Hazim Abdullah-Smith

Overview

Hazim Abdullah-Smith is an active member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) as well as a Leadership Training Apprentice at Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).

Abdullah-Smith is an active member of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement on NU campus. He was one of three authorship speakers at a 2015 NU Divest hearing.

Abdullah-Smith is a student at majoring in African American Studies and Ethnic Studies at NU.

Promoting BDS

The NU-Divest Resolution, which called for the university to boycott six Israeli corporations, narrowly passed on 19 February 2015 after a hearing lasting over five hours. Prior to the vote, the NU Divest team campaigned to promote the resolution. Abdullah-Smith presented a pro-BDS workshop to spotlight the "corporations that are profiting off of the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands." NU Divest have continued to put pressure on the university since the vote, most recently through engaging in discussion with the chief Investment Office at NU. Despite this, it was reported in May 2015 that no policy changes or divestment have taken place at NU, which is usually the case following the passing of these non-binding divestment resolutions.

In a March 14, 2014 Facebook post, Abdullah-Smith demanded the "right of return" for Palestinians, otherwise known as the radical one-state solution that has been widely denounced as a scheme to dissolve Israel as the Jewish State. The scheme has repeatedly been expressed as the goal of the BDS movement, as its co-founder Omar Barghouti has said; "Good riddance! The two-state solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is finally dead", and that in a one-state "by definition, Jews will be a minority.”

On December 20, 2013, the NU president and provost issued a statement condemning the American Studies Association (ASA) for passing a resolution endorsing an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. In response, Abdullah-Smith wrote an open letter on behalf of SJP Northwestern to the university administration stating, "As advocates for human rights and solidarity with all people facing systemic racism, we respectfully disagree with your statement." He then denounced the statement, declaring that it "loses sight of the fact that Palestinians are denied basic rights, including academic freedom, due to Israel’s military occupation."

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.

JVP

JVP was founded in Berkeley, California in 1996, as an activist group with an emphasis on the “Jewish tradition” of peace, social justice and human rights. The organization is currently led by Rebecca Vilkomerson and its board members include Israel critics Naomi Klein, Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky and Tony Kushner.

JVP, which generally employs civil disobedience tactics to disrupt pro-Israel speakers and events, consists of American Jews and non-Jewish “allies” highly critical of Israeli policies. A staunch supporter of the BDS movement, JVP claims to aim its campaigns at companies that either support the Israeli military (Hewlett-Packard) or are active in the West Bank (SodaStream).

Although several Jewish groups critical of Israeli policies, like J Street and Partners for a Progressive Israel, make efforts to operate within the mainstream American Jewish community, JVP functions outside. The group is often criticized for serving as a tokenized Jewish voice for the pro-Palestinian camp and is widely regarded as the BDS movement’s “Jewish wing.” 

JVP denies the notion of “Jewish peoplehood” and has even gone so far as to refer to its own Ashkenazi (Jews who spent the Diaspora in European countries) leadership as “white supremacy inside of JVP.”

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has accused JVP of being “the largest and most influential Jewish anti-Zionist group in the United States,” and said the group “exploits Jewish culture and rituals to reassure its own supporters that opposition to Israel not only does not contradict, but is actually consistent with, Jewish value.”

The ADL also claimed that “JVP consistently co-sponsors rallies to oppose Israeli military policy that are marked by signs and slogans  comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, demonizing Jews and voicing support for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.”

According to the ADL website, JVP “uses its Jewish identity to shield the anti-Israel movement from allegations of anti-Semitism and provide it with a greater degree of legitimacy and credibility.”

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

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/hzkx100

https://www.facebook.com/hkas0100 [Deleted]

Twitter:https://twitter.com/hazimfacts [Deleted]

https://twitter.com/Hazim0100 [Deleted]

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/pub/hazim-k-abdullah/6b/875/732

Google+:https://plus.google.com/111008100076803645174/posts