Khadra Ali-Mohamed

Demonizing Israel

Israel commenced Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in July 2014, to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.  

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.

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.

Spreading Incitement

SJP Activism

Promoting BDS

In February 2016, 500 Palestinians lost their jobs when Sodastream moved its factory from the West Bank to southern Israel. Although the company denied that BDS had an impact on the decision, the BDS movement took credit for the factory’s relocation.

BDS Campus Activism

SJP at USF Demonizing Israel

On February 25, 2016, a group of 25 BDS supporters, including SJP members, disrupted a talk given by two Israeli students on the USF campus relating their personal experiences of serving in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). A few minutes after the students began speaking, protesters began talking over the speakers. One protester claimed that Israel had killed more children than ISIS and called the speakers “terrorists.” Other protesters exited and re-entered the presentation a number of times  attempting to interrupt and disturb.

One of the group was removed by Police for shouting at the Israeli students — calling them “murderers” and “child killers.”

The protesters shouted down the speakers’ multiple requests for dialogue with them — and the taunting continued until the speakers left. The police had to escort the speakers to their car because another group, holding banners and flags, was waiting for the speakers outside —  shouting at them: “Murderers, immoral, terrorists, how do you sleep at night?”

In September of 2014, SJP USF held an event titled “The Hidden Genocide: The Story of Palestine.” Hamas fundraiser Monzer Taleb headlined the event as a “motivational speaker.”

Taleb was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) terrorism finance trial. The investigation of the HLF began in December 2001 and concluded in November of 2014 with ‘guilty’ verdicts on all 108 counts against the defendants.

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

In November 2013, SJP USF hostedand sponsored an Israel-Palestine game show modeled on the TV show "Jeopardy!"  A number of student organizations competed. 

USF’s student newspaper reported that the majority of the questions referenced the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and 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.”

BDS at USF

In January 2013 SJP USF launched a divestment campaign, featuring a misleading cartoon video. The videomisinformed students that USF invests in companies that make fighter jets and rockets that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) "uses against civilians in the Gaza strip." In the video, bombs labeled “made 2 kill” are dropped on the Gaza strip, with the resulting explosions exclaiming “kaboom” and “kill!”

The campaign eventually generated a petition in 2014, that SJP USF claimed garnered over 10,000 student signatures — approximately 21% of USF’s students.

On May 5, 2014, SJP USF members Omar Erchid, Malak Fakhoury, Ahmad Saadaldin and Homam Zituni were given the opportunity to present their petition on behalf of SJP USF to the CEO and Foundation Board Chair of USF for over an hour. After that hearing, 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 to the petition's rejection, 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.”

A year later, on January 19, 2016, a divestment resolution was presented to the Student Government (SG) Senate. However, the resolution was vetoed a week later by the Student Body President, Andy Rodriguez, and Vice President, Michael Malanga. In the memorandum vetoing the resolution Rodriguez, and Malanga explained that: “[w]e believe that bringing a topic as polarized and politically driven as this into the realm of student government serves only to divide the student body and to disparage students with opposing viewpoints, instead of uniting our students.” The memo continued: “We are steadfast in our belief that it is not the role of student government to interject into international politics nor investment policies.”

Between January 25 and January 28, SJP USF led a campaign with the hashtag #DearAndy, in an attempt to badger Rodriguez into supporting the divestment effort.

On February 4, 2016 another attempt was made to pass the resolution — categorizing the bill as a Senate resolution, so as not to require the signatures of Rodriguez and Malanga. This anti-Israel effort — designed specifically to circumvent the check and balance of the SG’s executive branch — succeeded.

During all discussions of the February 4th resolution, Senate President Kristen Truong stepped down — later explaining that she recommended removing the resolution and and disallowed a motion to discuss overriding the veto. "... As Senate President and leader of the Legislative branch, I do not believe that Senate is the proper forum to be discussing this topic," she said.

However, on February 9, 2016 after the second resolution passed, the SG Supreme Court released an opinion ruling that — by singling out only companies that do business with Israel — the February 4th resolution violated the racial and national origin elements of the SG Constitution’s equal protection clause.

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.

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.  

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.