Kareem Abuali

Overview

Kareem Abuali has spread hatred of Israel and Zionists. Abuali also promoted a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement campaign at McGill University (McGill) in 2022.

As of September 2023, Abuali’s LinkedIn page said he was the opinion editor and board director of The Tribune, the student newspaper at McGill, from May 2022 to May 2023. The Tribune was known as “The McGill Tribune” until April 2023. 

Also as of September 2023, Abuali’s LinkedIn said that from 2019 to 2023, he was an “Honours Cognitive Science student with a concentration on Neuroscience and Philosophy” at McGill.

As of the same date, Abuali’s LinkedIn said he was located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Hatred of Israel

On September 20, 2022, Abuali wrote an op-ed for The Tribune in which he alleged “The erasure of Palestinian identity is a significant tenet of the Zionist project.” He also promoted “films and movies made by Palestinians…that display real resistance and confront the apartheid regime and Zionism head-on…” 

Among Palestinians and anti-Israel activists, the term “resistance” can be a euphemism for nationalistic terror. It is often used to excuse or even glorify anti-Israel and anti-Semitic violence.  

Zionism is the belief that Jews have the right to self-determination in their own national home, and the right to develop their national culture.

On November 22, 2022, Abuali co-wrote an anti-Israel op-ed in The Tribune that said: “The IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] is responsible for the continued ethnic cleansing and settler colonialism of Palestine through horrific violations of international law and crimes against humanity…”

The op-ed was titled: “McGill needs to boycott Sabra—for real this time.”

Sabra Hummus is partially owned by an Israeli company, the Strauss Group.  

The authors also accused Israel of having a “genocidal framework” and alleged that the McGill administration “systemically ignores Israel’s war crimes, supplying blood-stained products such as those of Sabra…”

In the article, Abuali called on the university administration to ban Sabra products from campus and promoted a BDS initiative launched by the McGill chapter of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), an affiliate of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), in 2022.

The SPHR McGill BDS initiative called on the university to boycott Sabra products in its dining halls and cafes because they were “contaminated with apartheid & zionism.”

Hatred of Zionists

In March 2023, Abuali reportedly refused to publish an op-ed in The Tribune by a Zionist Jewish student because the article did not “align with our values as a paper” since “Zionism is a settler-colonial ideology that has perpetuated the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.”

On March 26, 2023, the media watchdog group Honest Reporting Canada (HRC) reported that McGill’s student newspaper, The Tribune, refused to publish an op-ed written by a McGill student who expressed support for Israel and Zionism.

According to HRC, on March 8, 2023, the student submitted a column for publication to The Tribune titled: “Queer McGill is not a safe space for Jews,” writing: “The BDS movement on university campuses has instrumentalized the Palestinian cause as a moral license to be antisemitic by creating spaces on campus where no Zionists are allowed” and that “Zionism is integral to my Jewish identity.”

On March 26, 2023, Abuali and fellow opinion editors Chloé Kichenane and Leo Larman Brown reportedly sent a rejection via email to the Zionist Jewish student that read: “Your article doesn’t align with our values as a paper. We’re not going to be able to publish it. Zionism is a settler-colonial ideology that has perpetuated the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.”

On March 26, 2023, HRC released an “action alert” which called on The Tribune “to immediately reverse its decision, to apologize,” and to publish the pro-Israel column “in its entirety.”

On March 29, 2023, HRC reported that the McGill administration had set a meeting with The Tribune’s editorial board “to ensure compliance with the Tribune’s Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with McGill, as well, to uphold the University’s values and principles.”

An MOA is a document signed by a student group at McGill outlining its relationship with the university.

HRC also printed a response from a McGill administrator that said: “...we would expect that, in the spirit of free speech, its [The Tribune’s] editorial board would be open to publishing a range of views and opinions that is representative of the diverse student body at McGill.”

McGill’s response continued: “...we take exception to assertions from the Tribune’s editorial board about the reasoning behind their decision, which only serves to divide the student community.”

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

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/kareem.abuali [Private]

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/kareem-abuali-467418166