Gabriel Abdellatif

Overview

Gabriel Abdellatif [Gabriel Ahmed Abdellatif] has demonized Israel and promoted a resolution in support of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement at Pomona College (Pomona) in April 2021. 

In April 2021, Abdellatif was serving as the 2020-2021 Associated Students of Pomona College (ASPC) Board of Trustees [BOT] Representative for the Student Affairs Committee. He went by the name “Gabe” while at Pomona. 

Also as of March 2022, Abdellatif’s LinkedIn page said he received a bachelor’s degree in Politics from Pomona in 2021. 

Abdellatif’s LinkedIn page also said he was a “Senior Interviewer” in the Office of Admissions from 2020-2021. He was also listed as a “Diversity & Access Intern” in Pomona’s Office of Admissions from August 2018 to May 2019.

Pomona is one of five undergraduate colleges and two graduate colleges that share a campus in Claremont, California. The colleges are a consortium called The Claremont Colleges (Claremont) and alternatively are known as “5Cs” or “7Cs.” 

As of March 2022, Abdellatif’s LinkedIn said he was pursuing a master’s degree at the University of Cambridge (Cambridge) in the United Kingdom. 

Abdellatif’s LinkedIn also said he was a Legislative Intern at the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in Washington, D.C. from August to December 2019.

As of March 1, 2022, Abdellatif’s Facebook said that he studied at University of Cambridge from 2020 - 2022 and lived in Portland, Oregon. Also as of March 1, 2022, Agdellatif’s LinkedIn said he was located in Cambridge, England, UK.

Demonizing Israel

On May 14, 2021, during Israel’s Operation Guardian of the Walls against Hamas, Abdellatif tweeted a petition from the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at Claremont (Claremont SJP). The petition was titled: “Calling on Pomona's Administration: Stand With Palestine!” 

Abdellatif tweeted: “Urge the Pomona Administration to break its silence on the atrocities occurring in occupied Palestine.” The petition accused Claremont of being “complicit in perpetuating Israeli apartheid” and demanded that Claremont “release a statement against the recent violence committed by Israel …”

In May 2021, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists fired over 4,300 rockets from Gaza at major population centers in Israel. Israel responded by launching OGW, carrying out targeted military strikes in Gaza.

Abdellatif retweeted a May 10, 2021 tweet that read: “no words for how deranged and horrific this is. the zionist project is irredeemable, decolonization is the only answer, and the absolute floor is to support BDS and every form of palestinian liberation struggle.”

On July 3, 2020, Abdellatif posted [slide 13] an Instagram story that showed a visual from a Claremont SJP Instagram post [slide 4] in support of BDS, with text that said BDS “opposes the Zionist regime that propogates settler colonialism.” 

On July 1, 2020, Abdellatif posted [slide 12] an Instagram story with an image showing text that read: “Wake Up to the Illegal Annexation of Palestine.” The post also included [slide 3] a series of misleading maps popular among anti-Israel activists.

In the spring of 2020, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israeli sovereignty would be applied to certain areas of the West Bank. The annexation plan was canceled a day before the July 1, 2020 deadline.

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.

Promoting BDS at Claremont

On April 15, 2021, Abdellatif commented at an ASPC meeting in favor of a BDS resolution that compelled BDS compliance for ASPC campus stores and student clubs receiving ASPC funding. Claremont SJP and the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) chapter at Claremont (5C JVP) co-sponsored the resolution.

Abdellatif, at the ASPC meeting, said: “this is important to ensure we have a safe space for Palestinian students and I’m excited to take this step next week.”  On April 15, 2021, Claremont SJP and 5C JVP introduced their resolution to the ASPC Senate that mandated ASPC compliance with BDS. 

The resolution was titled [p.1], “Banning the Use of ASPC Funding to Support the Occupation of Palestine” and it required [p.2] that ASPC “internal spending” could not be used on products or services from companies that “knowingly support the Israeli occupation of Palestine.” 

The Claremont SJP and 5C JVP resolution cited [p.2] a list of mostly Israeli companies compiled by the United Nations Human Rights Council as a guide for which companies to boycott. ASPC internal spending includes multiple items such as funding 5C student clubs and student-run events. 

The resolution created [p.2] an oversight role for Claremont SJP over the ASPC-run Coop Store and the Coop Fountain restaurant. ASPC would “work in tandem with members of SJP, and other pertinent parties, to perform an annual check on the ASPC’s businesses to ensure all goods sold adhere to the guidelines outlined in this resolution.”

The resolution also said [p.2]: “Clubs that fail to divest and/or refrain from such uses of funding would face the loss of all Claremont Colleges Student Government Association funds.” This clause effectively mandated BDS compliance even for pro-Israel and Jewish student organizations like Claremont Hillel and Claremont Chabad.

Claremont Colleges pool mandatory student activity fees and distribute the money to the 5C student governments. ASPC provides almost 47% of the funding for all 5C clubs, although each 5C student government can fund 5C clubs. 

In spring 2021, ASPC gave more than $10,000 to 5C clubs. It also gave $30,000 for student-run events at Pomona that were coordinated through the ASPC’s Pomona Events Committee (PEC). The full ASPC spring 2021 budget was $216,700. 

The Claremont SJP and Claremont JVP resolution also said [p.2] that ASPC’s “end goal” would be to lead other 5C student governments to pass similar BDS resolutions.

On April 22, 2021, the ASPC Senate passed the resolution with a vote of 10-0-0. Five senators were not present, representing one third of ASPC Senate’s 15 seats.

On the same day, Claremont SJP issued a press release calling the resolution’s passage “an important first step in reducing our complicity with a country that maintains an illegal military occupation and regularly commits crimes against humanity against the indigenous Palestinian population.”

On April 23, 2021, following criticism of the resolution reportedly among campus and national Jewish groups, Pomona President G. Gabrielle Starr sent an email to the student body opposing the resolution. Starr said that requiring student clubs to boycott Israel was “deeply concerning.” He said that since the vote “was held without representation from any student opposition,” the ASPC Senate should “reverse course and allow for full discussion.” 
 
On April 29, 2021, the ASPC Senate held a Zoom meeting that included a “comment period” for student senators and student guest speakers to express their feedback on the resolution. 

On April 30, 2021, the ASPC Senate reportedly decided to “table the resolution” for further discussion on the resolution’s call to deny funding to student clubs that failed to adhere to BDS.

On May 6, 2021, the ASPC Senate reportedly passed a modified resolution that omitted the original clause forcing student clubs funded by ASPC to comply with BDS.

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.

Social Media and Weblinks

Twitter: https://twitter.com/gabe_abdellatif  

https://twitter.com/gabeabdellatif [Deleted]

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gabriel.abdellatif 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gabe.abdellatif [Deleted]

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabeabdellatif

Muckrack: https://muckrack.com/gabe-abdellatif