Hana Seif

Overview

Hana Seif has expressed support for terrorism, spread hatred of Israel and was an officer in an anti-Israel campus activist group.

Seif also engaged [slide 6] in activism during Israel’s war against Hamas, launched after the terror group murdered approximately 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023.

Seif served as the vice president of the Palestinian Student Association (PSA) at the University of Central Florida (UCF-PSA) from August 2022 until December 2022. UCF is located in Orlando, Florida.

Seif is a supporter of the Boycott Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Seif graduated from UCF with a bachelor’s degree in biomedical sciences in December 2022. As of June 2024, Seif’s LinkedIn page said she minored in political science and government.

As of June 2024, Seif’s LinkedIn said she was located in Orlando, Florida.

Support for Terrorism

On May 14, 2021, Seif posted [slide 74] to her Instagram story: “Palestine is in a process of decolonization as you read this. / Not clashes, but decolonization. Not violence, but decolonization. Not civil unrest, but decolonization.”

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 “Operation Guardian of the Walls (OGW),” carrying out targeted military strikes in Gaza.

Another slide in the full post read [slide 3]: “The ‘conversation’ around violent vs nonviolent means of protest is irrelevant in Palestine. / Because your mere existence, in the eyes of the colonizer, is violence. So this ‘discussion’ (which is aimed at discrediting Palestinians) does not really make sense in a context in which you are perceived as a threat.”

On May 11, 2021, during OGW, violent Arab riots broke out in Israel’s mixed Jewish-Arab city of Lod and in other Israeli cities with large Arab populations. The rioters in Lod reportedly raised Hamas and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) flags and attacked Israeli civilians with slabs and rocks, as well as firebombs and metal rods. Rioters also torched synagogues, cars and businesses, and vandalized hospital medical equipment, schools and government buildings.  

Hatred of Israel

As of February 2024, Seif posted the link for the anti-Israel website Decolonize Palestine in her Instagram bio.

Decolonize Palestine is a website run by pro-terror activist Rawan Eid and aimed at other anti-Israel organizers. Decolonize Palestine shows support for terrorists, promotes anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and spreads hatred of Israel and Zionism. The website also advocates for the “right of return,” a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel, and promotes the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

On May 17, 2021, Seif posted [slide 16] on her Instagram story an image of two women having a conversation. The first asked: “So do you support a one or two-state solution?” The second then responded: “I support the right of return for all Palestinian refugees, they’re the ones who determine the future once they’ve returned.”

The “right of return” is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel. International law mandates no absolute right of return and UN Resolution 194, which defined principles for “refugees wishing to return to their homes,” was unanimously rejected by Arab nations following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

On May 16, 2021, Seif posted [slide 7] on her Instagram story a graphic with a series of anti-Israel maps with the caption: “This is colonisation / Not a conflict.” The maps are popular among anti-Israel activists.

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.

On May 14, 2021, Seif posted [slide 72] on her Instagram story an image that depicted two women having a conversation. The first woman asked: “What’s happening in Sheikh Jarrah and Gaza?” The second woman replied: “What has been happening for 73 years. Israeli colonisation, ethnic cleansing and apartheid.” Underneath the image it said: “...Let’s not make it 74 years...”

In May 2021, calls to “save” Sheikh Jarrah, a Jerusalem neighborhood at the center of a property dispute, led to violence against Israelis and were one of the leading factors in Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists firing over 4,300 rockets from Gaza into Israel that month. Israel responded by launching Operation Guardian of the Walls (OGW), carrying out targeted military strikes against the terrorists and their infrastructure in Gaza.

Also on May 14, 2021, Seif posted [slide 73] another image with the same illustration of two women on her Instagram story. The first woman asked: “Lynchings?! This sounds like apartheid!” The second woman replied: “That’s exactly what it is. ‘Israel’ is an apartheid settler colonial state and instead of protecting its Palestinian of 48’ citizens from lynchings, they protect the perpetrators…

“48” refers to 1948, the year the State of Israel was established. 

On May 12, 2021, Seif posted [slide 46] on her Instagram story that Israelis and the Israeli army were “illegal Jewish Israeli settlers and their terroristic military.”

On the same day, Seif posted [slide 52] a picture of the Israeli security barrier with the caption: “Stop telling Palestinians they need to ‘co-exist’ with Israeli settler colonialism, illegal military occupation, and an apartheid regime ethnically cleansing them.”

Israel’s security barrier, 97 percent of which is a low chain-link barrier, was built as a deterrent to Palestinian terror attacks. The concrete portions of the fence were built in response to Palestinian sniper attacks.

On July 1, 2020, Seif posted: “...Palestinians have been struggling for over 72 years, Israel is trying to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from their existence for just being Palestinians…” 

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.

Seif’s post included an image that depicted the security barrier as the Israeli flag with bars inside the Star of David, from which there is an outstretched arm holding the Palestinian flag. Speech bubbles in the image read: “Resistance against colonialism is not a crime! / It’s a duty.”

Anti-Israel activists use the term “resistance” to refer to violence and terror perpetrated against Israeli civilians and their allies. It is used to glorify anti-Israel and anti-Semitic violence. Anti-Israel activists chant slogans such as: “Resistance by any means necessary!” and “Resistance is justified when people are occupied!” in response to terror attacks.

Anti-Israel Activism

On October 13, 2023, in the wake of Hamas’ October 7th attack on Israel, Seif spoke [slide 6] at an anti-Israel protest held by the UCF-PSA at UCF.

On Saturday, October 7, 2023, approximately 2,900 heavily armed Hamas terrorists breached Israel’s border with Gaza. They executed numerous war crimes on civilians, including mass murder, beheadings of children, rape of men and women, torture, kidnappings and mutilation. Hamas broadcast videos of their butchery on social media, often to victims’ accounts for families to see. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.” As of November 10, 2023, over 1,200 Israelis, the vast majority of them civilians, were murdered during the attacks. Hamas kidnapped 242 Israelis, including at least 30 children. At least 3,500 people were wounded, many severely.

On November 26, 2022, during Seif’s tenure as the vice president, the UCF-PSA hosted a virtual “Teach-In” featuring Hakeem Abunda, the founder of the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF) of Tampa, as a speaker. 

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

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/hz.seif/ [Private]

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/hanaseif2000

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/hana-seif-7766071b1/