his Instagram story claiming that the problem with Jews is they make everything about themselves.”

The video Daraldik shared on his Instagram story featured a man claiming: “And most Jewish people, when talking about this conflict, its you guys always want to shift the focus back to you. It’s always anti-Semitism, it’s always anti-Jew. Everything has to be about you guys.”

A June 24, 2020 article reported that Daraldik compared Israel to Nazi Germany in a since-deleted 2019 Instagram post. 

Another social media post from 2019, reported in an article published on June 16, 2020, showed an Instagram post from Daraldik with the caption: “Iconic. #f**ktheoccupation #f**kisrael.”

In June 2020, the Algemeiner revealed that Daraldik published a website in 2016 devoted to comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, which is described in the section below. The website was subsequently removed. 

A March 4, 2013, Facebook post by Daraldik was exposed on Twitter on June 11, 2020. The tweet showed a post by Daraldik that said: “stupid jew thinks he is cool” and included a photo that purported to show an Israeli soldier standing with his foot on a young girl. 

On June 11, 2020, FSU’s Office of Admissions tweeted: “Florida State University does not condone this type of behavior. We take matters like this very seriously, and have informed FSU's Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards.”

On June 18, 2020, a vote to oust Daraldik from his position as Senate President failed during an FSU Senate Zoom meeting, because a 2/3 majority threshold was not reached, with only 19 students supporting the vote of no confidence against Daraldik, 16 opposing and six abstaining.

On July 16, 2020, the City Commission of Aventura, Florida, unanimously adopted a resolution condemning Daraldik’s anti-Semitic media posts and requesting FSU’s president to remove Daraldik as president of the student government. 

Anti-Semitic Website

A 2016 “thesis,” titled: “A CONTEMPORARY HOLOCAUST-PALESTINE” and posted as a website by Daraldik was brought to wide attention in June 2020.  

The site’s homepage proclaimed: “The Holocaust never ended, it just moved to Palestine…” and went on to say “the Nazi German Holocaust… in no way justifies the contemporary Holocaust imposed upon the Palestinian people.”

Daraldik’s site claimed: “Over 11 million Palestinians have either been massacred, raped, imprisoned, put under siege or bombed with illegal chemical weapons. This research serves to prove that the contemporary Holocaust in Palestine is very similar to that of Germany.”

A section on Daraldik’s website titled “Jews Reject Zionism,” alleged that the Jewish people lost sovereignty over Israel because they failed to observe the Divine commandments given to them. Daraldik claimed that Jews “were prohibited by the Torah with a very grave prohibition to establish a Jewish independent sovereignty in the Holy Land or anywhere throughout the world. Instead, they were commanded to be loyal to the nations in which they live.”

Daraldik’s website also included “A Comparison” section, in which Daraldik compared Gaza to Nazi concentration camps, alleged that Israel harvested organs from Palestinians, and claimed that Israel uses the Holocaust to “justify cruelty against Palestinians.” Daraldik also equated attack tunnels that Palestinians dug in Gaza, to tunnels dug by the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto to foil the Nazis’ plans to exterminate them.

Hamas terror tunnels are intended for mass murders and hostage-taking scenarios against Israeli civiliansand soldiers. They stretch from the Gaza Strip into Israel.  

Another section on Daraldik’s website, titled “Holocaust Camps Vs Gaza, ” featured a cartoon of a Nazi soldier standing over a Jewish child and captioned: “PAST AND…” This image was beside a similar cartoon image, captioned: “... PRESENT,” depicting an Israeli soldier and Palestinian child. 

Daraldik wrote: “the Palestinians in Gaza are imprisoned by the [sic] Israel and can barely do a thing about it. Just like the Jews were trapped in camps like Auschwitz and not able to escape…” Daraldik listed other “similarities'' such as: “-Both made under ground tunnels to escape” and “-If they do or dont do anything wrong they are killed.” 

Daraldik’s section concluded: “As you may have noticed there are way more similarities between the Holocaust and what is happening in Gaza than differences..”

A section on Daraldik’s website titled “Organ Harvesting” propagated the blood libel that Israelis harvested organs from Palestinians and suggested that Israel engaged in performing “many different types of experiments on the inmates of the concentration camps,” like the Nazis.

