Dhilal Alhaboob
Overview
Dhilal Alhaboob has spread incitement, demonized Zionists and promoted anti-Israel propaganda on Facebook.Alhaboob was an administrator for Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) at UOttawa’s closed Facebook group: “SPHR Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights uOttawa 2018-2019.” SPHR is an alternative name for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
Alhaboob pushed a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement resolution on UOttawa’s campus. She was also affiliated with the Muslim Students Association (MSA) at UOttawa.
As of April 2018, Alhaboob’s LinkedIn listed her as the Campaigns Organizer for the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa (SFUO) from August 2016 - March 2017.
Alhaboob’s LinkedIn also said she was an “International Development and Globalization” undergraduate student, slated to graduate in 2019. She is also an Exam Proctor at UOttawa.
Spreading Incitement
On July 22, 2017, Alhaboob shared a post on Facebook titled “What's Happening at Al Aqsa Mosque?” The post described a deadly ambush by three Palestinian terrorists on two Israeli police officers as “an incident” that left “3 Palestinians and 2 Israeli policemen dead.”The post also criticized Israel’s subsequent installation of security cameras and metal detectors by quoting the Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator, who claimed that the “metal detectors serve no security purpose whatsoever… Rather, their erection is a political play to pressure Palestinians into relinquishing control of Al-Aqsa.”
Demonizing Zionists
On April 11, 2018, Alhaboob criticized her former high school for inviting a member of the Centre for Israel and Jewish affairs (CIJA), a Jewish pro-Israel group, to speak on the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Alhaboob described CIJA as “an organization which promotes the values of genocide.”On July 18, 2017, Alhaboob shared on Facebook a video of French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron condemning anti-Zionism during a memorial service for French Jews deported by Vichy France during the Holocaust.
Alhaboob commented: “Two wrongs DO NOT make a right, Macron. #apartheidstate.”
The video also featured [00:00:45] activists from the anti-Israel organizations IfNotNow as well as members [00:01:04] of Neturei Karta.
Neturei Karta is an anti-Israel Jewish fringe group whose leader, Yisroel Dovid Weiss, was excommunicated from many Ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups for participating in a 2006 Holocaust denial conference in Iran. The group opposes Zionism on religious grounds and has called to dismantle Israel.
Spreading Anti-Israel Propaganda
On March 31, 2018, Alhaboob shared on Facebook an Al Jazeera article that depicted a Hamas-organized march as a “non-violent protest.”On March 30, 2018, some 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza approached Israel’s border to take part in “Land Day Protests” or the “March of Return.”
The “right of return” is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel.
March participants sent scores of kites bearing explosive devices across Israel’s border to burn Israeli crops and homes. Participants also attempted to breach the border fence, which caused the Israeli Defense Forces to respond with live fire.
Agitators threw molotov cocktails, firebombs, shot firearms and threw rocks under the cover of smoke from burning tires.
On March 19, 2017, Alhaboob shared a TRT World video promoting Janna “Jihad” Ayyad to Facebook.
Janna Jihad Ayyad Al-Tamimi, also known as Janna Jihad, is an anti-Israel youth activist. She is a relative of Palestinian propagandist Bassem Tamimi, who is notorious for exploiting young children as political props by manufacturing confrontations with Israeli soldiers who respond to the riots that Tamimi organizes.
BDS Activism
On March 13, 2018, Alhaboob promoted and defended [03:21:22] a divestment resolution jointly proposed by SPHR, Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) and the Revolutionary Students’ Movement (RSM) for the UOttawa SFUO General Assembly (GA)’s winter session.On that same day, Alhaboob tweeted: “Come out to the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa General Assembly tonight at 6:30, UCU auditorium and vote FOR BDS! #Palestine #uottawa #solidaritywithpalestine OPEN TO ALL!Voting open to undergrads!!”
The divestment proposal called on the SFUO to command endorsement of the BDS movement and to “take a Pro-Palestine stance.”
The proposal specifically called for the SFUO to to boycott Israeli artists and to “work for the cancellation of all forms of cooperation with Israeli academic institutions.”
During the SFUO discussion of the proposal , Alhaboob defended the BDS motion, requesting [03:21:23] the SFUO GA chairperson to “repeat the clause” in the resolution claiming “that the BDS motion does not equate to anti-Semitism.”
The BDS motion failed to garner a two-thirds majority required for constitutional change with 241 votes for and 231 votes against.
On March 25, 2018, SPHR UOttawa pushed the failed BDS motion at the SFUO BOA meeting following the SFUO GA, but again failed to reach the two-thirds threshold to pass the vote and the motion was defeated.
The following day, UOttawa President and Vice-Chancellor Jacques Frémont released a statement strongly denouncing the BDS campaign.
“This issue is divisive and a detriment to an open and welcoming campus environment,” said Frémont. “The University of Ottawa will have no part of the BDS movement nor any movement that boycotts academic institutions.”
Anti-Israel Campus Activism
In January 2017, during Alhaboob’s tenure as Campaigns Organizer for the SFUO, the SFUO Campaigns Department co-hosted Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) with SPHR UOttawa.On January 16, 2017, Alhaboob indicated on Facebook that she “went” to the “Volunteer Meeting - Israeli Apartheid.” The meeting was called to take place at “the SFUO Boardroom at the SFUO office.”
SPHR UOttawa
As of June 2007, Students for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) at UOttawa (SPHR UOttowa)’s Mission Statement said the group was committed to the “struggle against the colonialist and imperialist policies of the Israeli government and the ideology upon which the state was formed.”In 2018, SPHR UOttowa worked closely with Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) and the Revolutionary Students Movement (RSM) at UOttawa to host anti-Israel campus events. These events included Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) and a divestment initiative.
On March 29, 2018, as part of IAW, SPHR UOttawa promoted on Facebook a film screening hosted by RSM that celebrated terrorist Leila Khaled.
SPHR UOttawa's Facebook post referred to Khaled as a “Palestinian revolutionary who became a household name after she became the first woman to hijack a plane.”
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.
Khalida Jarrar is a senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror organization. She has reportedly been the head of the PFLP in the West Bank since 2016. In 2015, an Israeli military court sentenced Jarrar to 15 months in prison for calling to kidnap Israeli soldiers. Israel arrested Jarrar again in 2017 “on suspicion of involvement with terrorist activities and violent public disturbances.” In 2019, she was arrested by Israel with 50 other PFLP operatives following a deadly 2018 bombing attack.
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.
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.
