Alexi Shalom
Overview
Alexi Shalom has expressed support for terrorists and was an activist with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Hunter College (Hunter), part of the City University of New York (CUNY).Shalom is an activist with New York City SJP (NYC SJP). In February 2018, NYC SJP was renamed Within Our Lifetime (WOL).
Shalom was listed as a panelist at WOL’s “1st Annual Palestine Lives Conference” on the topic of: “MEEN ERHABE (WHOS THE TERRORIST)? - What is Zionism? Breaking down the origins and history of Israel and its Terrorism.”
The conference was co-hosted by Within Our Lifetime (WOL), formerly known as New York City Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), as well as the anti-Israel groups Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) and Existence Is Resistance.
Shalom has supported the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
As of August 2018, Shalom was a Union Organizer with the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys - UAW 2325.
As of the same date, Shalom used the alias “Alexi Peace” on Facebook, and his LinkedIn page said he attended Hunter from 2011- 2015.
Support for Terrorists
On May 23, 2017, Shalom updated his Facebook profile photo to the caption: “I Support #DignityStrike.”
On May 25, 2017, Shalom participated in a protest to support the 2017 Palestinian Prisoners Hunger Strike.
On January 11, 2017, Shalom, acting as a NYC SJP representative, reportedly threatened to sue the Algemeiner newspaper for asking WOL for a comment regarding a Facebook post written by president of NYC SJP Nerdeen Mohsen Kiswani.
On January 8, 2017, Kiswani praised, on Facebook, Palestinian celebrations of a vehicular ramming attack that killed four people and injured 17 others on a Jerusalem promenade.
Anti-Israel Activism
On April 7, 2016, Shalom promoted to two Facebook groups a “Right to Education Tour” event hosted by NYC SJP.Shalom invited the group members to hear “4 students from the West Bank and East Jerusalem” discuss the “current crackdown on student activism in Palestine including mulitple [sic.] left-wing and political student groups' offices being ransacked by the IDF and students arrested.”
On March 14, 2015, Shalom appeared in a Hunter SJP photo, standing in front of a mock “apartheid wall” erected on Hunter’s campus.
In 2015, Shalom was a speaker and co-facilitator of a workshop panel discussion titled "Critical Perspectives on Palestine: Revitalizing a One State Solution," hosted by “Students for Justice in Palestine from around NYC.”
The workshop was chaired by Kiswani and its description endorsed BDS.
Supporting BDS
On September 18, 2016, Shalom participated in a BDS demonstration protesting the Jewish National Fund (JNF)’s 2016 National Conference. Demonstrators accused the JNF of colonization, ethnic cleansing and racial discrimination.On December 18, 2014, Shalom appeared in a Hunter SJP photo alongside other SJP activists, holding up an Israeli flag with the word “Boycott” written on it in red.
Hunter SJP - Masking Anti-Semitism as Anti-Zionism
On May 1, 2016, Hunter SJP shared an NYC SJP blog post that conjured anti-Semitic themes, stating: "This May Day, we denounce Israel, we denounce the United States, and we denounce global capitalism and its highest form, imperialism.” The post also alleged "Israel sustains itself and its crimes through the aid of global imperialist powers....”
On April 26, 2016, Hunter SJP promoted a rally co-sponsored by NYC SJP and NY4 Palestine scheduled to take place on May 1, 2016. The Facebook event description claimed "Israeli settler-colonialism cannot be talked about without the role of fellow-imperialist United States, the genocide of Black and Brown people at the hands of the police, and the racist oppression against undocumented people," and concluded “1, 2, 3, 4 open up the prison door! 5, 6, 7, 8 smash the settler zionist state! How do you spell racist? N-Y-P-D! How do you spell murderer? I-D-F!
On February 25, 2015, Hunter SJP posted an NYC SJP statement slamming a New York Post article that publicized student complaints of anti-Semitism at the hands of SJP members on the CUNY campuses. The New York Post article cited a letter from the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) to CUNY’s chancellor and board of trustees urging that SJP’s involvement be investigated. SJP dismissed the complaints and claimed that it was the victim of “McCarthyism and repression” designed to “suppress our movement because ... if left unfettered, it will grow into a mass upheaval that will not only end Zionism, but tear the US imperialist project from its roots worldwide and at home…”
NYC SJP continued, saying, “We seek to liberate CUNY for the people, building a University which teaches the real history of the oppressed people of New York City and the world, in order to prepare students not to maintain the world as it is, but to overthrow it. The Zionist Organization of America, the CUNY Administration, the New York State Assembly, and the ruling classes in general, therefore, will do anything in order to stop us and keep our university and our people in chains.”
