Danyal Malik
Overview
In August 2018, the Muslim Student Association (MSA) at UMD announced on Facebook that Malik was the “Musallah Affairs Officer.”
As of August 2019, Malik’s LinkedIn page said that he was studying Mechanical Engineering at UMD, College Park from “2017 - 2021.”
Promoting BDS
On April 25, 2019, Malik was featured [02:34:04] in a video posted on Facebook by the UMD Student Government Association (SGA), urging the SGA to pass a BDS bill. The bill was launched by Divest UMD.Divest UMD is a campaign that calls on UMD to divest from companies that do business with Israel.
In the video, Malik said [02:34:09]: “My name is Danyal Malik and I’m here representing the Muslim Students Association in support of the BDS bill. On behalf of the largest Muslim organization on campus, we gather here today, not as anti-Semites. We do not want a destruction of any state or religion.”
Malik continued [02:34:26]: “But simultaneously we will not stand for the oppression of the innocent Palestinian people. BDS is a movement created to solve modern humanitarian crises. BDS is solely against the illegal occupation and apartheid within the Palestinian lands.”
In a 2012 interview, anti-Israel activist Norman Finkelstein criticized [00:29:00] the BDS movement as a duplicitous movement that seeks to destroy Israel.
Malik went on to say [02:34:42]: “Boycotts like this spark hope, inspiration and monumental change, just like the Boston Tea Party did for us, just like Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott did for us.”
On April 25, 2019, Divest UMD announced on Facebook that following a UMD student government vote, the BDS bill failed to pass with “a vote of 9 for, 25 against, and 2 abstentions.”
Anti-Israel Activity
On August 3, 2014, Malik was featured in Facebook photos taken at an anti-Israel demonstration against Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE).Israel commenced Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in July 2014, to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.
At the demonstration, Malik held a sign that featured a misleading series of maps, known as the “Map that Lies.”
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.
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.
MSA
The MSA was established by members of the Muslim Brotherhood in January 1963 at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, with the goal of "spreading Islam as students in North America." A 2004 FBI investigation uncovered an internal Muslim Brotherhood document in which a brotherhood leader identified the MSA as "one of our organizations."
The MSA reportedly has “nearly 600 chapters” located in the United States and Canada, and is “the most visible and influential Islamic student organization in North America,” boasting conferences, special events, publications, websites and other activities.
The organization includes a number of previous chapter presidents with explicit links to terrorist groups. Included are al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki (Colorado State University), Somali al-Shabaab militant leader Omar Shafik Hammami (University of South Alabama) and Pakistani Taliban recruiter Ramy Zamzam of the MSA's Washington, D.C. council.
Social Media and Weblinks
Facebook:www.facebook.com/100007450603866LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danyal-malik-613688156/
