Fatima Abdelhafeez

Overview

Fatima Abdelhafeez has demonized Israel and called for the release of individuals convicted of financing Hamas. Abdelhafeez is also a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

In the spring of 2017, Neha Syed helped advocate for passage of a California State University Long Beach Divest (CSULB Divest) resolution that divided CSULB’s campus and isolated many Jewish students.

Abdelhafeez is an admin for the Muslim Students Association (MSA) at California State University Long Beach (CSULB) Facebook group.

Abdelhafeez is affiliated with the Greater Los Angeles office of the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Abdelhafeez’ Facebook page says that she is a student at CSULB, majoring in Nutrition.

Promoting Isolation of Jewish CSULB Students

On April 30, 2017, Abdelhafeez changed her Facebook profile picture to the CSULB Divest logo in the lead up to the vote on CSULB’s anti-Israel resolution.

Four days earlier, CSULB President Jane Close Conoley wrote a highly publicized letter to CSULB’s student government, warningthat university support of divestment legislation targeting Israel would isolate Jewish students.

President Conoley noted: "Even during our local debate, anti-Jewish vandalism has increased at Long Beach State. This increase has frightened our Jewish students and concerned all community members devoted to social justice and the safety of minority populations." Conoley also said: “BDS resolutions ... lessen one group’s sense of belonging, are based on binary assumptions that do not represent the complex and multinational realities of Middle East conflicts, and, finally, act as catalysts to acts of vandalism and violence.”

On May 2, 2017, Abdelhafeez promoted and shared a video of a "teach-in" on Facebook, organized by CSULB Divest to further the resolution. The teach-in was led on behalf of CSULB Divest, by Spencer Potiker who claimed “... from all the research I’ve done on this, there are - there are a decent amount of people that are non-Jewish living within Israel, I don’t believe anyone who is non-Jewish has the right to vote outside of Jerusalem city elections, so again I think that that could be considered an apartheid state.”

On May 4, 2017, Abdelhafeez shared video footage of the passing of the second reading of the resolution, on Facebook.

On May 6, 2017, the co-authors of the resolution responded to President Conoley on Facebook: "your position, which assumes a correlation between an increase in student activism and anti-Jewish proclamations, is not supported by objective social scientific evidence."

However, the findings from a study released on April 4, 2017 by the Amcha Initiative revealed for the second year running, confirmation of a "rapidly-growing correlation between anti-Semitism and activism on the part of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement." The study evidenced campuses with an active SJP and MSA “are overwhelmingly more likely to have anti-Semitic activity on campus than schools that don’t have BDS activity or anti-Israel activism.”

On May 10th, CSULB’s student senate passed the third — and final — reading of the anti-Israel Divest resolution in a roll call vote (15-7-1).

CSULB’s co-director of Jewish Studies Jeffrey Blutinger, spoke against the passing of the resolution. "This resolution is racist and anti-Semitic, and it should be rejected," Blutinger said. “It singles out Jews from all the peoples on earth and says only you [the Jews] may not have national aspirations.”

On May 11, 2017, Abdelhafeez shared a CSULB Divest Facebook status announcing the passage of the resolution that read: "Resolution has Passed 15-7-1!!!" Abdelhafeez commented: “All praise is due to God. Alhamdulilah.”

On the same day, Abdelhafeez shared a photo of the CSULB Divest coalition members and also video footage on Facebook of the discussion and voting on the resolution.

Defending Hamas Funders

On January 18, 2017, Abdelhafeez shared a Facebook status that read: "President Obama, #FreeTheHLF5!"

On November 25, 2014, Abdelhafeez shared a Facebook status that read: "Until justice prevails. #PoliticalPrisoners#RememberHLF5 #FreeTheHLF5 #6YearsLater@freethehlf5 @iayhafeez97."

The HL5 were five individuals associated with the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) indicted for funnelling funds to Hamas in the guise of humanitarian aid.

The men were were all convicted and sentenced in 2009 to federal prison terms ranging from 15 to 65 years.

