Harshita Singh
Overview
Harshita Singh has spread hatred of Israel and was an activist with Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) at the University of Toronto St. George (UofT St. George). SAIA is a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), employing an alternative name.Singh has expressed support of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Singh attended [00:01:06] the 2018 National SJP Conference.
Spreading Hatred of Israel
On May 15, 2018, Singh wrote on Facebook: “It’s the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, which marks when over 750,000 Palestinians were forcefully displaced from their homes. Palestinian refugees still do not have the right to return.”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 the same day, Singh wrote on Facebook: “Gaza Massacre, 14 May 2018: 60 killed (including eight children) and 2,771 unarmed Palestinian civilians wounded by Israeli troops.”
Most of the Gazans who died between March 30 and April 6, 2018, were identified as terror operatives who were killed while carrying out terrorist attacks, rioting against IDF forces or attempting to breach the border fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
SAIA (SJP) Activism
On March 18, 2018, Singh wrote on Facebook: “Love this documentary. Incredible archival footage from the 1960s decade of the Palestinian liberation struggle. If you did not catch ‘Off Frame’ at TPFF, I highly recommend coming to Students Against Israeli Apartheid UofT St.George's screening of it tomorrow night.”The post linked to an SAIA at UofT St. George Facebook event page titled: “IAW 2018: ‘Off Frame: Revolution Until Victory’ - Film Screening.”
Singh indicated on Facebook that she “went” to an event titled: “IAW 2018: Nakba, Resistance, Return - Arts & Culture Night” on March 13, 2018. The event was co-hosted by SAIA UofT St. George.
The event’s Facebook description said the event was to mark “70 years of popular resistance to the ongoing Nakba...The Nakba is ongoing and still translates into ethnic cleansing and dispossession on a daily basis.”
The term “Nakba” is generally translated as “catastrophe” in Arabic, referring to the outcome of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It is a term often used to delegitimize the creation of the State of Israel by defining it as a catastrophe.
On March 6, 2018, Singh wrote on Facebook: “SAIA is looking for artists & performers again for this year's Israeli Apartheid Week! Message their page or e-mail them at saia.opirg.uoft@gmail.com if you or someone you know is interested ️in performing
."Singh indicated on Facebook that she “went” to an event titled: “Palestine’s Right to Education: The Politics of the Academic Boycott” on March 27, 2017. The event was co-organized by SAIA UofT St. George as part of IAW.
The event’s Facebook details said: “Israeli universities have...have a crucial role in maintaining occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid...an academic boycott of complicit Israeli academic institutions is...to refuse to be complicit in and normalize Israel’s war crimes, ongoing occupation, oppression and apartheid.”
On March 8, 2016, SAIA UofT St. George shared a photo of Singh tabling for Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) and wrote: “We are tabling at Sidney Smith right now! Stop by and say hey, pick up some buttons and stickers and get information on IAW!”
The photo showed Singh under a banner that said: “End Israeli Apartheid. UofT Divest.com.”
Attending the 2018 National SJP Conference
On November 19, 2018, Khawaja appeared in a video taken during the 2018 National SJP Conference.On November 2, 2018, Singh wrote on Facebook: “Please help U of T Divest and SAIA attend the National Students for Justice in Palestine conference this year - to learn from other organizers and advance proletarian internationalism and anti-imperialism in this post-industrial warthirsty [sic] wasteland.”
Singh linked to a Gofundme page to raise money to “Send UofT Divest BDS & SAIA to NSJP.”
2018 National SJP - Celebrating Violence
Since the early 2000’s, the term “intifada” has carried the connotation of violence. The second intifada was characterized by more than 120 suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians on buses and in cafes.
Anti-Israel activist Omar Zahzah also reportedly [00:00:07] led National SJP attendees in chanting, in Arabic, “With our bodies and our blood, we will free Palestine.”
As of November 2018, the 2018 National SJP website glorified “radical hope and upfront defiance of Zionism,” citing as examples the “early revolts through the Intifadas to the Great Return March.”
