Fatima Younis
Overview
Fatima Younis promoted the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement at the University of Maryland (UMD), in 2019. Younis has also whitewashed violent protesters and demonized Israel online. She was an activist with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at UMD in 2019 and 2018.As of August 2019, Younis was listed on the Women’s March Youth (WMY) website as a “Youth Empower organizer” and the founder and president of DMV Muslims Making Change, which regularly posts anti-Israel content on its Instagram page.
Younis also reportedly started a Muslim Student Association (MSA) “at her community college.”
In April 2019, Younis said in a Facebook video that she was an Aerospace Engineering student at UMD.
Promoting BDS
On April 24, 2019, Younis featured [00:46:48] 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, Younis said [00:46:53]: “Here is why you should pass this bill. BDS is neutral, BDS is not taking a stance. BDS is simply not supporting a side that has been oppressive not only to Palestinians in Palestine, but also to Palestinian Americans here.”
Younis continued [00:47:05]: “Here we are students and we are complicit in this. Why should our money be going to Israel without our permission? I should not feel guilty for going to school for an education because my endowment money goes to Israel.”
Younis went on to say [00:47:16]: “I have heard accusations of anti-Semitism against this bill, yet these accusations are anti-Semitic in and of themselves. Why? Because they are conflating Zionism and the war crimes of Israel with an entire religion.”
Younis then said [00:47:45]: “Twenty years from now, do you want to look back and regret not having been on the right side of history? We always ask ourselves, what would we have done during South African Apartheid or during the Holocaust? Well this is our South African moment.”
Younis added [00:48:03]: “Divesting is taking yourself out of the situation. Being complicit is taking a side, the side of oppression.”
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.”
On October 29, 2018, Younis was listed on Facebook as a panelist at an SJP UMD organized event titled: “Boycott Divestment and Sanction (BDS) Teach-In and Panel.”
The Facebook event page description said the event was “in anticipation for the SGA bill that SJP has put forth urging UMD to participate in this movement…”
Whitewashing Violent Protesters
On April 9, 2018, Younis wrote on Facebook: “I will be out here speaking up for the innocent Palestinian protesters who tried to exercise their right to protest peacefully. We take that right for granted here in America, but they were met with bullets and tear gas (even though I know what tear gas looks like and it doesn't give people convulsions like that).Younis added: “If you want to know where to find me, I will be out here speaking up for Palestine just as I have been for most of my life. Free Palestine.”
The “right of return” is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel.
Demonizing Israel
The second tweet by Younis, allegedly written on October 4, 2018, read: “...if you think that Israel is real, then I’m gonna go off.”
SJP Activism
On March 7, 2019, SJP UMD shared a group photo on Instagram of SJP activists andEran Efrati, holding a Palestinian flag.Younis commented: “LOVEEEE 😍😍😍” and “(Next time you take the pic WITH me in it shukran).”
SJP UMD commented on the post: “It was eye-opening and intriguing to hear from Eran Efrati about the deadly exchange between US Police forces and the Israeli Defense Forces! #freepalestine.”
Eran Efrati is an executive board member of Researching the Israeli American Alliance (RIAA) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).
RAIA, in partnership with JVP, produced the Deadly Exchange report, which claimed to reveal “the extent of massive training programs between U.S. law enforcement and Israeli police, military, and the Shin Bet.”
In 2017, JVP launched the “Deadly Exchange (DX)” campaign, which accused American Jewish organizations of promoting human rights abuses. JVP also released a video that blamed [00:04:04] U.S.-based Jewish organizations for violence that occurs against Black and Brown communities, immigrants and activists in the U.S.
SJP UMD - Supporting Terrorists
On April 8, 2018, SJP UMD shared a photo on Instagram of Ghassan Kanafani and wrote: “Today is the birthday of legendary Palestinian author and PFLP member Ghassan Kanafani (1936-72).”Kanafani was a leading member and spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) during the terrorist organization’s early years. Kanafani announced the PFLP’s responsibility for the Lod Airport Massacre of May 1972 and was linked to the airport attackers. The attack killed 26 people and wounded 80 others.
On March 9, 2018, SJP UMD shared a poster on Instagram produced by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and wrote: “Poster of the First Martyr of the Intifada #sjp #intifada.”
The caption on the poster read: “Hatem Al Sesi First Martyr of the Intifada for Freedom and Independence.”
Hatem al-Sisi was killed after he reportedly attemptedto drop a homemade bomb on an Israeli military vehicle during the first intifada.
On the same day, SJP UMD shared another PFLP poster on Instagram and wrote: “Today is Martyr’s day A day to remember all who sacrificed themselves for their people and for human rights #sjp.”
SJP UMD - Demonizing Israel on Campus
On May 11, 2019, SJP UMD reportedly held a teach-in to “boycott the annual celebration of Israel Fest” organized by pro-Israel campus groups at UMD.“Israel Fest” at UMD is an annual campus event designed “to celebrate and educate students on Israeli culture,” hosted by the Jewish Student Union.
SJP UMD’s teach-in involved activists gathering by a mock “Israeli Apartheid Wall.”
Shivam Shukla, an SJP member, reportedly said that the mock wall was “was meant to mimic the wall that separates Israel from Palestine” and “to block the festival from the view of passersby.” SJP UMD activists reportedly chanted: “Displacing lives since ‘48, nothing here to celebrate!”
The protest took place two weeks after the UMD Student Government Association (SGA) voted against a resolution that called on UMD to divest from companies that do business with Israel, on April 25, 2019.
The resolution was initiated by Divest UMD, a campaign that called on UMD to divest from companies that do business with Israel.
Billy Stranger, another SJP activist, reportedly said he hoped the: “boycott will inform the campus community so that when next year’s bill hearing comes around, they have a better understanding of the divestment movement.” ”
On April 19, 2018, SJP UMD organized a “Teach-In: Boycott Israel Fest”.
On April 10, 2018, Nicholas Galloway, an SJP UMD activist, wrote an article titled: “After violence in Gaza, UMD students should boycott Israel Fest.”
Galloway described Israel Fest as “engaging in two very harmful activities: the normalization of Israeli human rights violations and the erasure of Palestinian suffering.”
He continued: “By holding ‘a day celebrating Israel,’ we are framing the long and painful history of Israeli violence against Palestinians as both normal and acceptable.”
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.
