Clayton Woolery

Overview

Clayton Woolery trivialized Hamas’ rocket fire against Israeli civilians and claimed “zionism hurts everyone” as a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) activist at Tufts University (Tufts SJP). He was active with Tufts SJP in 2014 and 2015.

On March 25, 2014, Woolery was reportedly a first year student in the dual degree program for Tufts and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA). Students in the five-year program earn a bachelor’s degree in fine arts and a bachelor’s degree in arts or sciences.

As of June 2019, Woolery’s Facebook page said he was an Exhibit Guide at the Spiva Center for the Arts. His Facebook page also said he worked at The Rez, Tuft’s student run coffee store from “September 2014 - present.”

As of June 2019, Woolery’s Facebook page also said he studied at Tufts from “August 28, 2013 to 2017.”

Trivializing Hamas Terrorism

On July 26, 2014 — shortly after Hamas fired a rocket at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport — Woolery tweeted: "#IDFLogic ‘Its sooo annoying to not have access to an airport!’ *ignores the fact that #Gaza doesn't even have room for one* #BenGurion.”

On the same day, Woolery tweeted: “#IDFLogic On Halloween: ‘I wanted to be a power ranger this year, but Hamas said I had to be a bloodthirsty war criminal again... ugh’ #Gaza.”

Israel commenced Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in July 2014, to stop rocket attacks targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.

Demonizing Israel

On July 9, 2016, Woolery implied on Twitter that Israel was a “terrorist” organization and a “military state.” Woolery did so in response to an Associated Press bulletin that read: “Louisiana police say man jailed after social media post in which he says he'd like to shoot, kill police officer. http://apne.ws/29XJ9bS”

On March 5, 2015, Woolery said that Israel’s founding in 1948 was an “ethno religious purging” and blamed Israel for the Arab countries’ poor treatment of Palestinians.

On March 4, 2015, Woolery said on Facebook: “Zionism is white supremacist.”

On July 26, 2014, Woolery tweeted: “what is a working-class american supposed to do about the Israel's racist, state sponsored, US-funded terrorism? #FreeGaza.”

On July 25, 2014, Woolery retweeted a tweet that said: “As Israeli bombs fall now, I can only think of and honor the motto of the besieged Jews of the Warsaw ghetto ‘To live and die in dignity’.

On July 25, 2014, Woolery tweeted: “zionism hurts everyone #SupportGaza.”

On March 25, 2014, Woolery said in a Tufts Daily opinion piece that Israel was an “apparatus of white supremacy,” that it practiced “settler colonialism” and that its security barrier is an “apartheid wall.”

Woolery wrote his opinion piece in response to an op-ed by Tufts alumna, Ariella Charny. Woolery attacked Charny’s piece for allegedly containing “offensive denials of oppression and exploitation of peoples within Israel and the occupied territories …”

On March 3, 2014, Woolery shared a Tufts Daily op-ed by Tufts SJP leader Leah Muskin-Pierret, who claimed that Israel’s history bears a “glaring resemblance to the history of genocide, settler-colonialism and anti-Indigenous racism that the U.S. is built upon.” Muskin-Pierret claimed that Palestinians are forced into “reservation-like population centers” and that Israel has engaged in “ethnic cleansing.”

Muskin-Pierret added: “Lobbies like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and … J-Street continue to strong arm congressmen and presidents alike to swear their allegiance to Israel and hound those who dare voice even tepid dissent.”

Tufts SJP Activism

On April 25, 2014, Woolery participated in a Tufts SJP “die-in” designed to portray Israel’s founding as a “catastrophe.”

On April 25, 2014, Tufts SJP staged a “die-in” next to an FOI event celebrating Israeli Independence Day. Hannah Freedman, a Tufts SJP activist, said that Tufts SJP “crashed” the event “with a memorial for al-Nakba,” a term defining Israel’s founding as a “catastrophe.” Tufts SJP activists laid on red cloth meant to symbolize pools of blood. On April 30, 2014, Woolery posted a photo of the “die-in” on Facebook.

On March 7, 2014, Woolery on Facebook posted an image claiming there exists “a racist matrix of Israeli only roads.”

