Bayan Founas

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.

Supporting BDS

On March 12, 2014, Founas was listed as a co-author of a divestment resolution introduced in the UM Central Student Government (CSG). The resolution called on UM to divest from “General Electric, Heidelberg Cement, Caterpillar and United Technology” for being “SOCIALLY IRRESPONSIBLE COMPANIES THAT VIOLATE PALESTINIAN HUMAN RIGHTS.”

The resolution also demonized Israel for the “siege and blockade of Gaza.”

The United Nations approved [pp. 39–41] the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza in 2011 as a security measure to stop Hamas from acquiring sophisticated rockets. Multiple flotillas have attempted to breach the blockade, with at least one flotilla initiating a violent confrontation with Israeli forces. 

The resolution also said: “WHEREAS, Palestinian civil society has called on the global community to implement boycotts, divestments, and sanctions in order to pressure Israel to comply with international law.”

In August 2016, BDS leader Ilan Pappé admitted that BDS was not initiated by a “call” from Palestinian civil society; rather, it was initiated by a small number of radical anti-Israel extremists.

On March 19, 2014, Founas posted to Facebook an image supporting SAFE’s BDS campaign, using the hashtag “#UMDIVEST.”

On March 20, 2014, Founas and SAFE reportedly were conducting a sit-in of the UM CSG chambers in the Michigan Union to protest the resolution being permanently tabled. The CSG voted 21 yes votes and 15 no votes, with one abstention, to table the resolution.

Jewish students reportedly described being threatened by the pro-BDS UM students during the sit-in. At least one pro-Israel student reportedly “received death threats and that others have allegedly been called ‘kikes’ and ‘dirty Jews’” by BDS backers. 

On March 21, 2014, Founas tweeted: “Starting a mural to express ourselves in our own space #UMDivestSitIn.” The image showed a mural that said: “THIS IS OUR SPACE.”

On the same day, Founas tweeted at least three other images from the sit-in.

On March 25, 2014, Founas tweeted a photo of anti-Israel activist Max Blumenthal speaking in favor of BDS at UM.

Blumenthal’s 2013 book, “Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel,”was dubbed “The Israel Hater’s Handbook” by Eric Alterman of the progressive magazine The Nation.  

On March 26, 2014, the UM CSG voted down the resolution with 25 no votes, 9 yes votes and five abstentions.

On May 7, 2014, Founas appeared [00:05:37] in a UMDivest video speaking before the CSG.

Demonizing Israel

On December 3, 2012, Founas wrote an article calling Gaza the “world’s largest open-air prison” and demonizing two Israeli operations against Hamas over the previous four years, including Operation Pillar of Defense (OPD) in November 2012 and Operation Cast Lead (OCL)in 2008-09.

Israel launched OPD to stop Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians from Gaza. Over the course of eight days in November 2012, Palestinian terrorist groups fired more than 1,500 rockets at Israel. The majority struck Israel, damaging homes, schools and other civilian areas. Human Rights Watch noted: “Palestinian armed groups made clear in their statements that harming civilians was their aim.”

Israel commenced Operation Cast Lead (OCL)in 2008-09 in order to stop Hamas rocket fire from Gaza targeting Israeli civilians. In 2010, Hamas admitted that nearly 700 of the Palestinian casualties in OCL were combatants.

On April 5, 2012, Founas co-authored an article accusing Israel of managing a “decades-long colonial campaign led by the Israeli military that aims to disenfranchise the indigenous race and to purify the land of non-Jews by implementing an apartheid system.”

The same article claimed that Israel has “racist policies” and portrayed BDS as the heir to the boycott campaign against apartheid South Africa. The article also republished the BDS campaign demands, including the “rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.”

The “right of return” is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel. 

On March 19, 2012, Founas wrote a blog post portraying Israel as an abusive spouse, with America being the abuser’s gym, writing: “The gym continued to train him even when they heard about the incident in the winter of 2008 [during OCL] when Israel punched Palestine so hard in the stomach she spit out over 1,400 pints of blood.” 

On December 23, 2011, Founas co-authored an article titled: “COMBATING ZIONIST COLONIZATION THROUGH THE AGES.” 

The article said: “Due to Zionism’s colonial and imperialistic nature, it is fallacious to conceive that the struggle against Zionism is only a Palestinian struggle; rather it is a struggle that ought to encompass all of humanity.” The article also called Zionism a “new offshoot of European Imperialism and a new variety of racist Colonialism.”

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.

The same article also used a series of misleading maps popular among anti-Israel activists.

The maps claim that lands once controlled by Britain, Egypt and Jordan as autonomous “Palestinian land” were purportedly stolen by Israel. In February 2016, publisher McGraw-Hill Education recalled copies of a college textbook containing the fraudulent maps. In October 2015, American cable news network MSNBC apologized for airing a similar series of maps and retracted them.

SJP Activism

On December 12, 2011, Founas wrote a blog post promoting SAFE’s walk-out during Israeli diplomat Ishmael Khaldi’s speech at UM. Khalidi is an Israeli Arab Bedouin. Founas wrote in her post that Israel maintains an “apartheid system on people whom it claims as citizens.”

Founas also wrote that SJP is committed to “Ending Israel’s occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall,” in reference to Israel’s security barrier.

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 December 10, 2013, SAFE activists slipped mock eviction notices under the doors of rooms in seven residential halls. The eviction notices were in support of BDS and Founas supported the action on Twitter.

On January 10, 2014, Founas tweeted a photo of her and BDS movement founder Omar Barghouti. He spoke that day at UM at an SAFE-sponsored event.

Barghouti, the founder of the BDS movement, has claimed [00:04:28] that international law grants everyone with Palestinian ancestry the unqualified right to settle in Israel. Barghouti has also insisted [01:18:21]that the demands of BDS are “inflexible” and “non-negotiable,” and if people object, then “tough.”  

On October 30, 2014, Founas appeared in a Facebook photo from the 2014 National SJP Conference at Tufts University in the Boston area.

On October 24-26, 2014, Tufts SJP hosted the 2014 SJP National Conference.

On October 25, 2014, Tufts SJP quoted Sara Kershner, the founder of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN), as saying at the conference: “Zionism has hijacked [Jewish] history and struggle against genocide to justify genocide today.”

On October 25, 2014, Sa’ed Atshan, then the Tufts SJP faculty advisor, blamed Israel for Palestinian honor killings and persecution of LGBTQ+ people within Palestinian society.

Clothing was sold at the conference, including a shirt with the image of airplane hijacker Leila Khaled — a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) — with the text “resistance is not terrorism.” 

Although the event was listed as “free and open to the public,” at least one student journalist was refused press credentials. Terror supporter Max Geller and agitator Ahmed Hamad both spoke and presented at the conference.

Conference attendee Ofek Ravid said that he was “booed and hissed at” — and told by “several members in the crowd to f**k off” — for merely suggesting that “Israel needs to be looked at as a complex nation through a dialectic lens, not as a black and white fragment.” Ravid was also asked to leave the building by an SJP representative.

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.

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