Hunter SJP quoted the conclusion of the NYC SJP statement, which claimed "We understand that the role of CUNY is to reproduce an oppressive ruling class ideology, and that is why it comes as no shock to us that CUNY would be so supportive in the defamation of SJP” and alleged “the role of CUNY is to reproduce an oppressive ruling class ideology” and “serve the needs of anyone who tries to disseminate the white supremacist nature of our educational system.”
Hunter SJP - Spreading Libels and Lies
October 4, 2015, Hunter SJP posted a video of terrorist Fadi Aloon with the fraudulent comment “19 year old Palestinian murdered by Israeli occupation forces at behest of settlers in Jerusalem”
Fadi Aloon was shot by Israeli security forces after he stabbed a 15-year-old Israeli boy. Several hours before the attack, Aloon posted “Either martyrdom or victory” on his Facebook page.
On October 5, 2015, Hunter SJP shared a photo on Facebook of a 3 year old Palestinian boy standing on a door step alongside photos of Israeli soldiers entering a house and commented, without any visual evidence: “This Palestinian 3 year old child was arrested today by Israeli soldiers for "throwing rocks" at them.”
Hunter SJP - Embracing Violence and Cheering Anti-Semitism
On October 6, 2015, Hunter SJP shared an NYC SJP “statement of solidarity” with a “Day of Rage” rally held at the Israeli consulate in New York on October 6, 2015. The event was co-sponsored by a number of Israel-hating organizations including NY4Palestine, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and NYC SJP and urged support for a “Day of Rage” called for by “Palestinian forces.” At the bottom of that statement was a graphic of a Palestinian throwing a rock, with the caption “Let the Intifada pave the way for People’s war!”
The “Days of Rage” in October of 2015 were heralded by Hamas as the advent of a new intifada. They directly resulted in the deaths of Israeli civilians by shootings, stabbings and car rammings.
Protesters at the rally alternately screamed racist, genocidal slogans “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, “Long Live the Intifada! Intifada! Intifada!” and “Settler settler go back home, Palestine is ours alone!" “From the River to the Sea” is a call for the elimination of Israel and which Hamas’ leader Khaled Mashal employs to summarize his uncompromising stance on the elimination of the Jews — from Israel and eventually the world.
On May 5, 2016, Hunter SJP held an event titled “From the River to the Sea: Rejecting Oslo. The event - advertised with a photo of Palestinian throwing a stone - featured NYC SJP members Sabiha Azad and Alexi Shalom promoted the radical “one-state solution”that has been denounced as a scheme to dissolve Israel as the Jewish State. Barghouti has been quoted as saying, “Good riddance! The two-state solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is finally dead”, and that in a one-state “by definition, Jews will be a minority.”
Hunter SJP -Promoting Jew Hatred and Anti-Semitic Violence
On May 15, 2016, Hunter SJP promoted an event that was co-sponsored by NY4Palestine titled “Nakba Day March for Resistance and Return.” At the march, held on May 15, 2015, NYC SJP members incited against Jews who moved from New York to Israel. One rally leader announced to the crowd: “The Brooklyn Settlers, the New York Settlers are the most violent.” (0:04).
Scripted chants, distributed before the rally, were recited by agitators, who screamed - for the destruction of Israel. After bellowing “Intifada Intifada” and “5-6-7-8 Smash the Settler Zionist State”, the demonstrators also yelled: We don't want a two-state [solution]; we want ‘48!” — and “There is only one solution; Intifada, revolution”. One chant in Arabic (2:16) voiced explicit support for Islamist terror — lauding the “shahid,” the Arabic word for “martyr.”
Protesters at the rally held signs which read: “Israel = Racism and Genocide,” “FREE PALESTINE From The River To the Sea” and “End Racist Occupation From NYC To Palestine,” RESISTANCE until Return & Liberation.” Wanted Terrorist Benjamin Netanyahu for Crimes Against Humanity & The Planet” and “RESIST Zionist Imperialism.”
On October 18, 2015, Hunter SJP promoted protest “in “Solidarity with the Palestinian Uprising” called specifically to preempt a “Jewish Lives Matter” rally scheduled to take place in Times Square on October 18, 2015.