Demonizing Israel

On April 29, 2014, during CSULB’s Palestine Awareness Week Abdelhafeez participated in a mock apartheid wall, where student activists posed as a Palestinians supposedly being oppressed by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint.

The mock wall misrepresented Israel’s security fence — built as a non-violent deterrent to Palestinian terrorist attacks, mostly by suicide bombers — as a discriminatory, policy of "apartheid."

The wall included a map that showed lands that were controlled by Britain, Egypt and Jordan as autonomous "Palestinian Land" stolen by Israel.

In February of 2016, publisher McGraw-Hill Education recalled and destroyed copies of a college level textbook that contained the fraudulent maps. In October 2015, the United States cable news network MSNBC apologized for airing a similar series of maps and retracted them.

CSULB Divest

In spring of 2017 CSULB Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) members, in conjunction with Muslim Students Association (MSA ) members formed CSULB Divest, in order to lead anti-Israel divestment efforts on CSULB’s campus. CSULB's "Palestinian Awareness Week" was held by SJP in 2015 and 2016. MSA hosted CSULB's Palestinian Awareness Week in 2017.

On April 19, 2017, CSULB Divest leaders introduced an anti-Israel divestment resolution at CSULB’s Senate of the Associated Students Inc. (ASI) for consideration. The title of the item was: "SR #2017-37: Suggestions for Socially Responsible Investing: Companies Complacent [sic.] in and Profiting from Palestinian Oppression (1st Reading)." It recommended that the university divest from various specifically named companies that deal with Israel.

The resolution was co-authored and proposed by Senators at-Large Yazmeen Azam, Yasmin Elasmar, Hajer Rawag and Board Vice President Logan Vournas. It was introduced as part of a "Socially Responsible Investing Policy" legislation that was also written and introduced in February of 2016 by Senator Elasmar. That legislation was passed on March 9, 2016.

Senator Yazmeen Azam is a BDS activist and CSULB MSA’s president. Senator Yasmin Elasmar is also a BDS activist and an MSA board member. Senator of the College of Natural Science and Mathematics Hajer Rawag is also an MSA board member.

Neither the text of the anti-Israel resolution nor the minutes of the ASI meeting were made available on the ASI Senate website.

CSULB Divest - Isolating Jewish Students

On April 26, 2017, President Conoley wrote a highly publicized letter to CSULB’s student government warningthat university support of divestment legislation targeting Israel would isolate Jewish students.

President Conoley noted: "those with anti-Jewish prejudices use campus resolutions as enablers to their hatred. Even during our local debate, anti-Jewish vandalism has increased at Long Beach State. This increase has frightened our Jewish students and concerned all community members devoted to social justice and the safety of minority populations." Conoley also said: “BDS resolutions... lessen one group’s sense of belonging, are based on binary assumptions that do not represent the complex and multinational realities of Middle East conflicts, and, finally, act as catalysts to acts of vandalism and violence.”

President Conoley further observed: "When I speak to our Jewish students, they report that BDS resolutions are perceived as direct attacks on their right to be on our campus. Unintended consequences are real."

President Conoley asked, too: “Why are only Jews picked out for condemnation? It’s worth reflecting, I think, on implicit bias when singling out only one group of people for sanctions.”

Despite being informed of President Conoley’s fears that university support of the BDS movement would isolate Jewish students, the groups proceeded to push the resolution.

CSULB Divest - Semantic Games

On April 20, 2017, SJP and MSA created the "Divest CSULB Facebook page. Previously, SJP members had used the CSULB SJP Facebook page, which was not updated since 2016.

On May 5, 2017, the divestment resolution authors responded to President Conoley, posting an "open letter" to her on the CSULB Divest Facebook page.

In their letter, the authors insisted their divestment resolution was "not part of the greater BDS movement." They claimed: “For the record, not one of the three resolutions we proposed mentions ‘boycotts or sanctions,’ and as a movement, we never called for such practices.”

