Hepah Hussein
Overview
Hepah Hussein has expressed support for violent protesters and as of November 2019, she was listed as the President of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of South Florida (USF) for all of 2018.During her time as SJP USF President, Hussein promoted the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Hussein has been an SJP USF activist since 2017.
Supporting Violent Protesters
On May 18, 2018, Hussein helped lead an SJP USF “Emergency Rally” that called to reject “Israeli Massacres.” An SJP USF Instagram post promoting the event said: “We organize to demand Israel be held accountable for the massacre of 55…...protesters in Gaza.”The “right of return” is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel.
SJP Activism
On October 12, 2018, Hussein appeared in an SJP USF Instagram photo standing next to anti-Israel activist Benjamin Ladraa, who spoke at an SJP USF event that day.On October 10, 2018, Hussein appeared in an SJP USF Instagram photo where she and other SJP USF activists posed in front of a display that promoted BDS and demonized Israel’s security barrier. SJP USF has referred to the display as a “Mock apartheid wall.”
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 September 20, 2018, Hussein appeared in an SJP USF Instagram photo with other activists tabling on campus. The activists stood next to a poster that said: “From the river to the sea PALESTINE will be free.”
“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” is a chant calling to dismantle the State of Israel. It has also been employed by Hamas leader Khaled Mashal to call for the replacement of Israel with an Islamic state.
The Instagram post included the hashtag: “#endtheseigeongaza.”
The United Nations approved [pp. 39–41] the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza in 2011 as a security measure to stop Hamas from acquiring sophisticated rockets. Multiple flotillas have attempted to breach the blockade, with at least one flotilla initiating a violent confrontation with Israeli forces.
On September 19, 2018, Hussein appeared in an SJP USF Instagram video with other activists making a “Mock apartheid wall.” The post included the hashtags “#endtheseigeongaza #bds” and “#endtheapartheid”
On December 20, 2017, Hussein appeared in an SJP USF Instagram photo where she was identified as one of the “2018 newly elected officers.”
On February 1, 2018, Hussein appeared in an SJP USF Instagram group photo celebrating the passage of an anti-Israel resolution in the USF Student Government (SG). The resolution protested the U.S. government’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to relocate the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The resolution was proposed by SJP USF vice president and student senator Andrew Pitts-Nordera. During his presentation of the resolution to the SG, he accused [01:45:06] Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and displayed [01:44:20] a discredited series of maps known as “The Map That Lies.”
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 October 27, 2017, SJP USF posted a photo with Hussein and other SJP USF activists from its “Festival of Resistance” event one day earlier.
The photo featured an activist posing in the middle of the group while wearing a jacket honoring Leila Khaled.
Leila Khaled is a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and participated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 840 in 1969 and El Al Flight 219 in 1970. As of 2017, Khaled was a member of PFLP's Political Bureau. Khaled has said that the second intifada failed because it was not violent enough, advocated [00:36:07] for the use of children in terror activities and compared Zionists to Nazis.
On April 26, 2017, SJP USF posted a photo with Hussein and other SJP USF activists at one of the group’s events. The photo’s caption used the hashtag “#ARightToReturn” and said the event was about the “Nakba.”
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.
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.
SJP USF - Leaders Idolizing Terrorists and Spreading Anti-Semitism
In March 2019, SJP USF officers included vice president Abdallah Junio Mansour, who has a history of spreading anti-Semitism on Facebook and secretary Salman Shalan.Mansour and Shalan have both expressed support for Hamas operatives, as well as other terrorists and idolized terrorist Yasser Arafat.
SJP USF - Honoring Terrorist Leila Khaled
On October 27, 2017, SJP USF posted an Instagram photo of its activists with one individual placed in the center of the group photo and displaying a jacket bearing a likeness of Leila Khaled.On October 12, 2018, SJP USF posted Instagram photo from an Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) event in South Africa. One featured protester wore a shirt bearing a likeness of Leila Khaled with an assault rifle and and text reading: “Resistance Is Not Terrorism!”
SJP USF - Supporting Violent Riots
On April 11, 2018, SJP USF posted an Instagram photo for an April 14, 2018 rally it co-sponsored in downtown Tampa, FL. The rally was in support of “The Great Return March” riots that had begun two weeks earlier, in Gaza.On March 30, 2018, some 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza approached Israel’s border to take part in “Land Day Protests” or the “March of Return.” The violent demonstrations were instigated by Hamas on the Israeli-Gaza border. Participants declared their intention to harm Jews across the border under the pretext of “peaceful resistance.”
March participants sent scores of kites bearing explosive devices across Israel’s border to burn Israeli crops and homes. Rioters also made numerous attempts to breach Israel’s border fence, which caused the Israeli Defense Forces to respond with live fire.
On May 14, 2018, SJP USF posted on Instagram: “52 Palestinians have been killed on the border of Gaza by Israeli snippers [sic] as the US embassy opens in Jerusalem.”
On May 16, 2018, senior Hamas official, Salah al-Bardawil, stated that 50 out of 62 protesters killed during the May 14 Gaza border protest were Hamas operatives. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) also claimed that three of its members were killed at the same protest.
On October 27, 2018, SJP USF claimed on Instagram: “For over six months the people of Gaza have been peacefully protesting at the border …”
In April 2018, media reports confirmed [00:00:20] the March of Return protesters’ breaches and attempted breaches of Israel’s border fence, some by armed Palestinians. One Hamas leader declared [00:00:30]: “We will take down the border [with Israel] and we will tear out their hearts from their bodies.”
SJP USF - Demonizing Israel
On February 22, 2019, SJP USF posted an Instagram image promoting its event featuring Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) board member Eran Efrati. The SJP USF image quoted Efrati as saying that as an Israeli soldier, he was “the terrorist.”On February 6, 2019, SJP USF posted an Instagram image promoting BDS and accusing Israel of“settler colonialism” and “apartheid.” The image called for a boycott of a performance by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) in Sarasota, Florida.
On October 8, 2018, SJP USF posted an Instagram video of its activists making a display portraying Israel’s security barrier as an “Apartheid Wall.” The display promoted BDS and was for an event on campus the next day.
On January 6, 2019, SJP USF posted an Instagram image claiming that Israel simultaneously will “play the victim” and “commit war crimes.”
On September 7, 2018, SJP USF posted on Instagram that Israel has a “genocidal, ethnic cleansing project.”
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.
Social Media and Weblinks
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/100002136705718/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hepah_h/ [Private]
Twitter:https://twitter.com/hepah_h [Private]
