Gurneel Boparai

Overview

Gurneel Boparai [Gurneel Singh Boparai] endorsed the shouting down of Muslim, Christian, Jewish, LGBTQ+, Arab and Bedouin Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) reservists who came to speak at University of California, Irvine (UCI), in May 2017.

Boparai is a supporter of the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the Muslim Students Union (MSU), an affiliate of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) at UCI.

Boparai also urged students to attend an anti-Israel demonstration hosted by MSU UCI and SJP UCI. At the demonstration, group leaders tried to hide their faces behind posters, or masked them with Keffiyehs.

Boparai participated in the 2017 Anti-Zionism Week co-hosted by SJP UCI and MSA UCI.

Boparai was elected as a Senator at-Large with the Associated Students - University of California, Irvine (ASUCI) during its 2017 spring elections.

Boparai posted on his Facebook page that he began studying at UCI in October of 2016.

Calling for Speech Suppression

On May 11, 2017, Boparai posted an “URGENT CALL TO ACTION” to the Facebook group Sikh Students Association to block a panel with IDF reservists, whom UCI’s chapter of Students Supporting Israel (SSI) invited to speak to UCI students and faculty.

Boparai claimed “Israel flew over reserve Israeli Defence Force troops to harass and Suppress Students for Justice in Palestine at UCI, the wall action and all other events.” Boparai said it was important to “block these troops from invading SJP’s Action and space.”

Boparai went on to say: “They even held their own panel today, which SJP shut down in response to the actions of the IDF troops” and added “it really important for us to stand with SJP and blocks [sic.] these troops from invading SJP’s Action and space.”

The MSU UCI and SJP UCI shut-down of the SSI panel is detailed further below in this profile. Boparai later removed his Facebook post.

Aligning with Militants

On May 6, 2017, Boparai posted a picture of a Khalistan Zindabad militant, adding: “Khalistan Zindabad (2015) 70 arrested, politically imprisoned”. The Khalistan Zindabad Force (KZF) is a militant group that is part of the Khalistan movement to create a Sikh homeland via armed struggle.

Boparai also posted two more pictures on his Facebook, of Khalistan Zindabad militants holding weapons. The second picture featured two adult militants, cradling a pistol in the hands of young child.

SJP UCI Joining with MSU UCI

In 2015, 2016 and again in 2017, SJP UCI co-hosted Anti-Zionism Week (AZW) on campus, with MSU UCI. MSU UCI has a history of pushing anti-Israel activities on campus and supporting the BDS movement. In 2013, and 2014, MSU UCI hosted Anti-Zionism Week (AZW) on campus.

SJP UCI and MSU UCI - Speech Suppression

On May 10, 2017, 40 SJP and MSU student activists at UCI shut down a panel that featured Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) reservists from Israel’s Muslim, Christian, Jewish, LGBTQ+, Arab and Bedouin communities. The reservists were volunteers with the NGO “Reservists on Duty.”

UCI’s chapter of Students Supporting Israel (SSI) hosted the panel, advertised as a chance to hear, from first hand sources, the difference between how Israel is being portrayed on campuses and the facts on the ground.”

The anti-Israel protesters serially interrupted the panelists, yelled at the attendees and chanted over speakers as they were answering questions from other students.

This was the second time in a year that SJP and MSU UCI demonstrators shut down an SSI-hosted event.

SJP UCI and MSU UCI - Creating an Unsafe Atmosphere

During the May 10, 2017 disruption of SSI’s panel, the agitators left the room when the campus police were called. However the protesters remained outside in the lecture hall, blocking the main exit with chants of “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free,” and “Intifada, Intifada, long live the Intifada.”

Event attendees had to be safely escorted from the room by police.

SJP UCI and MSU UCI - Verbal Assault

At one point during the May 10, 2017 disruption, an anti-Israel agitator accused the reservists of serving in a military “where they murdered kids and families” and of being “colonizers” other agitators objected when the panelists vigorously objected to the protesters’ accusations. One female reservist broke down, whereupon another of the agitators screamed “You don’t deserve to cry!”

Celine Qussiny — reportedly the 2015 co-chair of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at UCI — piled on and led the protesters in a series of chants. The agitators yelled: “Israel, Israel, you can’t hide. We charge you with genocide,” and “Israel, Israel, what do you say? How many people have you killed today?” and “Hey hey, ho ho, these colonizers have got to go.”

Qussiny interrupted her chanting to yell “you’re here to spread propaganda of a settler colonial state, you’re killing our people.” Qussiny finished by yelling “You people are colonizers or occupiers and you should not be allowed on this f**king campus,” adding “you have the guns, you would kill me if you could, f**k you.”