Also, on May 5, 2017, CSULB Divest posted on Facebook stating: "Our call is for divestment, not BDS." However, CSULB student Jazlyn Tabar, who spoke at the May 2, 2017 “Teach-in” on behalf of CSULB Divest, claimed that the “Israeli Zionist state” was responsible for “militarization on Palestinian communities,” human rights violations, detainment of political prisoners and “more occupations of Lumod indigenous land” in the Philippines.

Tabar concluded her speech: “Let’s continue to build our community and come support the BDS bill.” [2:16]

CSULB Divest - Disrupting Jewish Campus Life

On May 3, 2017 CSULB held a demonstration leading protesters to march on President Conoley’s office, chanting slogans advocating for divestment. The demonstrators reportedly took a route through the university’s Multicultural Fair shouting over megaphones. They interfered with students tabling for Beach Hillel, a pro-Israel student organization.

Later, on Facebook, CSULB Divest asserted that the multicultural fair "just happened to be at the location where our demonstration passed by."

The march was held in the run up to CSULB ASI’sthe second reading of the divestment resolution, which CSULB Divest advertised on their Facebook page. The resolutions second reading was passed, with great controversy, on May 4th.

Public comments published by the Daily 49er after the vote highlighted the division caused by the resolution. One faculty member on campus for more than 16 years was "saddened by the lack of constructive academic engagement."

After the vote, a former student senator observed that one Palestinian supporter told a Jewish girl with tears streaming down her face, that he "didn’t talk to terrorists."

Some 30 supporters of the vote gathered on the stairs and proceeded to chant, "Allah al-Akbar."

One senator asked to table the vote indefinitely, stating: "[a]ll of the students that I have spoken to from my college don’t know what [the resolution] is. I can’t even get a formal opinion from my constituents if they don’t know what it is."

The resolution was put to a vote, over the protests of several other senators who requested more time for discussion due to the motion’s highly controversial nature.

A former student senator reported: "This resolution was not about human rights. This was part of long running concerted effort on university campuses to incite anti-Semitism and delegitimize the State of Israel. Never have I been so ashamed as a student at this school. Never have I, a Jewish student, ever felt so targeted."

The third and final reading of the BDS resolution was set for a vote on Thursday, May 11, 2017.

CSULB Divest - Lies

On May 2, 2017, CSULB SJP and CSULB Divest led a demonstration to promote the divestment resolution. Speaking on behalf of CSULB Divest, Spencer Potiker demonized Israel with misinformation. For instance, Potiker claimed "... from all the research I’ve done on this, there are - there are a decent amount of people that are non-Jewish living within Israel, I don’t believe anyone who is non-Jewish has the right to vote, outside of Jerusalem city elections…"

The organizers of a May 2, 2017 protest also gave saltwater-filled glasses to the participants to drink, as part of a "Saltwater Challenge," which claimed that Palestinians in Israeli prisons are given saltwater instead of freshwater.

Aliyah Shaikh, Vice-President of MSA and a featured speaker at the demonstration, told a reporter for the campus newspaper, interviewed about divestment "Israel employs homo nationalism" to “paint themselves as champions of LGBT rights in the middle east... it’s a way to paint themselves as a superior culture to the Palestinians and further dehumanize them.”

CSULB SJP - Demonization of Israel

On April 24, 2017 CSULB posted on Facebook a flyer advertising its 2017 Palestinian Awareness week. The poster said “the wall will be up on Monday - Thursday the entire day on the SSPA North Lawn. Please join us there to learn facts about the occupation of Palestine” Video of the wall, filmed by Asia Gonzalez, showed text that proclaimed: “Zionism = Racism.”

On March 21, 2016, CSULB SJP’s Facebook post announcing its "Palestine Awareness Week" urged students to visit its “mock Apartheid Wall and learn the facts.” The post purported that Israel’s security barrier — built as a non-violent deterrent to Palestinian terrorist attacks (mostly by suicide bombers) — was a “divide built by the state of Israel to inconvenience Palestinian lives and keep them confined into a small territory.” The post went on to claim: “This highly securitized structure seeks to treat Palestinians as criminal simply for existing.”

