Hala Numan

Calling for the Removal of Israel

Trivializing Hamas Terrorism

Israel commenced Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in July 2014, to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.  

Demonizing Israel

Supporting Terrorists 

Samer Issawi is a member of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) who received a 26-year prison sentence in 2002. During the second intifada, Issawi manufactured and distributed pipe bombs and fired indiscriminately on Israeli civilian vehicles. In December 2013, Issawi called for the kidnapping of Israelis, saying: “The [Palestinian] prisoners' release will be brought about by kidnapping and [prisoner] exchanges. Nothing will happen without that.”

Khader Adnan was a senior member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist organization. A 2007 YouTube video showed Adnan praising and encouraging suicide bombings: "Who among you will carry the next explosive belt? Who among you will fire the next bullets? Who among you will have his body parts blown all over?” In May 2023, Adnan died in prison after refusing medical treatment during a hunger strike.

Disruptions

BDS Support 

Protesting AIPAC

In October 2015, there was an upsurge in violence across Israel incited by Palestinian political and religious leaders. The wave of stabbings, known as the “Knife Intifada,” was characterized by young Palestinians throughout the country stabbing and attempting to stab Israeli civilians.

SAIA - Supporting BDS

In March 2013, SAIA launched campaign to boycott Sabra Hummus at GMU. Sabra is partially owned by an Israeli company, the Strauss Group. SAIA member Keil Eggers organized a petition "[i]]n accordance with the call issued by Palestinian civil society" alleging that The Strauss Group was complicit in human right violations. 

In August 2016, BDS leader Ilan Pappé admitted that BDS was not initiated by a “call” from Palestinian civil society; rather, it was initiated by a small number of radical anti-Israel extremists.

On April 25, 2013, GMU SAIA held a panel event featuring SAIA Advisor and GMU professor Craig Willse delivering a lecture on BDS. 

On November 25, 2013, SAIA members participated in the American Studies Association (ASA) Conference, during which a resolution calling for an academic boycott of Israel was adopted.  

GMU SAIA - Promoting A Graduation Day Walkout

On December 19, 2013, SAIA staged a graduation day walkout during a speech delivered by American-Israeli businesswoman and philanthropist Shari Arison, who SAIA described as an “apartheid profiteer.”

During the walk-out,several graduates reportedly wore “no honor in apartheid” stickers on the tops of their graduate caps while their guests waved [00:02:04]keffiyehs.

Before the event, SAIA leader Tareq Radi co-authored with GMU professor and SAIA advisor Craig Willse an "open letter outlining our concerns," hosted on the GMU SAIA website. The open letter quoted University President Ángel Cabrera’s praise of “Arison’s example of practicing moral responsibility in business” as the basis to allege that the “university’s name is being used to whitewash the activities of the Arison Group.”

Radi and Willse claimed “Honoring Arison makes Mason appear to be a PR machine for robber baron billionaires” and claimed that the Arison Group was displacing Bedouins, constructing a “cross-Israel Jewish-only highway”, building a portion of “the Apartheid Wall,” operating “an illegal factory for construction materials” and illegally extracting minerals from the occupied portion of the Dead Sea.  

GMU SAIA - Shutting Down Dialogue 

On November 5, 2013, SAIA staged a walkout to disrupt a talk given by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Sgt. Benjamin Anthony at GMU about his personal experiences of the Israeli-Arab Conflict. The group also projected [00:00:48] the SAIA logo on the building used to host the event. 

SAIA produced a video of the walkout with a description claiming: “The walkout was part of SAIA's anti-normalization strategy that seeks to expose normalizing events…”

Proponents of the “anti-normalization” policy seek to police all interactions between Israelis and Palestinians and shut down all conversations, interactions and speech that they perceive as being ideologically unaligned with their own agenda. Adherents to this position reject “liberal Zionist” groups who seek to dialogue with Palestinians, on the grounds that such interaction “normalizes” entrenched power dynamic.

In June 2013, SAIA members interrupted a speech given by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at the Wilson Center in Washington D.C, screaming insults and accusations at Olmert, including “War Criminal” and “Murderer.” 

One individual screamed [00:02:01] a blood libel that Israeli soldiers were seen “playing soccer with the head of a dead two-year-old child.” The only documented abuse of severed heads in Gaza was committed by Palestinian factions, Islamic Jihad and Hamas, as revealed in a 2004 Al Jazeera broadcast. 

SAIA’s repeated interruptions forced the Wilson Center Director Jane Harman to call for a tightening of security. Harman later commented: “I also defend free speech in this country...but it is unfortunate that people feel the need to disrupt a gathering where they could peacefully and civilly ask questions.”  

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.

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