Cassandra Lee Taha

Overview

Cassandra Lee Taha has expressed support for terror, equated Israel with Nazi Germany and spread hatred of Zionists and Israel. Taha is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

As of January 2023, Taha’s LinkedIn page said she was an “Engineer | Project Manager | Leader” and worked as a “Manager” at Metrolinx in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, since June 2022. She has worked at Metrolinx since August 2021. Taha’s speaker.hub page said she was a “civil engineer and engineering manager at Metrolinx.”

Also as of January 2023, Taha’s LinkedIn said she had been licensed with Professional Engineers Ontario since March 2021.

As of the same date, Taha’s LinkedIn page said she graduated from Lakehead University (Lakehead U) with a bachelor’s degree in “Engineering, Civil Engineering, Structural Stream” in May 2016. She also received an Advanced Diploma in Civil Engineering Technology from the Northern College of Applied Arts and Technology (Northern College) in May 2016.

In January 2023, Taha used the name “Leah Davis” and the handle “@EngineerLeeh” on Twitter. As of April 2023, Taha also used the handle “@cassandraletaha” on Twitter.

As of May 2023, Taha used the handles “@leehtheengineer” and “@engineers4palestine” on Instagram. In January 2023, Taha also used the handles “@engineerleehh” and “@engineerleeh” on Instagram.

As of January 2023, Taha used the name “Cassandra Lee T.” on LinkedIn. Taha’s LinkedIn said she was located in Hamilton, Ontario.

Terror Support (Hamas, PFLP, Lions Den)

On September 3, 2022, Tara posted a video collage to Instagram that included photos honoring multiple terrorists, titled: “Palestinian Heroes.”

The collage glorified Hamas bomb-maker Yahya Ayyash and deceased terrorist leaders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), including founder George Habash, spokesman Ghassan Kanafani and bomb-maker Shadia Abu Ghazaleh.

Ayyash, known as the Engineer of Death, was the chief bomb-maker for Hamas during the mid-1990s. He manufactured the explosives used in numerous suicide bombings that targeted Jewish civilians.

The PFLP is dedicated to the violent destruction of Israel. It is designated as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) by the United States. The EU, Canada, the Gulf Cooperation Council, Australia and Israel also list it as a terror group due to its history of carrying out assassinations, suicide bombings, hijackings and multiple murders.

On January 13, 2023, Taha shared [slide 9] a post on Instagram that featured a graffiti image of PFLP terrorist Leila Khaled holding a rifle and the text: “Resistance is not terrorism.” Khaled was also featured in Taha’s September 3, 2022 Instagram post.

Leila Khaled is a leading member 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 [00:36:07] for the use of children in terror activities and compared Zionists to Nazis.

On January 14, 2023, Taha shared [slide 12] a post on Instagram that featured a video of Salah Khalaf, known as “Abu Iyad.” In the video Taha shared, Abu Iyad said: “ Which idiot in this world lays down their arms in order to negotiate?”

Abu Iyad [Salah Mesbah Khalaf] was the deputy chief and head of intelligence for the PLO and a senior Fatah official. Iyad was believed to be the founder of the terror organization Black September.

On January 20, 2023, Taha shared [slide 42] a post on Instagram that read: “

Glory to the educated and resistant rifle. The words of the Lions' Den echo the words of the revolutionary intellectual Basil Al-Araj, and the words of countless martyrs.”

The “Lions’ Den” [عرين الأسود]is an independent “armed group” with operatives hailing from various other Palestinian terrorist organizations. The group reportedly emerged from Nablus in August 2022. The Lions’ Den has claimed responsibility for the death of Israeli soldiers. They also targeted Israeli civilians in multiple terror attacks in October and November 2022.

Basel Al Araj was killed in a shoot-out with Israeli troops during an arrest raid. He had been suspected of belonging to a terror cell planning to carry out attacks on Israeli targets. Two M-16 assault rifles and an improvised Carlo-style submachine gun were found inside his home.

Equating Israel With Nazi Germany

On July 1, 2022, Taha posted [slide 1] on Instagram a graphic with text that read: “History Repeats Itself. Palestine Will Be Free Once Again. Survivors of the Holocaust are Commiting a Holocaust.” The post also included a graphic [slide 4] that compared Nazi soldiers to Israeli soldiers.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) highlights as one possible contemporary example of anti-Semitism: “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” The U.S. State Department adopted the IHRA’s working definition of anti-Semitism in 2016. Over 40 countries have adopted the definition as well.

On June 14, 2022, Taha compared [slide 10] Zionism to Nazism on Instagram. Taha’s post also claimed [slide 6] that Zionists put Palestinian people into ovens, including children.

On June 12, 2022, Taha wrote on Instagram: “...Zíønísm follows the same ràçíst rhetoric the N•zis did.”

