Brady Forrest

Overview

Brady Forrest [Brady James Forrest] authored a resolution in support of a terrorist and was removed from his as position as Senate Pro-Tempore following accusations of anti-Semitism, by the George Washington University (GWU) Student Association (SA) Senate, in 2018.

Forrest has recruited for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at GWU, promoted the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, demonized Israel on Facebook and expressed supportfor disgraced anti-Israel Professor Steven Salaita. He has also been an activist with National SJP (NSJP) since 2014.

As of July 2018, Forrest’s LinkedIn page said he served on the GWU Student Association (SA) Senate from 2014-2016. He remained an SA senator as of April 2018.

Also as of July 2018, Forrest’s LinkedIn page said he was studying for a Ph.D. in Philosophy at GWU, and was slated to graduate in 2021. He completed a master’s degree in American Studies at GWU in 2016 and graduated from University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in Global and International studies.

Resolution Supporting a Terrorist

On October 29, 2014, Forrest wrote, sponsored and submitted a resolution in support of terrorist Rasmea Odeh to the GWU SA Student Life Committee.

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.

On November 4, 2014, Forrest’s resolution was blocked by the SA executive vice president on the grounds that Odeh’s case had no relevance to the GWU campus.

In response, Forrest and SJP at GWU launched a petition to bring the resolution directly to the entire student senate. The bill garnered six out of 26 eligible student senator votes and was removed from the agenda.

On November 26, 2014, Forrest promoted on Facebook an event co-sponsored by SJP at GWU as part of “Rape Culture Awareness Week.” The event page said: “Join SJP at GWU for a presentation on sexual violence and the Israeli Occupation and the recent Rasmea Odeh case, followed by a discussion on the intersection of Rape Culture, sexual violence, and the Israeli occupation.”

Allegations of Anti-Semitism

On March 27, 2018, GWU student Olive Eisdorfer posted on Facebook a screenshot of a 2014 Facebook note written by Forrest, where he declared his boycott of a multicultural event because GW Hillel and the Jewish Student Association (JSA) at GWU co-sponsored the event.

In his note, Forrest claimed: “Both organizations are complicit with and supportive of the state of Israel and programs and ideology that are exclusive and racist.” He also accused Israel of being an “ethnotheocratic apartheid state” and called Zionism a “racist” ideology.

Eisdorfer also posted a screenshot showing a 2018 Facebook comment by Forrest, in which he demonized JSA’s participation in a multi-faith event, writing: “Wait….but JSA (the student arm of Hillel) supports ‘Israel’....‘Israel’ is currently destroying the environment of Gaza, ‘Israel’ and the West Bank.”

Forrest’s comments were published during his failed campaign for the position of SA Executive Vice President.

On April 10, 2018, the SA voted to remove Forrest from a leadership position of Senate Pro-Tempore, but he was allowed to keep his senate seat. The senate also voted to initiate censure proceedings against Forrest.

On April 23, 2018, the SA held a closed-door meeting where it failed to reach the two-thirds majority to censure Forrest. The closed-door vote was taken in the middle of an SA hearing on a controversial anti-Israel BDS resolution.

Following the failed censure vote, the SA resumed its public hearing on the BDS resolution. One former senator, who was also a Jewish student leader, said [00:19:27]: “I watched that senator [Forrest] silence students by keeping them off the senate just because they were Jewish and pro-Israel, during the senate vacancy process.”

The Jewish student leader then addressed the SA, saying [00:20:25]: “I have witnessed at this university members of our community be silenced time and time again. And, again, you have failed us.”

Another student, introducing [00:33:29] herself as a leader of the Jewish and interfaith communities on campus, told [00:33:50] the SA that Forrest “has been a figure of the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel community" at GWU.

She then said [00:33:58] that SA senators who made anti-Semitic remarks in the past clearly “meant it” since they did not censure Forrest for anti-Semitism when they had the chance.

Scores of students walked out [00:35:19] of the SA hearing in solidarity with the same Jewish student leader as she exited the hall where the hearing was held.

Demonizing Israel

On April 17, 2013, Forrest posted on the UCSB Divest Facebook page a series of rhetorical questions — all of which were answered: “Israel.” The list included the question: “What country in the Middle East had its Prime Minister announce to his staff not to worry about what the United States says because ‘we control America.’"

The quote “we control America” was fabricated by Hamas in 2001 and falsely attributed to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

On May 9, 2013, Forrest posted a quote attributed to Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) on the UCSB Divest Facebook page. The quote accused Israel of “terrorism,” alleged that Theodor Herzl was “Satan in disguise” and that “Zionism is a Satanic movement. It is devil. It is Imperalism [sic.], it is racist.”

Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) was a black militant leader known for coining the phrase: “The only good Zionist is a dead Zionist.” Carmichael has spread various anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Jewish control of government and media, and has nominated Hitler as a “genius” and the “greatest white man” in history in 1970.

On March 4, 2014, Forrest published an article on the anti-Israel website Mondoweiss that promoted BDS. The article also accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing and settler colonialism.” It also claimed “the state of Israel has forcibly injected Ethiopian womyn [sic] with long-term contraceptives,” propagating a claim based on a flawed news report.

On September 24, 2014, Forrest published an article on Mondoweiss where he accused Israel of “racism,” referred to Israel as the “zionist settler colonialist project” and called Israel’s security barrier the “apartheid wall.”

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 29, 2015, Forrest posted on Facebook that Israel “embodies” violence.

On July 21, 2017, Forrest tweeted that Tel Aviv is on “colonized Palestinian land.”

Anti-Israel Activism

On April 12, 2013, Forrest posted a photo and message on Facebook in support of “#UCSBDivest” - University of California at Santa Barbara’s BDS campaign.

On October 23, 2014, Forrest wrote on Facebook about NSJP 2014: “I couldn't be more excited to go and am honored to be presenting at two of the workshops.”

On March 20, 2015, Forrest recruited for SJP at GWU in a Facebook post.

On September 5, 2015, Forrest encouraged others on Facebook to register for NSJP 2015 and to donate to NSJP.

On November 8, 2016, Forrest posted a photo from NSJP 2016 of conference organizers and wrote: “The fam. The hardest working folks I know, this past weekend wouldn't have happened without these amazing folks. No matter what drama happened we made the 6th annual national conference happen and there's no taking that away.”

On April 9, 2017, Forrest posted on Facebook: “Apply to host the 2017 National Students for Justice in Palestine conference by completing the two (2) prospective host SJP forms at nationalsjp.org/nsjp-conference-2017 by Saturday, May 20, 2017.”

Supporting Steven Salaita

In December of 2014, Forrest signed a petition in support of professor Steven Salaita.

In 2014, The University of Illinois withdrew an offer of employment to Salaita after becoming aware of his anti-Semitic tweets. One tweet, posted shortly after Hamas kidnapped three teenage Israeli high school students, read: "You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f**king West Bank settlers would go missing.” In 2017, Salaita posted to Facebook: “People ask if I would go back in time and change anything. I would not…I will die unapologetic.” In February 2019, Salaita stated that he had become a school bus driver in the Washington, D.C., area.

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.