Accusations against Israel stealing or harvesting organs have been rehashed over the years, echoing old anti-Semitic blood libels against Jews alleging they would abduct gentiles for sacrificial purposes, including using the blood of Christian children to bake matzah for the Jewish holiday of Passover.

A section on Daraldik’s website titled “Discrimination/Human rights violations” described Nazi abuse of Jews, then went on to claim: “All of this is starting to happen again and this time the State of Israel is committing crimes against the Palestinians that don't really have a way to protect themselves besides using rocks. They said ‘never again’ will something like the German Holocaust happen again, but they just use it as an excuse to justify the cruelty against Palestinians.”

In the section on Daraldik’s website titled “Tunnels in Gaza/Warsaw Ghettos,” Daraldik also accused Israel of weaponizing white phosphorus and using illegal chemical weapons against Palestinians, charges that have been debunked on multiple occasions. 

On June 17, 2020, Daraldik reportedly defended his website in a Student Senate meeting on Zoom, appealing to accusations by Jewish academic Norman Finkelstein, who has accused Jews of exploiting the Nazi genocide via a “Holocaust industry,” to prove he [Daraldik] was “not antisemitic.”

Opposing the IHRA Definition of Anti-Semitism 

In July 2020, while serving as FSU Senate President, Daraldik reportedly attempted to bar two Florida state representatives from speaking during a July 15, 2020 student senate Zoom meeting concerning  72nd Student Senate Resolution #: 59, (pp.26-27).

The student senate resolution recalled (p.26) a Fall 2019 event where a vendor sold Nazi flags on campus and affirmed (p. 26) FSU student senate recognition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) highlights as one possible contemporary example of anti-Semitism: “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”

The U.S. State Department adopted the IHRA’s working definition of anti-Semitism in 2016. Twenty-eight European countries, as well as Canada, Australia, Israel and Argentina, have also adopted the definition.

The resolution vowed the Student Senate would “continue to represent the student body, and to work to unite the Jewish, Israeli, and Palestinian communities on campus and called (p. 27) for the appointment of a student liaison to “increase Jewish communication and representation” within student government.

The resolution also called (p. 27) for the university’s commitment to education in “Jewish culture and antisemitism through communication with the Jewish community on campus,” and for the creation of a task force to deal with issues facing Jewish students on FSU’s campus.

On July 7, 2020, the Student Life & Academic Affairs (SLAA) committee voted unanimously to pass Resolution #: 59. 

On July 9, 2020, the FSU Student Senate tabled the resolution after a five-hour meeting, in which it was filibustered. The resolution was not voted on during the meeting.

On July 15, 2020, the FSU student senate held another Zoom meeting to vote on Resolution #: 59. The meeting was reportedly attended by Representatives Richard Stark and Emily Slosberg, members of the Florida Legislative Jewish Caucus. Both legislators reportedly had issued statements calling for Daraldik’s resignation following the wide exposure of his controversial social media posts.

During the meeting, Daraldik reportedly attempted to bar both legislators from speaking, arguing that as senate president, he had the right to control who could speak at the meeting and that he didn’t want “legislators to sway senators to feel a different way or vote a specific way.” FSU Student Government Association President Jonathan Levin reportedly intervened and insisted that Daraldik allow the legislators to speak. 

Later, at the July 15, 2020 meeting, the Student Senate passed the 72nd Student Senate Resolution #: 59, with 26 votes in favor and 14 against.

As of January 27, 2021, Daraldik was the primary sponsor of the 73rd Student Senate Resolution #: 11, which characterized the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism as “a weaponized definition of Antisemitism” that “betrays an attitude upholding Jewish privilege in Palestine instead of Jewish rights,” and called upon “the SGA Executive Branch, FSU Administration, and any entity incorporated as a part of the Florida State University to rescind their support of the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism.”

Daraldik was also the primary sponsor of the 73rd Student Senate Resolution #: 8, dated January 12, 2021 (p.14), which claimed “Arab and Muslim students at Florida State University are currently underrepresented within student government, and within the administration. 

The Resolution went on to condemn the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism and then acknowledged “every student who bravely spoke at the senate meeting against the vote of no confidence on the Senate President [Daraldik] with Arab and Muslim heritage.”