Dajana Pezo

Overview

Dajana Pezo [Dajana Kovacevic] has expressed support for terrorists and spread hatred of Israel. Pezo is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Pezo has also engaged in anti-Israel activism and was a member of the anti-Israel group Toronto4Palestine in October 2021 and an activist with Global Rise 4 Palestine in July 2021. Toronto4Palestine was formerly called the Greater Toronto Area Palestine Movement.

As of June 2023, Pezo was the co-owner of a restaurant using the corporate name Balkan Eats Inc, which was located in Woodstock, Ontario. Pezo was listed on the Government of Canada Federal Information page as a registered director of the corporation, formed in December 2022. The page listed her location as Tillsonburg, Ontario.

As of June 2023, Pezo’s Facebook page said she had been studying “Paralegal Education” at Humber College (Humber) since September 2022.

Also as of June 2023, Pezo went by the username “Dajana Pezo” and used the handle “@pezo_khadijah” on Instagram. As of the same date, she went by the username “Khadijah Dajana Kovačević” and used the handle “@dajanatlnip” on Twitter.

Terror Support (PIJ)

On October 23, 2021, Pezo was featured [image 10] in an Instagram video of Toronto4Palestine activists announcing their participation in a hunger strike in solidarity with Palestinian terrorists in an Israeli prison.

In October 2021, six prisoners affiliated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)'s armed wing, the Al-Quds Brigades, chose to prolong their hunger strike in protest of their administrative detention by Israel. The six men were Kayed al-Fasfus, Miqdad al-Qawasmeh, Alaa Aaraj, Hisham Abu Hawwash, Shadi Abu-Akr and Ayyad Hureimi.

On February 1, 2022, Pezo wrote in a comment on Instagram: “THERE IS ONLY ONE SOLUTION INTIFADA REVOLUTION.” The post featured video from an anti-Israel rally in Toronto held on January 29, 2022.

The term “intifada,” which translates from Arabic as “uprising” or “insurrection,” carries the connotation of violence. Palestinian intifadas waged against Israel have been marked since 1987 by hundreds of hijackings, shootings, stabbings, bombings and suicide missions.

Hatred of Israel

On May 24, 2021, Pezo created an online petition on Change.org titled: “Canada, stop funding genocide in Palestine.”

Pezo’s petition was addressed to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and it called on him to “cease all financial aid to the Israeli government, immediately” in the wake of Israel’s Operation Guardian of the Walls (OGW) against Hamas.

In May 2021, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists fired over 4,300 rockets from Gaza at major population centers in Israel. Israel responded by launching OGW, carrying out targeted military strikes in Gaza.

Pezo’s petition told Trudeau: “There is blood on your hands.” The petition accused Israel of “genocide, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, illegal occupations and the use of internationally banned chemical warfare” and “the mass murder of children.”

The petition claimed: “Israel continues to bomb houses, schools, hospitals and places of worship. No, not just mosques, but churches too.”

During OGW in May 2021, Hamas reportedly used civilians as human shields to defend against Israeli counterstrikes. Hamas also launched rockets from densely populated civilian areas, stockpiled weapons in private homes and situated key operations facilities in civilian apartment buildings, near mosques, hospitals and schools.

Pezo’s petition continued: “…we did not learn about past genocides and scars of xenophobia to watch it all be repeated before our eyes. Remember Rwanda? Bosnia? Do you remember the holocaust? Israel is terrorizing the very country that opened their doors and provided them aid when no other country wanted them.”

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.

The claim that Palestinians saved Holocaust survivors has been denounced by politicians and described by leading historian Benny Morris as “completely ignorant” or a lie. Great Britian issued a “White Paper” constraining Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine from 1939 to 1945, in response to Arab opposition to and riots.

Under the “Reasons for Signing” listed at the bottom of the petition, Pezo wrote: “I don't pay my taxes to fund genocide.”

On May 24, 2021, Pezo promoted the petition in a comment on Facebook and wrote: “brothers and sisters / please sign the petition to demand justin trudeau defunds the israeli military and government Www.change.org/topalestinewithlove with over 100,000 signatures minimum we can demand that he acknowledge the voice of Canadians!”

On June 13, 2021, Pezo wrote in a petition update: “one of our main goals in the pursuit of liberating Palestine is to get the Canadian government to cease all financial and military aid to the occupation. / It makes absolutely no sense for us as Canadians to support the use of our tax dollars to fund the genocide of innocent civilians who are merely resisting being expelled from their own homes and resisting being tortured.”

Pezo also described Israel as “the ONLY place in the world that is actively arresting children and detaining them in prisons AND not providing trials or fair representation.”

On June 18, 2021, Pezo wrote in an update on her petition: “We DEMAND that our government condemns the blatant genocide in Palestine, to condemn the actions of the occupation, to condemn the illegal settlements, to condemn the mass murder of men, women and children, to condemn the abduction of men, women and children… SAY NO TO GENOCIDE, NO TO ETHNIC CLEANSING, NO TO ILLEGAL OCCUPATIONS!”

On June 19, 2021, Pezo tweeted: “. #Islamophobia, Racism, Ethnic Cleansing, and Apartheid are all products of White SupremacyRSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh]ColonialismZionism & just Plain Theft of Other People’s Land and Resources…”

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.

Also on June 19, 2021, Pezo tweeted: “. #BlackLivesMatter, #MuslimsLiveMatters , #PalestinianLivesMatter – Cut out the underlying cancers – White Supremacy RSS Colonialism Zionism and Organized Theft of Other People’s homelands. Reparations now!...”

On June 22, 2021, Pezo wrote in an update on her Change.org petition: “Here is an update of a few demands: / 1) CANCEL the $36 MILLION DOLLAR drone contract! / 2) stop arms trade TO AND FROM Isra*l / 3) cancel CIFTA (Canada/Isra*l free trade agreement) so illegal squatters in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank ont [sic] continue to benefit from illegal trade.”

Anti-Israel Activism

On May 14, 2021, during OGW, Pezo signed a letter titled “An open letter to Canadian newsrooms on covering Israel-Palestine,” that accused Israel of “forced expulsions and indiscriminate airstrikes.”

On May 15, 2021, during OGW, Pezo participated in an anti-Israel protest in Toronto, titled “Ongoing Nakba, Ongoing Resistance,” organized by the anti-Israel Palestinian Youth Movement organization (PYM).

The term “Nakba” is generally translated as “catastrophe” in Arabic, referring to the outcome of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It is a term often used to delegitimize the creation of the State of Israel by defining it as a catastrophe.

On July 4 2021, Pezo participated in a BDS protest in Mississauga, Ontario, organized by Global Rise 4 Palestine.

Pezo posed [slide 3] for a group Instagram photo, holding a megaphone to her mouth. Other protesters in the photo held signs that said: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” “End Apartheid Now” and “Boycott Israel."

“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.

Protesters blocked trucks and entrances at a Walmart distribution center and held signs that said [slide 7]: “AL-AQSA NOT YOURS TO TAKE” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

The allegation that Jews “threaten” to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque has been a pretext for Arab attacks on Jews long before the existence of the modern Jewish state. Such propaganda has led to multiple periods of violence against Israeli civilians.

On September 4, 2021, Pezo participated [slide 2] in a Toronto4Palestine “banner drop,” where she spoke into a megaphone. Activists displayed a banner over a bridge that said: “END THE ILLEGAL OCCUPATION OF PALESTINE.”

On September 7, 2021, Pezo set her Facebook profile picture to a photo of herself dressed in a pink hijab with a black and white-patterned keffiyeh and holding a bullhorn at the protest.

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.