Killian McGinnis
Overview
Killian McGinnins helped lead two Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) initiatives at Swarthmore College (Swarthmore), in 2019 and 2018, as a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Swarthmore.Swarthmore SJP was formerly known as Swarthmore Students for Peace and Justice in Palestine (Swarthmore SPJP) from 2010-2017. As of December 2019, McGinnis was listed as an admin of the Swarthmore Students for Peace and Justice in Palestine (SPJP)’s closed Facebook group, “Swarthmore SPJP.”
As of the same date, McGinnis’s LinkedIn page said that she was a Peace and Conflict Studies student at Swarthmore, slated to graduate in 2019. In May 2019, McGinnis was featured in Facebook photos indicating that she graduated.
McGinnis’s LinkedIn also said that she was a “Legal & Administrative Intern” at Capital Area Immigrants' Rights (CAIR) Coalition since June 2017, and an “associate” at the Swarthmore Lang Center for Civic & Social Responsibility, since September 2016.
In 2016, McGinnis travelled to Israel as part of an Israeli-Palestinian Conflict course taught by anti-Israel professor Sa’ed Atshan.
Swarthmore SJP Divestment Campaign
On October 9, 2018, Swarthmore SJP held a rally to launch a BDS resolution that called on Swarthmore to divest from a number of companies doing business with Israel.
On October 24, 2018, Swarthmore student newspaper “Voices” published a statement by Swarthmore SJP. The statement accused seven companies of being engaged in the “murder” of Palestinian civilians” and “the indiscriminate targeting of civilians.”
McGinnis indicated on Facebook that she “went” to Swarthmore SJP’s November 20, 2018 “SJP Teach in.” The event description invited students to: “join us for a community teach in on our BDS campaign at Swarthmore!”
On December 3, 2018, Swarthmore SJP released its BDS campaign video, titled: “Why Divest from Apartheid?”
On December 12, 2018, McGinnis helped lead [00:27:40] a Swarthmore SJP rally where activists reportedly delivered a petition Swarthmore President Valerie Smith, urging Swarthmore to “divest from Israeli apartheid.”
McGinnis spoke in a microphone, dedicating [00:27:40] 100 signatures “to the Tamimi family of Nabi Saleh” and claimed [00:28:21] that Palestinans “start resisting Israeli occupation and apartheid from birth.”
The village of Nabi Saleh is a Tamimi family stronghold. It is notorious as a place where photographers gather nearly every Friday to document scenes of Palestinian residents and international activists clashing with Israeli soldiers. Much of this is instigated by the Nabi Saleh Tamimi clan.
On February 11, 2019, Swarthmore SJP activist Sydney Covitz co-launched a chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) at Swarthmore with the reported intention of supporting “SJP’s BDS campaign in any way.” In an article written about JVP Swarthmore’s formation, McGinnes was quoted saying: “We are very excited about the formation of JVP on campus.”
She continued: “We share the goal of working in solidarity towards a just peace in Israel/Palestine, including by holding our own institution accountable for its complicity in Israel’s human rights violations, and we are looking forward to cultivating more opportunities for collaboration.”
On February 28, 2019, the SGO Executive Board and Senate reportedly hosted an open meeting on the failed BDS resolution. At the open meeting, 40 SJP members and the newly-formed JVP chapter advocated for BDS.
On March 3, 2019, the SGO held another meeting inviting student groups to again discuss the BDS resolution. SGO’s President Gilbert Orbea motioned to hold a vote among members on whether to make the meeting closed, that succeeded, after which SGO held a secret vote. At the secret vote, the SGO voted in support of the divestment resolution.
On March 12, 2019, President Smith released a statement to Swarthmore’s website in which she declined to change Swarthmore’s investment policies in accordance with the BDS resolution.
Boycotting Sabra Hummus
In March 2018, Swarthmore SJP published a petition calling for an end to the sale of Sabra products at campus locations. Sabra Hummus is partially owned by an Israeli company, the Strauss Group.
The petition accused Sabra of supporting Israeli forces who allegedly commit “countless human rights violations,” including “arbitrary murders, assaults, incarcerations, evictions, and arrests of children.”
