Jenny Nguyen

Overview

Jenny Nguyen has spread hatred of Israel, glorified a terrorist and opposed interfaith dialogue. Nguyen is also a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Nguyen was reportedly the president of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at the University of Texas, Arlington (UT Arlington) in September 2014.

In September 2014, Nguyen was reportedly a junior at UT Arlington, majoring in Social Work.

Spreading Hatred of Israel

On September 4, 2014, Nguyen led a “March for Palestine,” to protest Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE). The march was co-organized by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at UT Arlington with SDS.   

Israel commenced OPE in July 2014 to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.

At the protest, Nguyen accused [00:00:35] Israel of “land “grabs” and claimed [00:00:41] “Israel committed war crimes” and a “genocide against the Palestinian people.”  
 
Nguyen led protesters chanting [00:16:09] : “No more war crimes! No more Apartheid! No more genocide! Free, free Palestine!”

Reverend Craig Hunter, of Denton, Ohio’s Trinity Presbyterian Church, spoke at the march. Hunter accused [00:08:33] Israel of “state terrorism,” claimed [00:10:37] that “the root problem is Zionism” and equated Israel to Apartheid South Africa.

Glorifying a Terrorist

On September 4, 2014, at the conclusion of the“March for Palestine,” Nguyen promoted [00:19:17] BDS. Nguyen urged students to start a divestment campaign at UT Arlington and invoked Leila Khaled as a role model, mentioning [00:20:43] “that airline hijacking thing.” 

Khaled is a leader 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 for the use of children in terror activities and compared Zionists to Nazis.


The PFLP claimed credit for the 2014 Har Nof Massacre where six people were murdered during morning prayers in a Jerusalem synagogue. The PFLP also claimed credit for the 2001 assassination of the Israeli tourism minister. 

Opposing Inter-Faith Dialogue

On January 14, 2015, Nguyen was listed as a signatory to a petition calling to “Say No to Faithwashing: Boycott Muslim Leadership Initiative [MLI].”

MLI "invites North American Muslim leaders to explore how Jews understand Judaism, Israel and North American Jewish identity through a Zionist lens," and to expand their understanding of Jewish “ethics, faith, and practice.” According to MLI founder Imam Abdullah Antepli, “MLI aims to put mainstream North American Jewry in conversation with their Muslim counterparts.”  

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.