Ahmad Saadaldin

Overview

Saadaldin’s LinkedIn page also said that he graduated from USF in 2014, with a degree in Public Relations. Saadaldin reportedly transferred to USF after completing two years at Hillsborough Community College (HCC) in Tampa, Fl.

On April 15, 2008, Saadaldin, then aged 18, was arrested in Florida for “loitering or prowling.”

Odeh was a military operative with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization. In 1969, she masterminded a bombing that killed two university students in a Jerusalem supermarket. Odeh also attempted to bomb the British consulate.
 
Odeh confessed, in a highly detailed account, the day following her arrest. In a 2004 documentary, one of Odeh’s co-conspirators directly implicated her as the mastermind. 

In 1970, an Israeli court tried and convicted Odeh for her involvement in both bombings and sentenced her to life imprisonment. However, Odeh was released 10 years later, in a prisoner swap and emigrated to the United States. In 2017, Odeh was deported to Jordan and stripped of U.S. citizenship, after admitting to immigration fraud.

On April 10, 2015, Saadaldin was a featured speaker at an ADC event titled: “The Israel Lobby,” at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.



Saadaldin also suggested [00:08:10] that a USF Hillel Executive Director meeting with Jewish Trustees to combat BDS was part of a plot to tell [00:09:26] students to “shut-up, go to class, pay a lot of money for tuition and for text-books.”

Hillel International is a Jewish campus organization serving college students at 850 universities worldwide.

The video also featured [00:01:30] USF SJP member Mahmoud Ali Mohamed wearing a “Hi I’m AIPAC” pin and a suit patterned with dollar signs, announcing “we have money, just tell us how much you need.” 

The video featured Saadaldin rapping [00:00:23]: “The IDF is lethal, they killing all your people” and [00:00:49] “you’re reppin’ a brand that’s helping bury kids beneath the earth.”

Saadaldin also labeled [00:00:55] Israel “apartheid” and claimed [00:03:54] “human rights being violated just for being Palestinian.”

On November 1, 2014, the anti-Israel publication Mondoweiss reported on Facebook that Saadaldin was involved in a 2014 “Block the Boat” protest, which was organized by Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC).

On May 16, 2014, Saadaldin posted to Facebook in support of the boycott of Israeli company SodaStream, writing: “...BDS is working. Force these companies to rethink how they do business.”

In February 2016, 500 Palestinians lost their jobs when Sodastream moved its factory from the West Bank to southern Israel. Although the company denied that BDS had an impact on the decision, the BDS movement took credit for the factory’s relocation.

In January 2013, while President of SJP USF, Saadaldin spearheaded [00:01:43] SJP USF’s anti-Israel divestment campaign. Saadaldin placed [00:03:47] a divestment resolution on USF’s student body elections ballot, as part of a school-wide referendum.

In the Spring of 2014, while President of SJP USF, Saadaldin launched an SJP USFschool-wide petition promoting BDS.

On April 23, 2014, SJP USF released a video to YouTube featuring [00:00:10] Saadaldin and other activists, erecting a mock “Apartheid Wall,” meant to mimic Israel’s security barrier and calling on USF to divest from Israel.

Israel’s security barrier, 97 percent of which is a low chain-link barrier, was built as a deterrent to Palestinian terror attacks. The concrete portions of the fence were built in response to Palestinian sniper attacks.

On April 24, 2014, Saadaldin posted on his website that he collected over 10,000 signatures “calling on the University to ‘divest’ from companies affiliated with human rights violations.” SJP USF posted a press release about the same petition earlier on their Tumblr page.

The USF Foundation discussed and rejected [00:11:51] SJP USF’s petition because it was found to be outside the Foundation’s endowment and investment management policies and guidelines. 


Saadaldin also stated [00:01:36]: “If anything in regards to Palestine comes up, for example, anti-BDS legislation which would target... pro-Palestinian activists, I would vote against that legislation.”

On June 7, 2018, Saadaldin gave an interview with the anti-Israel magazine Palestine in America (PiA) about his 2017 campaign, where he stated that he had been “calling for divestment from the occupation of Palestine.” Saadaldin added that his campaign had been endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Peace House Demonizing Israel

On April 13, 2015, Saadaldin featured [00:02:20] in a Peace House video, titled: “Suppression’ trailer.” The video’s tagline said: “A documentary which aims to expose the suppression of organizers and activists that dare to speak out against the state of Israel.”

The video showcased Jewish anti-Israel activist and journalist Max Blumenthal who suggested [00:01:20] that Israel markets their arms export as having been field-tested on Palestinians, through [00:00:38] “70 years of dominating, controlling and attacking the restive indigenous population.”

In the video, Blumenthal accused [00:00:37] Israel of using the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as a way to buy [00:00:46] time for “building walls and settlements and laying siege to Gaza and buying time diplomatically to avoid the consequences of maintaining an apartheid state.” 

Blumenthal then claimed [00:00:68]: “If you're not Jewish, you're going to be excluded, ghettoized ...or in the case of these Africans, put in camps.”

In 2013, Israel completed a southern border wall, as well as migrant detainment facilities, following illegal immigration in the tens of thousands.

Blumenthal also accused [00:01:58] “the rising leaders of Israel [of] using genocidal rhetoric.”

The Peace House video also featured anti-Israel activist David Sheen suggesting [00:00:58] Israel is not a democracy and that “People of the Jewish religion have a preferred status, have extra rights and privileges” in Israel.

David Sheen is an anti-Israel activist and filmmaker who works to portray Israel as an extremist racist state. To this end, Sheen has been accused of purposefully mistranslating Hebrew articles and other media to make Israelis appear racist.

SJP USF - Spreading Anti-Semitism  

On July 30, 2014, SJP USF posted an image to Facebook showing Adolf Hitler performing a Nazi salute with text reading: “WE ARE THE MASTER RACE,” next to an image of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with his hand raised and text reading: “WE ARE GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE.” SJP USF commented: “Justifications.” 

On November 18, 2013, SJP USF reportedly hosted and sponsored a game show “about Palestinian culture, geography and history” modeled on the TV show, "Jeopardy!" 

SJP USF - Demonizing Israel  

As of August 2019, an SJP USF Facebook post from February 14, 2015, remained on the group’s Facebook page. The original SJP USF shared an article and quoted the story’s headline: “Israeli authorities usually open the floodgates to their dams in the direction of the Gaza Strip - without prior notice - in order to discharge the enormous quantities of water that had accumulated due to the heavy rains in the region. #Gaza.” 

Less than two weeks later, Al Jazeera retracted a similar story, noting: “In southern Israel, there are no dams of the type which can be opened.”

On February 25, 2016, SJP USF members reportedly joined with other BDS supporters to disrupt a talk at USF given by two Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers. One of the protesters called the soldiers “murderers and child killers” and was eventually was escorted out by police.

On September 5, 2014, SJP USF held an event titled: “The Hidden Genocide: The Story of Palestine.” The Facebook event page referred to Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE) against Hamas earlier that year as a “summer of atrocious massacres.”

Israel commenced OPEin July 2014, to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.

One of the speakers at the event was Hamas supporter Sheikh Monzer Taleb, who was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) terrorism finance trial. Taleb was not brought to trial.

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.