Asna Tabassum

Overview

Asna Tabassum promoted hatred of Israel on national television, where she also refused to say whether she endorsed the “abolishment of Israel.” Tabassum made her remarks on CNN in April 2024, during Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists.

Earlier in April 2024, Tabassum was barred from delivering her valedictorian commencement address at her undergraduate graduation from the University of Southern California (USC). The school explained: “The intensity of feelings, fueled by both social media and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, has grown to include many voices outside of USC and has escalated to the point of creating substantial risks relating to security and disruption at commencement.”

Tabassum’s remarks and USC’s decision to rescind Tabassum’s speech both occurred in the wake of Hamas terror atrocities and war crimes against Israeli civilians. The attacks, which included mass murder, torture, rape, beheadings and kidnappings, were executed on October 7, 2023, and left over 1,200 Israelis dead, hundreds kidnapped and thousands wounded. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.” For more information on the attacks, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.

Tabassum graduated [p. 136] from USC with a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering and a minor in “Resistance to Genocide” in May 2024.

USC is located in Los Angeles, California.

Hatred of Israel

As of April 2024, Tabassum’s Instagram bio included a link to an anti-Israel website, free-palestine.carrd.co.

The website stated: “One palestinian state would mean palestinian liberation, and the complete abolishment of the state of israel. this way is the only way towards justice.”

The same website also described Zionism as “an ideology [that] is inherently anti-palestine because it is only feasible through the ethnic cleansing and constant uprooting of the palestinian people.”

Zionism is the belief that Jews have the right to self-determination in their own national home, and the right to develop their national culture.

On April 17, 2024, CNN conducted an interview with Tabassum about the cancellation of her commencement speech.

The CNN reporter asked [00:02:37] Tabassum if she supports the “complete abolishment of the State of Israel” per the wording of the website promoted on her Instagram bio.

Tabassum replied [00:02:49]: “If you're asking me if I stand for human rights…for equality, and unequivocal and unconditional right to life for all people, including Palestinians, then I'm not apologetic. I believe in what I believe…”

The CNN reporter continued [00:03:23]: “The reason I'm asking is because that's what the link said, it called for the complete abolishment of Israel. ‘Abolishment’ of Israel was in the actual language. Is that something that you endorse?”

Tabassum answered [00:03:36]: “So the abolishment of the State of Israel, I'd like to clarify, is the abolishment of an apartheid system. It inherently is a system that subjugates Palestinians as dehumanized and it subjugates Palestinian life as not worth the same as other human life.”

The CNN reporter responded [00:03:58]: “So is that a yes?”

Tabassum replied [00:04:02]: “I think a yes or a no would be an injustice to the issue…”

Social Media and Weblinks

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/asna.tabassum/ [Private]