Hannah Didehbani

Didehbani’s activities took place in the wake of a series of Hamas terror atrocities and war crimes against Israeli civilians, including mass murder, torture, rape, beheadings and kidnappings, which were executed on October 7, 2023.

The Hamas terror attacks left over 1,200 Israelis dead, hundreds kidnapped and thousands wounded. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.”

Hatred of Israel and BDS Support

On December 13, 2023, Didehbani participated in an anti-Israel protest organized by MIT’s Coalition Against Apartheid (MIT CAA). MIT CAA glorified the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023, posting a flyer on Instagram two days after the Hamas attacks that said: “LONG LIVE PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE…VICTORY IS OURS.”

Among Palestinians and anti-Israel activists, the term “resistance” can be a euphemism for nationalistic terror. It is often used to excuse or even glorify anti-Israel and anti-Semitic violence.  

At the protest, Didehbani said [00:00:09]: “...we have continued to keep our efforts focused on the real issue: the genocide of the Palestinian people perpetuated by the Israeli government and fully funded by the United States with our tax dollars.”

Didehbani signed MIT CAA’s December 4, 2023, “Scientists Against Apartheid Pledge.” The document read: “We call on all [science] students and workers to withhold their labor from companies and research projects that are complicit in Israeli apartheid and the occupation, ethnic cleansing, and genocide of the Palestinian people.”

Signatories committed to neither work for, nor accept funding or research opportunities from, companies that did business with Israel.

The document also said: “as scientists and engineers at MIT, we have an obligation to withhold our labor from the atrocities committed by the Israeli occupation against the Palestinians…until the occupation falls.”

Biographical Information

As of January 2024, Didehbani was listed online as a fourth-year student at MIT in the Department of Physics, slated to graduate in 2024. MIT is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

However, as of the same date, Didehbani’s LinkedIn profile said she was located in Arlington, Texas.

As of December 2023, Didehbani was listed as a lab alumna of MIT’s Mesoscale Nuclear Materials Group, which is part of the university’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC).

As of August 2023, Didehbani was listed as having done research at MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.

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.

Full Profile Coming Soon

Social Media and Weblinks

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/hannah.didehbani