On March 7, 2014, Woolery appeared in a photo participating in a Tufts SJP provocation two days earlier.

On March 5, 2014, Tufts SJP carried out three anti-Israel provocations. First, Tufts SJP slipped leaflets into dorm rooms targeting the Jewish heritage program Birthright Israel. Second, Tufts SJP slipped mock “demolition” notices into other dorm rooms, claiming that Israel had a “project of ethnic cleansing.” Third, Tufts SJP held a “mock annexation” that purported to show Israeli soldiers violently arresting Palestinians without cause.

Tufts SJP - Supporting a Terrorist

On October 14, 2015, Tufts SJP posted various photos on Facebook of its members supporting terrorist Rasmea Odeh. The photo captions included a donation link to Odeh’s legal fund.

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.

Tufts SJP - Vilifying Israel

On October 23, 2016, Tufts SJP, on Facebook and in the Tufts Daily, stated: “We will not be silent when extra-judicial killings occur regularly in the West Bank.” The link attached to the word “killings” took readers to a discredited Amnesty International report that accused Israeli soldiers of murdering Sa’ad Al-Atrash and then planting a knife next to his body in October 2015. Al-Atrash had attempted to stab the soldiers who shot him.

October 2015 saw an upsurge in violence across Israel incited by Palestinian political and religious leaders. The wave of stabbings, known as the “Knife Intifada,” saw young Palestinians throughout the country stabbing and attempting to stab scores of Israeli civilians.

Many Palestinians killed during the Knife Intifada were shot after attempting to murder Israeli Jews and refusing to lay down their weapons. For instance, Fadi Alloun [Aloon] — referenced in the Amnesty International report — was shot by Israeli security forces after he stabbed a 15-year old Israeli boy in his chest and back. Several hours before his attack, Aloon posted “Either martyrdom or victory” on his Facebook page.

Tufts SJP added, in its above-mentioned October 23, 2016 Tufts Daily piece: “We will not be silent when Palestinian poets like Dareen Tatour are imprisoned for their writings.”

Dareen Tatour was placed under house arrest for inciting violence in the fall of 2015, during the “Knife Intifada.” Tatour posted a Facebook status reportedly “calling for intifada on behalf of al-Aqsa mosque.” Tatour also posted on Facebook “I am the next shahid [martyr],” under a picture of attempted-stabber Asraa Zidan Tawfik Abed. Tatour also posted a Youtube video, narrated with a poem that glorified violence and called for the eviction of Jews from “Arab Palestine.”

On October 5, 2016, Tufts SJP activists appeared in a Tufts SJP Facebook photo where they were building a parade float that expressed their desire to “tear down” Israel’s security fence.

The fence was built as a non-violent deterrent to Palestinian terrorist attacks like suicide bombings. The SJP activists referred to Israel’s barrier as “the Apartheid Wall” and likened it to the “US Mexico border wall.”

On March 9, 2016, Tufts SJP demonstrated against the “illegal Jewish occupation on Palestinian land,” according to the Tufts student newspaper. The protest included Gaza — which Israel left in 2005 — and the Negev Desert which is recognized as part of Israel. The demonstration was part of Tufts SJP’s Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW).

At the demonstration, Tufts SJP distributed its 2013 publication titled “The Zintifada” — a play on the word “Intifada.”

The publication showcased another Tufts SJP activist, Sophia Goodfriend, who claimed (p. 8) Israel was a “construction of simulated reality upon a foundation of genocide and delusion.” The pamphlet also featured Tufts SJP co-founder Lucas Koerner, who claimed (p.17) that pro-Israel Jews felt “the imperative to dominate” as a symptom of “internalized oppression.” Koerner is infamous for reportedly biting an Israeli police officer in 2011.

In March 2015, Tufts SJP profiled some of its activists on Facebook. Tufts SJP activist Nicole Joseph, in her profile photo, decried the “influence of the Zionist lobby and the US-Israel special relationship.”

March 4, 2015, Tufts SJP hung a banner in the main dining hall that claimed: “Israeli weapons tried and tested on Palestinians.” The banner promoted a film screening of “The Lab.”