On March 27, 2018, McGinnis co-authored an opinion piece titled “More Than Hummus: Renewing the Call to Boycott Sabra,” with Swarthmore SJP member Aru Shiney-Ajay.
The piece said that Swarthmore SJP’s sought “to hold Israel accountable for human rights abuses” and for a “three-tiered system of oppression: colonialism, occupation and apartheid.”
On April 4, 2018, Swarthmore SJP held a rally to support SJP members slated to meet with Swarthmore President Valerie Smith to push the Sabra boycott.
On April 11, 2018, Swarthmore SJP reportedly held another rally at Swarthmore to promote the boycott, during which they held a moment of silence for protesters who died in the Great March of Return.
Approximately 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza approached Israel’s border on March 30, 2018 as part of the “March of Return,” which was organized and funded by Hamas as a campaign of violent protests to spotlight the demand of Palestinians to “return” to Israel.
On April 30, 2018, President Smith announced that Swarthmore would continue to sell Sabra products on campus and begin selling an alternative brand of hummus.
On May 2, 2018, McGinnis co-hosted and spoke [00:05:02] at a Swarthmore SJP’s rally to protest the sale of Sabra hummus on campus. McGinnis read [00:05:02] a statement by Swarthmore alumni rejecting President Smith’s decision.
Swarthmore SJP Activism
McGinnis indicated on Facebook that she “went” to Swarthmore SJP’s February 18, 2018 “Vigil to #FreetheTamimis.” The event’s Facebook description invited students to “a vigil on this global day of action to #FreetheTamimis and all Palestinian political prisoners” and featured a graphic of Ahed Tamimi with the caption: “Free Ahed.”
On February 13, 2018, Ahed Tamimi and her mother Nariman Tamimi were detained after Nariman filmed Ahed punching and kicking Israeli soldiers. Ahed has a long history of physically attacking Israeli soldiers.
McGinnis indicated on Facebook that she “went” to Swarthmore SJP’s May 10, 2018, “Vigil to Tear Down the Wall.” The event’s Facebook description invited attendees to dismantle a “mock Apartheid Wall” that Swarthmore SJP had constructed as a “symbolic act of resistance” that highlighted “the atrocities of the Occupation and our institution's complicity in it.”
McGinnis indicated on Facebook that she “went” to Swarthmore SJP’s November 13, 2018 event “Palestine is Here.” The event description claimed that: “thousands of U.S. law enforcement officials have trained with Israeli military forces” learning “methods and technologies of surveillance, racial profiling” causing a “militarization of police and the criminalization of citizens.”
Swarthmore SJP
Swarthmore SJP was formerly known as Swarthmore Students for Peace and Justice in Palestine (Swarthmore SPJP) from 2010-2017.Swarthmore SJP - Supporting Violent Protesters
Killian McGinnis indicated on Facebook that she went to Swarthmore SJP’s March 30, 2019 “Vigil for Gaza's Great March of Return.” On March 30, 2019, Swarthmore SJP held a “Vigil for Gaza's Great March of Return.” The event’s Facebook description called to “Honor the lives of those murdered by Israeli military forces” on the “1-year anniversary of the ongoing Great March of Return, a series of massive nonviolent demonstrations.”On March 30, 2018, some 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza approached Israel’s border to take part in “Land Day Protests” or the “March of Return.” The March of Return was organized and funded by Hamas as a campaign of violent protests along Israel’s border to spotlight the demand of Palestinians to “return” to Israel.
On May 17, 2018, Swarthmore SJP posted to Facebook: “for the past month and a half - and increasingly in the past couple of days - the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been massacring Palestinians in Gaza who are nonviolently protesting for their rights. Over 100 demonstrators have been killed and thousands injured, among them a number of children, most by trained snipers with explicit orders to kill.”
On May 16, 2018, Hamas senior official Salah al-Bardawil stated that 50 out of 62 Gaza border protesters killed on May 14 were in fact Hamas operatives. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) later claimed that three of its members were also killed at the May 14 protest.
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.
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.
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