Elissa Goss

Overview

Elissa Goss [Elissa Courtney Goss] was a member of the Mid-East Solidarity Project (MESP) at The Evergreen State College (TESC), whose name was changed to Evergreen Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) in 2013. It was reported that MESP intentionally disrupted pro-Israel student group meetings at TESC and engaged in provocative campus demonstrations — such as mock checkpoints and sending students dressed as Palestinian civilians covered in mock blood to run screaming across campus.

Goss is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and promoted an anti-Israel divestment resolution (3:30) at the University of Washington, which was rejected in May 2014.

Goss was also an member for TESC Divest!, a student-led BDS group that "worked to make divestment...a reality at The Evergreen State College." The campus-based group appears to be defunct since 2014.

Goss is a delegate of Interfaith-Peace Builders (IFPB) and has written a blog detailing her trip with the group.

She is a member of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), a religious association, as well as an anti-Israel UU subgroup called Justice in the Middle East (UUJME). Goss “pioneer[ed]” an “Israel-Palestine curriculum based on UU principles” which was used a basis for a UUJME study guide. The study guide, which is only available by email, was analyzed by Legal Insurrection and found to promote an anti-Israel narrative, as well as to contain factual inaccuracies. The study guide also omits any reference to Jews having a unique historical connection to Israel; “[i]nstead, ‘Zionists’ are said to have populated a space which was rightfully Palestinian territory.”

In April 2016, UUA officials divested from three corporations that do business in Israel. In addition, UUJME proposed a resolution calling on the UUA to divest and refrain from purchasing stock in five corporations that “profit from the Israeli occupation of Palestine.” Although UUA no longer owns stocks in the companies, the UUJME resolution was put to a vote at the UUA General Assembly in June 2016 as “an opportunity to educate UUs about the situation in Palestine.” The resolution failed to garner enough votes to pass.

Goss graduated from TESC in 2013, with a bachelor’s degree in Political Economy. She works as the Executive Director of Washington Student Association in Olympia, Washington. Goss also works at the Economic Opportunity Institute in Seattle, Washington.

Painting Attempted Murderers as Victims to Slander Israel

On October 10, 2015, Goss on Facebook propagated a double deception that demonized Israel: Goss referred to Palestinian terrorist Tawfik Abed as a “Palestinian mother of 3” who “was just shot and killed by the Israeli Defense Forces.” She added, “[t]his is how the occupation dehumanizes.”

Spreading Lies to Support Student-Killer Rasmea Odeh

On November 5, 2014, Goss retweeted a tweet from the anti-Israel website Electronic Intifada (EI) claiming that terrorist-murderer Rasmea Odeh was tortured for 25 days before confessing to the murder of two college students. The tweet linked to an EI article that claimed Odeh was raped with a wooden stick.

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.

Honoring Human Shields

On November 7, 2013, Goss spoke at a memorial event honoring International Solidarity Movement (ISM) member Rachel Corrie (24:39).

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) was founded in 2001 and, according to the group's website, is "resisting the long-entrenched and systematic oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian population, using non-violent, direct-action methods and principles."

Despite this claim, the ISM has been accused of supporting terrorism and has encouraged its foreign volunteers to act "as human shields in cities, towns and refugee camps." At least once, ISM facilities have been used in attempts to facilitate the escape of known terrorists from Israeli security forces.

ISM has encouraged its volunteers to break curfew and disregard Israeli directives prohibiting access to closed military zones. This policy resulted in the death of ISM operative Rachel Corrie, who was killed by a bulldozer while interfering with an Israeli military operation in 2003. A wrongful death suit brought by Corrie's family was dismissed when the judge ruled that Corrie unreasonably chose to put her own life in danger and found there to be no intent or negligence on the part of any Israelis involved in the incident.

In May 2015, Goss wrote about Corrie in May 2015 as a part of UUJME’s study guide, and urged readers to “look at examples of BDS actions and to reflect on how they could fit into your vision for action.”

MESP

In March 2013, MESP hosted Israeli Apartheid Week at TESC. The week-long event featured false claims that Israel is an “apartheid state” and hosted New York-based poet, Remi Kanazi. Kanazi tours widely presenting presenting aggressively anti-Israel poetry and spoken-word performances.

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.

IFPB

IFPB, known as Eyewitness Palestine since 2018, is an anti-Israel NGO that organizes activist delegations to Israel and the West Bank in order to showcase “the everyday violence of war and [Israeli] occupation.” IFPB’s program features lectures by representatives of anti-Israel groups that openly call for the end of Israel, including the designated terrorist organization the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian (PFLP).

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.