Ahmed Khawaja
Overview
Ahmed Khawaja has equated Israel with Nazi Germany, defended Hamas and disrupted pro-Israel events as an activist with the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) at the University of Texas, Austin (UT Austin) in 2015 and 2016. PSC is an alternative name for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).Khawaja also co-sponsored a divestment resolution in support of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement at UT Austin, as a Graduate Student Government Representative. He also expressed support for intifada on social media.
As of April 2020, Khawaja’s LinkedIn page said he was a Computer Architect at AMD, since January 2020 and a Ph.D. student at UT Austin, majoring in Computer Architecture. Khawaja is slated to complete his Ph.D. in 2020.
Khawaja’s LinkedIn page also said he received a master’s degree in Computer Engineering from UT Austin in 2016 and a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from the University of South Carolina (UofSC), in 2013.
As of October 2019, Khawaja used the name “Ahmed Akber” on Facebook.
Equating Israel with Nazi Germany
On July 17, 2014, during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE), Khawaja tweeted: “The irony of history that israel is gassing people in #Palestine #GazaUnderAttack #FreePalestine”Israel commenced OPE in July 2014 to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.
On November 21, 2012, Khawaja tweeted: “Criminalizing an entire people to hide domestic issues, sounds familiar from circa 1938 eh #Israel? #gaza #freePalestine”
Defending Hamas
On July 7, 2014, Khawaja tweeted: “You can't prove hamas fired a single rocket or kidnapped the 3 settlers, but no one is checking your facts”In August 2014, Hamas admitted responsibility for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers at a bus stop on June 12th of that year. The bodies of the abducted boys were found buried in Palestinian-controlled territory on June 30, 2014.
Also on July 7, 2014, day, Khawaja tweeted: “...#Hamas didn't fire a rocket until the idf [Israel Defense Forces] bombed Gaza over the last couple of days, you always play the victim.”
Hamas fired over 4,564 missiles and rockets — including Grad rockets — at Israeli population centers during Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in July of 2014. In June 2014, more than 62 rockets were fired at Israel from the Hamas-controlled Gaza.
On July 20, 2014, tweeted: “...I think once the IDF started shelling central Gaza city they cant claim human shields, it was a massacre #FreePalestine.”
Expressing Support for Intifada
Khawaja retweeted an October 10, 2015 tweet ending with the hashtags: “#Third_Intifada #AlAqsa.”On October 3, 2015, during Israel’s “Knife Intifada,” 19-year-old Mohanad Halabi murdered two Israeli rabbis in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem’s Old City. The wife and child of one of the victims were also injured. The day before the murder, Halabi, a member of the terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), had reportedly posted to his Facebook page: “The third Intifada is here"and "Wake up from your slumber and save al-Aqsa. Let the revolution erupt.”
Khawaja retweeted an October 9, 2015 tweet witha graphic that read: “Your knife is your freedom.” The tweet included the hashtags: “#Resistance #ArmedResistanceisOurRight #Intifada #FreePalestine.”
In October 2015, there was an upsurge in violence across Israel incited by Palestinian political and religious leaders. The wave of stabbings, known as the “Knife Intifada,” was characterized by young Palestinians throughout the country stabbing and attempting to stab Israeli civilians.
Disrupting Pro-Israel Events
On November 16, 2015, Khawaja shared on Twitter a video of twelve PSC members who disrupted [00:00:20] an event organized by Professor Ami Pedahzur of UT’s Institute for Israeli Studies, titled: “The Origin of a Species: The Birth of the Israeli Defense Forces’ Military Culture.”Soon after the event began, Mohammed Nabulsi, a PSC leader at UT Austin, interrupted the speaker to deliver a prepared speech, after which the other PSC members began chanting [0:04:56]: “Free Palestine!” and “Long Live the intifada!” PSC members also chanted [00:00:18]: We want ‘48, we don’t want two states!”
Following the incident, PSC released an edited video of the protest and accused Professor Pedahzur of assault. PSC filed a complaint with the university and launched a campaign on Facebook calling on students to file complaints against Pedahzur.
A few days later, Khawaja initiated a fundraising campaign on the platform GoFundMe, to sue Pedahzur.
Professor Pedahzur reportedly received death threats and vacated the offices at the Israeli Studies Institute due to concern for his personal safety and that of his students.
The anti-Israel NGO Palestine Legal called upon the UT Administration to investigate the incident and the administration found that Professor Pedahzur “did not violate the university’s Nondiscrimination Policy and did not engage in harassment of the student organization [PSC].”
On March 31, 2016 Khawaja participated in a protest hosted by PSC, titled: “Israeli Block Party PROTEST.” The protest’s Facebook description said it was “against Israeli apartheid” and would “occur outside the Israel Block Party,” which was hosted by Texas Hillel and Texans for Israel (TFI).
The PSC event, which coincided with “Israel Apartheid Week,” also referred to the IDF as the “Israel Occupying Forces” and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “known inciter of settler violence.”
Also on March 31, 2016, Khawaja said in a statement to the school newspaper The Daily Texan: “...for a conversation to occur between PSC and TFI, TFI would have to acknowledge ‘ethnic cleansing’ experienced by Palestinians and acknowledge Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.”
Supporting BDS
In April 2015, Khawaja sponsored a divestment resolution while serving as a Student Government Graduate Representative at UT Austin.The resolution called on the University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO) to divest itself of holdings in companies that “facilitate in the oppression of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel.” The divestment measure failed to pass.
On June 14, 2015, Khawaja tweeted: “@Pharrell Don't play in Israel, take a stand with human rights for all, not just the select few allowed to attend your show #NotInIsrael”
Khawaja’s tweet was addressed to American musician Pharrell Williams, who was scheduled to perform in Tel Aviv on September 9, 2015.
On December 18, 2018, Khawaja tweeted to U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, asking her: “When are you going to support #BDS.”
PSC
The PSC is an alternative name for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
In November 2015, PSC posted a call to protest a talk by U.S. Navy veteran Admiral William McRaven, a UT Austin graduate,who led the raid to kill Osama bin Laden. PSC accused UT Austin of hosting "a swarm of US intelligence and military officials on campus" who would “recruit students to a life of crime.”
Also, in November 2015, while Palestinian radicals were carrying out daily stabbings throughout Israel, PSC posted a Facebook event entitled "Solidarity with the Palestinian Uprising: Call to Action!" The post expressed the PSC’s support for the violence, stating “ Long “Live the Resistance! Long Live the Intifada!” The Intifadas involve a bloody series of “uprisings” which have variously featured the murder of Israeli civilians via shooting, stabbing, suicide bombing, rock-throwing, rocket fire and car ramming.
In March 2015, PSC organized a protest opposite an Israel Block Party held by Texas Hillel and Texans for Israel celebrating the cultural achievements of the Jewish State. PSC members constructed an "Apartheid Wall" and chanted “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” —a genocidal call for Israel’s elimination.
In October 2014, 15 PSC members disrupted a talk on the creation of ISIS given by Major Gen. Meir Dagan, a former head of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service. Soon after the talk began, a row of 15 PSC members stood up and began yelling. The group then left, but not before one member declared that anyone who stayed to listen to what Dagan had to say was complicit in the deaths of Palestinians.
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.
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.
Social Media and Weblinks
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/100000851232483Twitter:https://twitter.com/fakhawaja [Deleted]
Twitter: https://twitter.com/khawajafa [Deleted]
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmed-khawaja-7a850942/
- Status:
- Student
- University:
- Texas-Austin,
- more...
- Organizations:
- BDS,
- PSC (SJP)
- Related Profiles:
- Seth Uzman,
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026