On November 10, 2014, Tufts SJP held a “die-in” to protest a speech at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) legal advisor Lt. Col Dr. Eran Shamir-Borer. Shamir-Borer’s talk addressed Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in July 2014.

Tufts SJP organized a petition against the speech and what they called “the genocidal logic of the Israel’s so-called ‘defense’ forces.” Tufts SJP, at the die-in, called Shamir-Borer a “genocide apologist.”

Israel commenced Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in July 2014, to stop rocket attacks targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.

Tufts SJP - Hosting Propagandists

On April 4, 2017, Tufts SJP hosted anti-Israel poet Remi Kanazi, who is known for his aggressive anti-Israel performances. His performance was part of Tufts SJP’s “Israeli Apartheid Week 2017,” which the group hosted from April 3-7, all less than a week before its Passover Eve BDS resolution vote, detailed above.

On November 16, 2016, Tufts SJP hosted former Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) spokesperson Diana Buttu. Buttu served in the PLO during the second intifada, when the PLO — via Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade — perpetrated terror attacks against Israeli civilians. Buttu was publicly discredited at least twice, in 2014, as a propagandist, who lied to defend terror organizations.

On March 1, 2016, Tufts SJP hosted an event featuring Nada Elia, titled “Refusing to be Complicit: The Question of Palestine and Non-Violent Resistance.” Elia wrote an article the previous fall — during the Knife Intifada — titled “Why Be Afraid of an Intifada?” In that article, Elia said: “Intifadas are good.”

On October 6, 2015, Tufts SJP brought Palestinian propagandist Bassem Tamimi to campus.

Bassem Tamimi is notorious for exploiting young children as political props. Tamimi regularly manufactures confrontations with Israeli soldiers, who respond to the rioting that Tamimi instigates. In 2011, Tamimi was jailed for organizing violent rallies and inciting minors to commit violent crimes, such as rock-throwing.

Tamimi’s U.S. visa was revoked in 2015, after a tour when Tamimi encouraged 3rd graders in Ithaca, New York to become “freedom fighters for Palestine.”

Tufts SJP - Harassing Fellow Students

On October 28, 2015, Tufts SJP activists attended a Tufts Friends of Israel (Tufts FOI)- hosted cultural event, with the express purpose of bullying FOI members of at the event. Claudia Aliff, a Tufts SJP activist, told The Tufts Daily: “The disruption of this event” was the purpose of SJP’s presence there.

Tufts SJP members mocked Tufts FOI members and their displays while distributing Tufts SJP flyers. The flyers accused Israel of “theft” and “terrorism,” and blamed the deadly “Knife Intifada” — then taking place in Israel — on “Israeli police violence and oppressive policies.” Tufts SJP posted signs accusing Israel of “[p]racticing expulsion, occupation, apartheid & cultural cuisine appropriation” and declaring that Israel was founded on “stolen Palestinian land.”

On April 25, 2014, Tufts SJP staged a “die-in” next to an FOI event celebrating Israeli Independence Day. Hannah Freedman, a Tufts SJP activist, said that Tufts SJP “crashed” the event “with a memorial for al-Nakba,” a term defining Israel’s founding as a “catastrophe.” Tufts SJP activists laid on red cloth meant to symbolize pools of blood.

On March 5, 2014, Tufts SJP carried out three anti-Israel provocations. First, Tufts SJP slipped leaflets into dorm rooms targeting the Jewish heritage program Birthright Israel. Second, Tufts SJP slipped mock “demolition” notices into other dorm rooms, claiming that Israel had a “project of ethnic cleansing.” Third, Tufts SJP held a “mock annexation” that purported to show Israeli soldiers violently arresting Palestinians without cause.

Tufts SJP - Promoting Incitement

On March 18, 2014, Tufts SJP members marched in support of SJP at Northeastern University (SJP Northeastern) after the group was suspended by the university for slipping mock eviction notices demonizing Israel under students’ doors. The marchers chanted a call for anti-Israel violence: “Long live the Intifada! Intifada, Intifada!” According to Tufts SJP activist Emma Brown, the marchers also called for Israel’s destruction, chanting: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

Tufts SJP - Hosting National SJP Conference

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