The Great Return March of 2018 was organized and funded by the terror group Hamas as a campaign of violent protests along Israel’s border to spotlight the demand of Palestinians to “return” to Israel.
Tens of thousands of rioters gathered on Israel’s Gaza border, attempting numerous breaches of Israel’s border fence, with leaders andparticipants declaring their intention to harm Jews.
National SJP originally promoted a conference logo featuring a keffiyeh-wearing bear, looking toward a kite bearing the colors of the Palestinian flag.
On October 27, 2018, National SJP said the kite signified “the power in the Gaza March of Return.”
Since March 2018, March of Return participants and Hamas’s “Kite Unit” have sent hundreds of kites bearing incendiary devices and IEDs (improvised explosive devices) across the border into Israel to terrorize Israelis. The kites are often marked with swastikas.
By the time National SJP produced its 2018 conference logo highlighting the kites in October 2018, Gazan terror kites and balloons had ignited more than 1,300 fires in Israel, over seven months.
2018 National SJP - Undermining U.S. Support for Israel
On November 18, 2018, the US Palestine Community Network (USPCN) posted on Facebook the 2018 National SJP keynote speech by Hatem Abudayyeh, USPCN’s co-founder.Abudayyeh has supported [00:08:45] convicted terrorists, praised terror organizations, called for Israel’s destruction and is an activist in theBoycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
In his 2018 National SJP Keynote, Abudayyeh said [00:53:01] that the “specific role” of Palestinian and Arab students was to organize [00:53:42] in order to weaken “Zionist Israel” and force [00:54:23] the U.S. to “no longer provide it with diplomatic, political, financial and military cover and support.”
Abudayyeh predicted [00:55:37] that once U.S. support to Israel ends, National SJP attendees would return to Palestine as “conquering heroes,” end [00:54:38] the “occupation and colonization of all Arab lands including the Golan Heights” and replace “Zionist Israel” with a Palestinian state.
2018 National SJP - Whitewashing Terror Organizations
During his keynote speech, Abudayyeh also painted [00:14:01] terrorist organizations as “liberation movements” and “resistance organizations,” stating [00:14:21] “what we also know is that the majority of the resistance organizations in Palestine are on the U.S. state department list of foreign terrorist organizations.”Abudayyeh also celebrated [00:52:00] that all of the “armed resistance” organizations in Gaza are part [00:52:14] of a “unified resistance in Gaza, that includes all of the resistance organizations, working together under a unified military command.”
2018 National SJP - Defending Terrorist Rasmea Odeh
During his keynote speech, Abudayyeh claimed [00:08:28] that pro-Israel organizations “go after students like you,” adding [00:08:20] “just like they went after my friend and colleague, Rasmea Odeh.”2018 National SJP - Demonizing Israel and Jews
During his keynote speech, Abudayyeh defended [00:27:25] the “Irvine 11” — eleven Muslim Student Union (MSA) members who were arrested in 2010 for repeatedly shouting down former Israeli ambassador Michael Oren during an address at the University of California at Irvine (UC Irvine).Abudayyeh referred [00:27:37] to Oren as a “racist fascist speaker, representative of a racist, fascist country.”
Abudayyeh went on to claim [00:29:48] that “today, even in the United States, Israel is finally being seen as the criminal, apartheid, racist state that it is.”
Abudayyeh also called for increased action in the face of President U.S. Donald Trump, and referred [00:48:41] to Jared Kushner, Trump’s Jewish son-in-law and senior advisor, as “that pig son-in-law of his.”
2018 National SJP - Excluding Students
The 2018 National SJP Conference welcomed only students who were verified and vouched for by an SJP (or otherwise named campus Palestine solidarity group). Media requests needed to be “approved by the NSJP press team” prior to the conference.A November 7, 2018 Columbus Jewish News article reported that the Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed a resolution calling on UCLA to cancel the 2018 NSJP conference, stating that a “public university should not allow any group to implement a litmus test for event participation on their campus.”
On November 12, 2018, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block published an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times that criticized National SJP’s exclusion of members of pro-Israel student groups.
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.
