Hafsa Tout

On May 14, 2017, Tout appeared [00:00:37] in a SAFE Facebook video co-leading a “#SaltWaterChallenge,” in support of the hunger-striking prisoners.

The SAFE Facebook page linked to a site with a photo identifying prisoners active with Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror group. Another site that SAFE linked to showed protesters supporting terrorist Marwan Barghouti.

Tout also retweeted a May 21, 2017 tweet in support of the “#dignitystrike.”

Tout retweeted a May 15, 2017 tweet from the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) that included a link to an article promoting the hunger strike and praising Palestinian “resistance.”

Tout retweeted a May 27, 2017 tweet from the anti-Israel site Electronic Intifada (EI) in support of the hunger strikers and Barghouti.

Demonizing Israel

On January 17, 2017, Tout tweeted that Israel is an “an illegal oppressive state” and practices “institutional apartheid.”

Tout retweeted a May 15, 2017 tweet with a link to an article that accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and of being a “settler colonial project.”

Tout retweeted a June 14, 2017 tweet accusing Israel of “war crimes and apartheid.”

On March 2, 2018, Tout tweeted: “‘We will not be silenced. We will continue to teach Palestine.’ - Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi @WRMEA #IsraelLobbyCon.”  

Rabab Abdulhadi is anti-Israel professor, BDS activist, is affiliated with SJP and has expressed support for terrorists.

“#IsraelLobbyCon” referenced the “THE ISRAEL LOBBY & AMERICAN POLICY 2018” conference.

The conference’s website implied widespread Israeli “capture” over American “government agencies, think tanks, academia and news outlets.” The website also claimed that “Israel lobby ‘gatekeepers” control U.S. universities.

Pushing BDS at UM

On November 14-15, 2017, Tout spoke several times before the CSG during its hearing on the anti-Israel divestment resolution she co-authored. Tout alleged [2:15:45]: “By voting ‘no,’ you are silencing Palestinian students.”

Tout claimed [03:11:45]: “This resolution should say nothing to you about my political identity or stance on any complex issue in the Middle East — and it doesn’t.” However, the resolution referenced “the abuse of Palestinian human rights in Israel and its illegal settlements.”

Tout also misrepresented [02:15:30] the content of the resolution as solely seeking to set up a committee to learn more about the potential implications of divestment.

In addition, Tout promoted [3:10:45] and voted [02:56:36] for the use of a secret ballot that allowed CSG representatives to vote on the resolution without transparency or accountability to their electorate. Twenty eight representatives in total voted for the secret ballot, while seven voted against and nine abstained.

The divestment resolution ultimately passed [03:07:22] with 23 votes for, 17 against and five abstentions.

Shutting Down Criticism of BDS

On November 14, 2017, Tout alleged [00:09:16] that allowing UM history professor Victor Lieberman to speak again against BDS in the CSG “further silences” Palestinian voices and would create [00:07:59] a “power gradient” between him and students.

Tout said [00:08:50]: “We’re not here to discuss the Israel-Palestine conflict. We’re not here to discuss the history of this conflict.” She also claimed [00:05:57] that pro-BDS professors did not speak “for fear of losing their jobs or being placed on probation.”

Following the passage of the divestment resolution, the CSG president countered Tout’s claim, writing that 20 faculty members supported #UMDivest, including “several of whom are tenured faculty.” She added that silencing Lieberman “fostered uncontextualized dialogue.”

In 2016, Tout also praised others’ efforts to silence Lieberman by interrupting his address at that year’s #UMDivest hearing.

Supporting an Anti-Israel Agitator

On February 11, 2018, Tout posted a Facebook photo of anti-Israel agitator Ahed Tamimi confronting an Israeli soldier. Tout wrote: “one of these women can share my feminism #FreeAhedTamimi.” She also shared an op-ed by Ahed’s father, propagandist Bassam Tamimi.

#UMDivest 2017 - SAFE - Pushing BDS at UM Ann Arbor

In October 2017, Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) at UM Ann Arbor launched a BDS campaign, #UMDivest, to pass a BDS resolution on campus. Similar SAFE resolutions in 2014, 2015 and 2016 all failed. As of May 2018, SAFE’s university web page said it was a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter.

#UMDivest 2017 - Bringing Anti-Semite Sabry Wazwaz to UM 

At the November 7, 2017 CSG meeting, Sabry Wazwaz — a BDS activist from Minnesota who is unaffiliated with UM — spoke [2:02:43] in support of #UMDivest.  