Hunter SJP - Inciting Violence
On October 8, 2015, Hunter SJP shared a promotional video to fundraise for NYC SJP to attend the National SJP Conference in Boston. In the video, SJP leader Nerdeen Kiswani emphasized “the need for off-campus community work, to create lasting organizations that make no distinction between serving the people of the community and the overall struggle for Palestinian liberation.” The video soon thereafter featured NYC SJP members chanting: “How do you spell ‘murderers?’ N-Y-P-D!” (1:07)
On November 13, 2015, Hunter SJP promoted the Million Student March(MSM) at CUNY, demanding the abolishment of tuition, cancellation of student debt and a $15.00 an hour wage minimum for all campus workers. On November 12, 2015, NYC SJP posted a statement which blamed rising tuition costs on CUNY’s “Zionist administration.” The post also claimed that “CUNY aims to produce the next generation of professional Zionists.”
Video footage from the MSM march showed SJP members chanting “Zionists out of CUNY,” as well as “Intifada! Intifada! Long live the intifada!” The calls for intifada echoed incitement to violence coming from Gaza, Ramallah and Jerusalem in October through November 2015 that resulted in bloody violence across Israel.
On December 3, 2015, Hunter SJP promoted an event titled "What does Palestine have to do with a Liberated CUNY?" which attempted to further link the “Palestinian struggle” to “the struggle for access to education in CUNY”
Hunter SJP - Exploiting Feminism to Glorify Palestinian Terrorism
On March 5, 2016, Hunter shared an NYC SJP event and blog post on Facebook to "commemorate International Working Women’s Day as an inseparable aspect of the fight for Palestinian liberation."
The NYC SJP blog post about the event spread the blood libels that "Israel is a state that was built on the murder and rape of Palestinian women" and that “the state forces women to give birth at checkpoints, where more than half of the babies died as a result.”
The event description, excerpted from the blog post, slammed Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir for "colonizing Palestinian land through zionist Ideology", and praised International hijacker Leila Khaled for “committing her life to be a freedom fighter in the struggle for Palestinian liberation.”
Khaled is a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and participated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 840 in 1969 and El Al Flight 219 in 1970. As of 2017, Khaled was a member of PFLP's Political Bureau.
Khaled has said that the second intifada failed because it was not violent enough, advocated for the use of children in terror activities and compared Zionists to Nazis.
The PFLP claimed credit for the 2014 Har Nof Massacre where six people were murdered during morning prayers in a Jerusalem synagogue. The PFLP also claimed credit for the 2001 assassination of the Israeli tourism minister.
NYC SJP’s blog post went on to praise PFLP member Khalida Jarrar.
Khalida Jarrar is a senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror organization. She has reportedly been the head of the PFLP in the West Bank since 2016. In 2015, an Israeli military court sentenced Jarrar to 15 months in prison for calling to kidnap Israeli soldiers. Israel arrested Jarrar again in 2017 “on suspicion of involvement with terrorist activities and violent public disturbances.” In 2019, she was arrested by Israel with 50 other PFLP operatives following a deadly 2018 bombing attack.
The blog post’s promotion of female terrorists also featured praise for Rasmea Odeh.
Odeh was a key military operative [00:02:08]with the terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In 1969, Odeh masterminded a PFLP bombing that killed two college 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 [00:10:53] Odeh 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.
On November 10, 2014, a Michigan federal jury convicted Odeh for immigration fraud because she failed to disclose her prior conviction and life sentence on her immigration application. On March 12, 2015, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
In 2017, after an appeal and a lengthy court battle, Odeh admitted to immigration fraud, was stripped of her U.S. citizenship, deported to Jordan and banned from re-entering the U.S.
SJP’s post mischaracterized Odeh’s federal conviction for lying on her immigration application as part of a "concentrated state effort to suppress the support she has been extending the Arab population of Chicago."
The post concluded "Smash the Patriarchy! Smash the Settler Zionist State! Free Palestine, and Free Women EVERYWHERE!"
On June 3, 2016, Hunter SJP shared an NYC SJP demonstration event to demand a new trial of Odeh.
Hunter SJP - Demonizing Israel with Race-Based Hatred
On April 5, 2016, Hunter SJP shared an article from former SJP president Omar Zahzah, that claimed, falsely, "Anti-Zionism is a principled anti-racist position."
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.