The wall encouraged students to get active by “asking the university to stop investing in corporations” that “enable and profit from Israeli violations of human rights.”

On October 20, 2015, CSULB SJP posted a photo to their Facebook page of SJP members participating in what they described as a "silent protest." Protesters held signs reading” Zionism = Racism” and “Israel is an Apartheid state.”

On October 10, 2015, CSULB SJP shared to their Facebook page an AJ+ video clip captioned: "A disturbing footage showing a Palestinian girl being executed by the ‘Most Moral Army of the World.’"

The "Palestinian girl" was neither a “girl” nor killed. The video featured Asraa Zidan Tawfik Abed — a 30-year-old woman, who holds a degree from Israel's Technion University and was pursuing a master’s degree. Abedwas shot in the lower body on October 9, 2015 — after she attempted to stab a security guard at a bus station and refused to heed repeated commands to drop her weapon. Abed was not killed. She later underwent surgery at an Israeli hospital.

CSULB SJP - Defense of a Terrorist

On October 13, 2015, CSULB SJP shared a "Free Rasmea, Free Palestine Action in LA" event to Facebook, urging: “Hey everyone please consider going out to support this action today! Stand in solidarity with those fighting for Rasmea in LA!”

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.

CSULB SJP - Incitement

On September 17, 2015, CSULB SJP posted a video on its Facebook account that claimed:"Israeli forces stormed the Al Aqsa Mosque on Monday [September 13]." The video was produced by anti-Israel news source AJ+, (Al-Jazeera +). CSULB SJP shared the recycled the libel that Israel intended to desecrate the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem

In actuality, on September 13, 2015, masked Palestinian rioters barricaded themselves inside the Dome of the Rock. They started a fire by setting off fireworks — and threw stones and debris at Israeli police. The police later found pipe bombs that rioters had prepared to launch at Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount plaza. This false narrative led to numerous attacks on Jews.

CSULB SJP - Aligning with Terrorism

On October 16, 2015 CSULB SJP shared a "Day of Rage" event to their Facebook page, “in Solidarity with Palestine.” The demonstration was hosted by the anti-Israel group Al-Awda.

The event page on Facebook described the Day of Rage demonstration as a protest against “Israel's recent killings of Palestinian youth,” adding: “Our youth are giving their lives to our just cause, the least we can do is make the time to come out and support their steadfastness.”

Three days earlier, during a so-called Day of Rage in Israel, Palestinian men armed with knives and a gun murdered three people and wounded several others in a string of attacks in Jerusalem and near Tel Aviv.

CSULB SJP - Conspiracy Theories

On March 22, 2016, CSULB SJP hosted a lecture on "Israel’s Worldwide role in repression" as part of Palestine Awareness Week. The talk accused the Israeli government and Israeli corporations of bolstering repressive regimes “across the globe” and of contributing to “the violence and repression” of Palestinians, as well as their partner “movements, communities and countries of origin.”

The lecture was presented by the anti-Israel International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, (IJAN) organization.

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.

CAIR

CAIR describes itself as a “grassroots civil rights and advocacy group” and “America's largest Muslim civil liberties organization, with regional offices nationwide.” Its official mission is “enhance understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.”

CAIR reportedly has “significant ties” to the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as Hamas. A number of former CAIR employees have been convicted on fraud and terrorism-related charges that resulted monetary fines, jail terms and, sometimes, deportation.

CAIR was founded in 1994 and opened its first office in Washington, DC, with the help of a $5,000 donation from the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), a charity founded by Mousa Abu Marzook.

Marzook, who was listed as a "Specially Designated Terrorist" by the U.S. Treasury Department in 1995, is reportedly a senior member of Hamas.

In May 2007, CAIR was listed as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in a U.S.-filed action against the HLF for providing funds to Hamas.

CAIR was also listed as a terrorist entity by the United Arab Emirates, in 2014.

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.