Homam Zituni

Overview

Homam Zituni [Homam Nasser Zituni] has praised a terrorist and promoted anti-Israel agitators. He was heavily involved in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement at the University of South Florida (USF), in 2014, as a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

Zituni was elected political chair for the Muslim Students Association (MSA) at USF in 2012-2013 and served as an intern for the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in 2013.

Zituni is the brother of anti-Israel activist Danya Zituni. In 2015, both were members of the group “Stop FBI Repression” in Tampa, Florida.

As of December 2018, Zituni’s LinkedIn page said he graduated USF in 2014, with a bachelor’s degree in Public Relations and International Studies.

His LinkedIn also said that he served as a Student Senator at USF from August 2012 until May 2013 and was a “High School and International Baccalaureate Instructor” at the American Youth Academy in the “Tampa/St. Petersburg Florida Area” (AYA Tampa) from August 2015-June 2016.

In 2013-2016, Zituni used the alias "George Nasser" on Facebook and Twitter.

Praising a Terrorist

Zituni has posted support for terrorist Rasmea Odeh on Facebook and Twitter.

On January 27, 2016, Zituni referred on Facebook to Odeh as a “Palestinian hero.”

On January 22, 2016, Zituni retweeted a tweet promoting a social media campaign and “Emergency Response Plan” for Odeh. The tweet also featured an image of Odeh with the text “In Solidarity with Rasmea Odeh.”

Odeh was a key military operative [00:02:08]with the terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In 1969, Odeh masterminded a PFLP bombing that killed two college students in a Jerusalem supermarket. Odeh also attempted to bomb the British consulate.

Odeh confessed, in a highly detailed account, the day following her arrest. In a 2004 documentary, one of Odeh’s co-conspirators directly implicated [00:10:53] Odeh as the mastermind.

In 1970, an Israeli court tried and convicted Odeh for her involvement in both bombings and sentenced her to life imprisonment. However, Odeh was released 10 years later, in a prisoner swap and emigrated to the United States.

On November 10, 2014, a Michigan federal jury convicted Odeh for immigration fraud because she failed to disclose her prior conviction and life sentence on her immigration application. On March 12, 2015, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

In 2017, after an appeal and a lengthy court battle, Odeh admitted to immigration fraud, was stripped of her U.S. citizenship, deported to Jordan and banned from re-entering the U.S.

Promoting Anti-Israel Agitators

On August 6, 2014, Zituni tweeted support for anti-Israel professor Steven Salaita.

In 2014, The University of Illinois withdrew an offer of employment to Salaita after becoming aware of his anti-Semitic tweets. One tweet, posted shortly after Hamas kidnapped three teenage Israeli high school students, read: "You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f**king West Bank settlers would go missing.” In 2017, Salaita posted to Facebook: “People ask if I would go back in time and change anything. I would not…I will die unapologetic.” In February 2019, Salaita stated that he had become a school bus driver in the Washington, D.C., area.

As of December 2018, Zituni’s name also appeared on a petition in support of Salaita.

On October 16, 2014, Zituni tweeted that he was “privileged” to attend an event at USF regarding “racism in Israel” with anti-Israel activist David Sheen.

David Sheen is an anti-Israel activist and filmmaker who works to portray Israel as an extremist racist state. To this end, Sheen has been accused of purposefully mistranslating Hebrew articles and other media to make Israelis appear racist.

BDS Activism

In early 2014, SJP USF launched a BDS campaign calling on USF to divest from “companies complicit in human rights violations in Palestine.” The divestment effort included a petition which reportedly garnered over 10,000 student signatures.

In February 2014, SJP USF posted a video on Vimeo to promote its divestment campaign. The video promoted [00:01:04] BDS and claimed [00:00:15] USF invested in companies producing fighter jets and rockets it alleged Israel used against civilians in the Gaza Strip.

On May 5, 2014, Zituni presented SJP’s BDS petition to the CEO, Foundation Board Chair and legal counsel of USF alongside fellow SJP members Ahmad Saadaldin, Omar Erchid and Malak Fakhoury.

Following SJP’s presentation, the Investment Committee rejected the petition. Lara Wade-Martinez, the Director of Media Relations at USF, added that the matter would not be taken up again or voted on at future meetings.

In response, SJP USF placed a large billboard near the Tampa campus declaring: “10,000 Students Silenced.” The billboard, erected in January 2015, featured a person’s face with tape over the lips and demanded that the university end its investments “in Israeli Apartheid.”

SJP USF - Demonizing Israel

On July 30 2014, SJP USF posted a photo on Facebook comparing Israeli to Nazis. The photo featured Adolf Hitler saluting, with the caption “We are the Master Race,” in front of Jews in concentration camps, above a photo of Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, saying “We are the Chosen people.” SJP commented on the photos “Justifications.”

In November 2013, USF’s student newspaper, The Oracle, reported that SJP USF hosted and sponsored an Israel-Palestine game show modeled on the TV show "Jeopardy!"

The Oracle reported that the majority of the game’s questions “focused on the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, ‘snatching’ Palestinian children from their beds and ‘massacring’ Palestinians on sacred Muslim ground.”

One question asked students to name the “type of poisons that Israeli settlers put in Palestinian water supplies to make them undrinkable.” Another question asked contestants to name the the “primary motorway that links Jerusalem to the West Bank” in which “Palestinians are forbidden to use….and only Jews can use.”

The West Bank has never had Jewish-only roads; however, there are roads on which all Israeli citizens can freely travel, but to which vehicles with Palestinian Authority registration have restricted access.

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.

MSA

The MSA was established by members of the Muslim Brotherhood in January 1963 at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, with the goal of "spreading Islam as students in North America." A 2004 FBI investigation uncovered an internal Muslim Brotherhood document in which a brotherhood leader identified the MSA as "one of our organizations."

The MSA reportedly has “nearly 600 chapters” located in the United States and Canada, and is “the most visible and influential Islamic student organization in North America,” boasting conferences, special events, publications, websites and other activities.

The organization includes a number of previous chapter presidents with explicit links to terrorist groups. Included are al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki (Colorado State University), Somali al-Shabaab militant leader Omar Shafik Hammami (University of South Alabama) and Pakistani Taliban recruiter Ramy Zamzam of the MSA's Washington, D.C. council.

CAIR

CAIR describes itself as a “grassroots civil rights and advocacy group” and “America's largest Muslim civil liberties organization, with regional offices nationwide.” Its official mission is “enhance understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.”

CAIR reportedly has “significant ties” to the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as Hamas. A number of former CAIR employees have been convicted on fraud and terrorism-related charges that resulted monetary fines, jail terms and, sometimes, deportation.

CAIR was founded in 1994 and opened its first office in Washington, DC, with the help of a $5,000 donation from the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), a charity founded by Mousa Abu Marzook.

Marzook, who was listed as a "Specially Designated Terrorist" by the U.S. Treasury Department in 1995, is reportedly a senior member of Hamas.

In May 2007, CAIR was listed as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in a U.S.-filed action against the HLF for providing funds to Hamas.

CAIR was also listed as a terrorist entity by the United Arab Emirates, in 2014.