Wazwaz has a history of tweeting anti-Jewish imagery, various anti-Israel conspiracy theories and imagery that equates Israel with Nazi Germany. Less than three months before the meeting, he tweeted: “#ZionismIsNazism.” At the meeting, Wazwaz compared [2:05:40] Palestinians in Israel to Jews killed by the Nazi regime.

Wazwaz directly addressed [2:05:16] pro-Israel students and said that, as a Muslim, he condemned “oppressive” Arab governments.

He then said [2:05:30]: “Just like I say ‘condemn them,’ what’s wrong with saying we’re against the racist policies of the state of Israel? … Just like what happened to the Jewish people in the Holocaust was a tragedy, why should the Palestinians also suffer a tragedy?”

These comments drew cheering and applause from #UMDivest supporters.

#UMDivest 2017 - Demonizing Jewish Students  

At the November 7, 2017 CSG meeting, former SAFE leader Devin Jones addressed attendees, saying [1:55:36]: “If you believe your Jewishness is tied to the oppression of another people, it is not the problem of being Palestinian that needs to be called into question.”

On November 14, 2017, SAFE posted a pro-BDS article on Facebook written by the UM Ann Arbor chapter of the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) organization. The post included an excerpt from the article addressed to pro-Israel Jewish students: “And as long as Israel and its supporters attempt to use our identities to deny Palestinian rights, we will continue to say: You do not speak for us."

On November 21, 2017, the CSG president Anushka Sarkar signed the resolution into effect. She wrote that she did it with “discretion and caution” and wrote: “We need to discuss why some people found it appropriate to hold up signs that say ‘Stop Silencing Me’ when a student shared a personal story of how their grandparents survived the Holocaust.”

#UMDivest 2017 - Promoting Terrorists  

SAFE’s 2017 BDS resolution accused [p.4] Israel of “the unlawful execution of Palestinians” and cited to a report portraying terrorists as victims. Among them were terrorists Fadi Aloon and Mustafa Al-Khatib [p.5-6], who both died during stabbing attacks.

The report claimed [p.1] that “Israeli forces” carried out over 200 “unlawful killings” of Palestinians in Israel since 2015, but admitted that “most of these killings – more than 150 of them – came during alleged, attempted, or actual attacks by Palestinian individuals against Israeli soldiers, police and civilians.”

On November 1, 2017, SAFE posted a photo on Facebook of a mock Israeli security barrier alongside an image of terrorist Leila Khaled. SAFE wrote: “We’re back. #UMDivest.”

#UMDivest 2017 - Denying That #UMDivest is BDS  

Throughout its divestment campaign, #UMDivest followed a strategy outlined by leading BDS activists while denying that the campaign was part of the broader BDS movement.

In April 2017, Omar Barghouti — the BDS movement founder — said [00:58:53]: “If you join a campaign for justice and freedom, it doesn’t have to carry the BDS logo. It doesn’t have to say ‘boycott’ and it doesn’t have to say ‘BDS.’ There are many creative ways how to do things without labeling it as BDS.”

On November 14, 2017, during the CSG vote on #UMDivest, Yara Gayar, an author of SAFE’s divestment resolution, told [00:51:35] the CSG: “This is not part of the BDS movement.”

Reema Kaakarli, a SAFE activist, spent [00:53:32] nearly two minutes trying to distinguish UMDivest’s resolution from BDS and specified [00:54:28]: “We really want to distinguish ourselves from the leaders of the broader BDS movement.”

On November 7, 2017, Arwa Gayar, another SAFE activist, told [1:35:03] the CSG: “We are not BDS, we are just divestment.”

However, SAFE activists Arwa Gayar and Reem Al-Khatib, who spoke [1:40:42] at both [00:38:19] CSG hearings, posed for a photo supporting BDS at the 2017 National SJP Conference (NSJP 2017) in Texas from October 27-29.

The NSJP 2017 schedule explicitly identified campus divestment efforts with BDS, and held workshops to: “... envision pathways to achieving sanctions in the future and work towards getting our institutions to follow through on commitments to divest.”

On November 22, 2017, SAFE posted a Facebook photo of BDS activist Roger Waters celebrating the #UMDivest victory.

Upon signing the resolution, CSG president Sarkar condemned SAFE’s tactic of obfuscating the resolution’s connection to BDS. She also condemned SAFE for preventing a Jewish professor from speaking against the resolution, because the group had argued that the debate should remain a “student-to-student” issue.

However, SAFE activist and CSG representative Hafsa Tout invited BDS activist Kristian Davis Bailey and former SAFE leader Farah Erzouki to speak for #UMDivest, neither of whom were students.

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.

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.  

Social Media and Weblinks

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/100000807638321

Twitter:https://twitter.com/hwtout [Private]

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/hafsa.tout/ [Private]

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