Taha included a TikTok video of herself in which she said: “Are Zionists not tired of being so ridiculously hateful, if not more hateful, than the ‘shnazis?’” Taha also said [00:00:28]: “But I am so tired of the Zionists using the… World War II pain that the Jewish people went through to then go and oppress and do the same thing to the Palestinian people that was done to Jewish people during World War II.”

Hatred of Zionists

On January 18, 2023, Taha shared [slide 43] a post on Instagram that read: “To hell with making peace with zionists. They’re aggressors, violators of human rights, squatters, thieves, oppressors, criminals. Give the entire country of Palestine back to Palestinians, as it belongs to them.” The post featured an image with text that read: “F–k your Zionism. F–k your two state. F–k your ‘both sides.’ Land back. Liberation now.”

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.

One way that anti-Israel activists spread anti-Semitism is by claiming that Israeli Jews have no connection to the Land of Israel.

On January 1, 2023, Taha wrote on Instagram: “Dismantle the Occupation and shame anyone who ever supported the war crime of its illegal existence.” The same day, Taha commented [slide 4] on Instagram: “‘Israelis’ have a history of supporting and working with N•zis.”

On December 21, 2022, Taha tweeted: “I’m going to make this abundantly clear, I block Apartheid ‘Israel’ supporters.I will not spend my time debating someone who is choosing to be openly racist and smiles at the continued genocide of the Palestinian People. Being happy about genocide gets you automatically blocked.”

On April 21, 2022, Taha shared [slide 9] a screenshot of a now-deleted comment she made on Instagram that read: “Zionists are war criminals.” Taha wrote: “I stand by this comment.”

Hatred of Israel

On January 21, 2023, Taha shared [slide 48] a post on Instagram that included a tweet claiming: “Zionism is a political invented cult that adopted the Jewish faith to justify its existence. It did not exist before 1947. It was initiated in the USA as a political move against the Arabs. Hence the USA gives 4 billion a year to Israel in support.”

Following two decades of independent Jewish return from the Disapora to the Land of Israel, the ancient homeland of the Jewish People, the Zionist movement held its first official congress in 1897.

On January 21, 2023, Taha shared [slide 49] a post on Instagram that promoted an anti-Israel rally in New York City’s Grand Central Station, hosted by Within Our Lifetime (WOL).

Within Our Lifetime (WOL) is an anti-Israel activist group in New York City founded by Nerdeen Kiswani. In her WOL activism, Kiswani has called for the death of Zionists and for the destruction of Israel, spread incitement to violence and celebrated terrorists. WOL’s “Points of Unity” states: “We defend the right of Palestinians as colonized people to resist the zionist occupation by any means necessary.”

The post featured a video of Kiswani and protesters chanting: “From the River to the Sea!” Other protesters at the rally chanted [00:00:37]: “Zionism must fall!” and[00:00:42]: “We don’t want no two states! We want all of it!” as well as [00:00:52]: “Five, six, seven, eight…Smash the settler Zionist state!”

On January 16, 2023, Taha wrote on Instagram: “The thought of ‘Israel’ disgusts people, as it should.”

On January 1, 2023, Taha tweeted: “‘Israel’ is a terror to the world, along with the USA.”

On December 28, 2022, Taha tweeted: “‘Israel’ is just one gigantic war crime.”

On August 10, 2022, Taha wrote on Instagram: “Dismantle Apartheìd ‘Israel’ and Free Palestine from the river to the sea

”

“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” is a chant calling to dismantle the State of Israel. It has also been employed by Hamas leader Khaled Mashal to call for the replacement of Israel with an Islamic state.

On July 28, 2022, Taha wrote on Instagram: “Zíønísm is just re-packaged ràçísm.”

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) highlights as another possible contemporary example of anti-Semitism: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”

Also on July 28, 2022, Taha shared a WOL post on Instagram promoting the Mapping Project, a BDS campaign targeting Jewish and pro-Israel institutions in Massachusetts. Taha’s linktr.ee profile, as of April 2023, also featured a link to the Mapping Project and the links to several other anti-Israel organizations and websites.

On June 3, 2022, BDS Boston released the “Mapping Project,” an anonymous initiative which created an online, interactive map that plots the names and addresses of most of the pro-Israel and Jewish institutions in Massachusetts. The project’s stated goal is to “dismantle” both the local entities and the supposed “networks” colluding with them. The project was strongly denounced by public officials as antisemitic and condemned for its explicit targeting of Jewish organizations.

On April 6, 2022, Taha wrote on Instagram: “Apartheid Israel needs to end.” Taha shared a now-deleted tweet in which she wrote: “Zíønísm is a settler colonialist, anti-democratic, racist, right-wing idealogy, which demands a loyalty based on nationalist racism and the genocide of the Indigenous Palestinian People.”

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.