Qussiny also led the protesters in chants of: “when people are occupied, resistance is justified,” and “when people are colonized, destruction is justified.” Some of the protesters wore t-shirts sold earlier in the week by MSU UCI, in the course of Anti-Zionism week, imprinted with the words “UC Intifada.”

One demonstrator repeatedly interrupted a panelist, who was providing his perspective in response to an attendee’s question. The demonstrator cut off the panelist, saying: “this is a form of like politically trying to get people to not be able to speak.” When asked to keep to the structure of a question and answer session, the protester screamed: “this is people’s lives, people are dying and these guys are responsible for it,” pointing at the panelists.

SJP UCI and MSU UCI - Incitement

On May 11, 2017, the day after the disruption of SSI’s event — SJP and MSU UCI held an anti-Israel demonstration in the middle of the UCI campus. Most of the demonstration leaders tried to hide their faces behind posters, or masked them with Keffiyehs.

From behind a placard, Qussiny hurled a litany of accusations against Israelis, Israel-supporters and the reservists who spoke the previous day, saying: “these soldiers are responsible for our land theft, our expulsion, responsible for the settlements, for our home demolitions, for the sexual violence, for the military violence, for the colonial violence not only in Palestine but all over the world, where they aid military regimes. They train the police officers right here in the United States. They train the police officers right here in the United States. They train border patrol. And they’re right here, they’re right here on this campus.”

Qussiny then pointed out the IDF reservists who came to observe the demonstration, claiming “these soldiers are directly, directly committing genocide against our peoples and training police officers, border patrol agents and various military regimes worldwide to commit genocides all around the world.” Demonstrators responded by yelling “murderers!!”

Qussiny claimed: “Last night we went to disrupt [SSI’s] event to let them know...that we refuse to allow the normalization of their presence here.” She then repeated her allegations against the reservists and derided UCI’s administration for requesting that demonstrators be civil and respectful to them.

Again Qussiny led students in the chant: “When people are occupied, resistance is justified,” “When people are colonized, resistance is justified,” and “when people are brutalized, resistance is justified.”

SJP UCI and MSU UCI - Libeling “Zionist and Pro-Israel Organizations”

During the demonstration, Qussiny libeled “Zionist and pro-Israel organizations”, claiming: “ last year, administration received, we got 400 death threats from Zionist and pro-Israel organizations that were sent to administration.” Qussiny added: “who knows what could have happened to us. These people are threatening to come to this campus - they were threatening - they were saying that they would commit, they would have bloodshed on our campus if we were not expelled.”

Qussiny went on to claim that the university refused to follow a 2013 divestment proposal to divest from Wells Fargo involved “in Israeli settler colonialism” because “the university only cares about the money.” Qussiny then added: “the university meets with Zionist organizations to secure those relationships with huge amounts of money to make sure that we are policed and that our resistance is suppressed.”

SJP UCI and MSU UCI - 2017 Anti-Zionism Week

During May 8 -11, 2017, MSU UCI co-hosted “Anti-Zionism week” with SJP UCI and two other groups. During the week, student activists erected a barrier, mischaracterizing Israel’s security fence as an “apartheid wall” ad advocating for BDS. In addition, anti-Israel students were reported to hold mock funerals for babies and distribute mock eviction notices.

On May 11, 2017, in honor of Anti-Zionism week, MSU UCI and SJP UCI demonstrators held up signs reading “Long live the Intifada.” One demonstrator held up a sign reading: “Zionism is White Supremacism.”

One of the Israeli reservists, Ilan Golan, said his group set up a booth nearby, handed out flyers, held up signs and also engaged with students and passersby about Israel.

Golan reportedhis group was subjected to insults and name-calling by the anti-Israel supporters who participated in the week’s events.

SJP UCI and MSU UCI - Promoting Controversy at Another School

One of the advertised events during UCI’s 2017 ‘Anti-Zionism week’ was the attendance of a divestment hearing at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), on May 10, 2017. That hearing marked the third, and final, reading of a controversial BDS resolution that had already divided CSULB’s campus.

The resolution’s second reading was passed, with great acrimony, on May 4th. Immediately afterwards, approximately 30 supporters of the vote reportedly gathered and proceeded to chant, “Allah al-Akbar.” 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.”

Public comments published by the Daily 49er after the final 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.”

MSU UCI - Promoting Anti-Semitism

MSU UCI has a long history of marginalizing Jewish students. By August of 2016, at least nine anti-Semitic events had already been reported on campus that year.

A 2012 report by the Anti-Defamation League documented a decade of anti-Semitism on UCI campus. The MSU was named as the leading culprit of anti-Semitism on campus.

In 2010 a group of UCI students, dubbed the “Irvine 11,” were arrested for repeatedly disrupting an address by former Israeli ambassador Michael Oren — using a premeditated strategy of defamation, harassment, intimidation and bullying to disrupt the talk (25:05).

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.

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.