Kenneth Tea

Overview

Kenneth Tea was a co-facilitator for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at StanfordUniversity (Stanford).

Tea was a member of Stanford Out of Occupied Palestine (SOOP), which defines itself as a coalition of 19 student groups without any formal leadership structure. The group’s stated mission is to "end Stanford's investments in corporations which profit from the Israeli Occupation of the Palestinian Territories."

SOOP disseminates Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement materials and solicits donations for BDS, but has stated that it is not connected to the BDS movement and is focused on “selective divestment.”

In January of 2015, Tea, as a student senator, co-sponsored a 2015 SOOP divestment resolution, which failed. (p.5)

In October 2014, Tea was one of six Stanford students who traveled (click on Updates to see the image of the students) to Boston for the National SJP conference at Tufts University. The stated purpose of the trip, for which funds were raised through GoFundMe, was "to acquire the skills, politics, and experience necessary to advance our work in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for liberation."

Tea was reportedly slated to graduate in 2017. 

As of July 2018, Tea’s Facebook says that he works at Art & Architecture Library at Stanford. 

Perpetuating Deadly Lies

On October 14, 2015 Tea lied on Facebook that a 13-year old Palestinian boy...was killed on video by Israeli police."

Tea wrote: "Where the f**k is ‪#‎IStandWithAhmed‬ for Ahmed Elmahania [sic], the 13 year old Palestinian boy that was killed on video by Israeli police while they yelled, ‘Die you son of a bitch’?"

Tea — who misnamed the boy — also omitted that Ahmed Manasra (sometimes spelled Mansara) was wounded when he and his 15 year-old cousin, Hassan, were engaged in a stabbing spree in Jerusalem, critically wounding a 13 year-old Israeli boy and moderately wounding a 25 year-old man.

The Manasras’ stabbing spree was interrupted when police shot Hassan and a passing Israeli motorist hit Ahmed, who was thereupon surrounded by enraged and cursing onlookers.

In addition — contrary to Tea’s post — Manasra was not killed. He was taken by Israeli police for treatment at an Israeli hospital. Manasra later admitted to investigators "I went there to stab Jews," and was tried and convicted for attempted murder.

On November 21, 2014, Tea attended a San Jose State University SJP (SJP SJSU) march on San Jose City Hall to present the Mayor’s office with a demand that "our government stop its complicity with the violations of international law by ending U.S. military aid to Israel."

That same day, SJP SJSU’s Twitter feed featured the hashtag #HandsOffAlAqsa. The title of the march, “Hands off Al-Aqsa and Palestine,” perpetuated the incendiary lie that Israel intended to desecrate the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

That falsehood directly incited a wave of deadly violence against Israelis — in particular the November 2014 Har Nof Massacre, where terrorists affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) — using a gun, axes and a butcher knife — murdered six people during morning prayers in a West Jerusalem synagogue. Hani Thawbta, a PFLP leader in Gaza praised the massacre as “heroic.”

The "threat" of “attacks on Al Aqsa” has been a pretext for Arab attacks on Jews, well before the existence of Israel.

SJP Stanford - Whitewashing Terrorism

In October 2015, SJP Stanford organized a protest in preemptive response to a vigil mourning innocent Israelis murdered in that month’s wave of Palestinian terror attacks throughout Israel.

The SJP protesters held incendiary signs that read: "#Al Aqsa under fire" and “Netanyahu shuts down Palestinian businesses in East Jerusalem.”

The claim that the Al Aqsa mosque was under threat echoed the same incitement that fueled the Palestinian killings whose victims the vigil was meant to memorialize. The "threat" of “attacks on Al Aqsa” has been a pretext for Arab attacks on Jews, well before the existence of Israel.

SJP Stanford President Fatima Zehra considered the emails advertising the vigil for Israelis problematic because they acknowledged that Israelis who were murdered were "victims of terror."

SOOP — Foisting Divestment on Stanford

In early 2015, SOOP led a seven-week campaign culminating in a proposed resolution to the Stanford Undergraduate Senate to divest from corporations that “maintain the occupation of Palestine.” U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings revealed that Stanford is not invested in any of the companies SOOP targets for divestment.

On February 17, 2015, the Stanford Undergraduate Senate voted in favor of a SOOP resolution calling on Stanford to divest from corporations that “maintain the occupation of Palestine.”

The resolution called for Stanford University trustees to divest from companies that “violate international humanitarian law by: maintaining illegal infrastructure of the Israeli occupation…facilitating Israel and Egypt’s collective punishment of Palestinian civilians…[and] facilitating state repression against Palestinians by Israeli, Egyptian or Palestinian Authority security forces.”

Following an initial vote, the resolution failed to garner the required 66% Senate approval, eliciting shouts of anger from the crowd and leaving one Senator in tears. However, a re-vote was called by Senate Chair Ana Ordonez, who had abstained from the first vote because the “hostile” atmosphere made it difficult for her to concentrate on the vote. The second vote garnered enough support for the resolution to pass.

In April 2015, the Stanford Board of Trustees announced that the University would not divest from certain companies operating in Israel after concluding that any action to divest would serve to deeply divide the Stanford community.

President John Hennessy also addressed the issue at a faculty senate meeting. “I have never seen a topic that has been more divisive within the university community,” Hennessy said. “As a university, we must remain committed to civil and rational discussion, especially when the issues are highly controversial. An atmosphere of intimidation or vitriol endangers our ability to operate as an intellectual community.”

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/kenneth.tea.1