Kinza Sami

Overview

Kinza Sami has defended the terror organization Hamas and spread hatred of Israel and America.

Sami was affiliated with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Ohio State University (OSU) and promoted a 2017 Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement initiative called “OSU Divest.”

As of November 2018, Sami said on her LinkedIn that she was a member of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) at OSU.

In 2018, Sami, as a student senator with the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) at OSU (USG OSU), co-sponsored an anti-Israel motion submitted to the Undergraduate Student Government (USG).

As of May 2019, Sami’s LinkedIn page said she was a Digital Strategy Intern at Precision Strategies.

Also as of May 2019, Sami’s LinkedIn page said she graduated from OSU in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree, in “International Relations and Affairs.”

Sami’s LinkedIn also said that she was an Advocate at Population Connection in the Washington D.C. Metro Area from “Mar 2017 - Apr 2019”, as well as a campaign intern at Friends of Sherrod Brown in Columbus, Ohio from April-November 2018.

She was also a Student Assistant at OSU and a Parliamentary intern at the Parliament of Canada, in Ottawa, Ontario from May-June 2017.

Defending Hamas

On July 30, 2014 — during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE) — Sami published a blog post defending Hamas. Sami claimed that “Hamas is NOT to blame for kidnapping and killing the 3 Israeli teens that supposedly started this conflict in the first place.”

Hamas was responsible for the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers from a bus stop on June 12, 2014. The abducted boys were murdered by their captors, and their bodies were found buried in Palestinian-controlled territory on June 30, 2014.

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

In her post, Sami also downplayed Hamas’s use of children as human shields, suggesting that Gazans volunteered to be human shields without pressure from Hamas.

Throughout the summer of 2014 — during Operation Protective Edge (OPE) — Hamas's deployment of human shields was extensively documented and publicized. Hamas encouraged Gazans to act as human shields to frustrate Israeli efforts to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza.

Sami also implied that Hamas did not use attack tunnels to infiltrate Israel, because CNN correspondent “Wolf Blitzer barely fit inside them.”

On August 26, 2014, at the conclusion of OPE, Sami published another blog post defending Hamas, writing: “How can Hamas be considered a terrorist group? In my opinion, they are completely justified.”

Sami also claimed that Hamas targeted only soldiers “90% of the time,” while Israel was “blindly killing.” In 2012, a Human Rights Watch report noted that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups “made clear in their statements that harming civilians was their aim.”

Spreading Hatred of Israel

On July 27, 2014, Sami tweeted: “Not only is what happening in Palestine happening in Burma right now but they're both repeats of the Holocaust & the Rwandan Genocide too.”

On July 30, 2014, Sami claimed in a blog post that when former U.S. President Barack Obama said “Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas, he was “speaking for the lobbyists and Congressmen that stand behind him controlling his every move like puppeteers.”

On August 26, 2014, Sami published a blog post where she compared “the occupation of Palestine” to “the first Holocaust in Germany.”

On March 3, 2015, Sami tweeted that “Israel is annihilating Palestine.”

On March 15, 2017, Sami tweeted an Al Jazeera article, titled: “UN: Israel established ‘an apartheid regime that oppresses and dominates the Palestinian people as a whole.’" Sami added: “say it louder for the people in the front who refuse to acknowledge one of the most obvious, indisputable cases of injustice today!”

The article cited a March 2017 report issued by a Middle East UN office comprised of 18 Arab states. The report claiming that Israel established an “apartheid regime.” Richard Falk, a professor with a history of anti-Israel biases, co-authored the report.

Soon after the report’s release, UN Secretary General Antonió Guterres ordered it withdrawn. His spokesman said the report was published without prior consultations with Guterres’ office and it did not reflect the UN secretariat’s views.

Spreading Hatred of America

On October 2, 2017, Sami tweeted: “i genuinely hate america.”

She also retweeted an August 15, 2017 tweet that read: “the united states of america is a genocidal white supremacist settler colony & imperialist terrorist country that should collapse as a military and economic power.”

Pushing Anti-Israel Resolution at OSU

In 2018, Sami co-sponsored an anti-Israel resolution at OSU and spoke [00:04:40]in support of the legislation at a January 2018 General Assembly Meeting.

OSU Divest 2018

On January 25, 2018, USG approved a watered-down anti-Israel resolution via a “secret vote.” The resolution allowed the “student government to create a committee of senators to investigate Ohio State’s investment in companies that might be linked to domestic human rights violations.”

The resolution was “on track to fail” until it was amended to be “less explicitly linked to the Israeli-Palestine conflict.” Another proposed amendment to add a statement denouncing the BDS movement was rejected.

However, the resolution retained its references to anti-Israel boycott resolutions passed by student governments at over a dozen other universities. Links to multiple websites accusing Israel of “apartheid” and promoting BDS were also retained.

The university newspaper reported that the first round of secret ballot voting resulted in a revote, because more votes were recorded than senators present. USG offered no explanation for the discrepancy.

Sophie Chang, USG speaker and vice president, was reportedly responsiblefor approving the voting mechanism of a secret ballot and “refused to state how many senators voted in favor of the motion.”

During the discussion on the resolution, 38 OSU students reportedly spoke against the resolution, and 8 spoke in favor. One student described the resolution as “intentionally dishonest,” while other students cited “its anti-Semitic undertones.”

BDS Campus Activism

OSU Divest was established in January 2015 “in response to the ever-worsening human rights crisis in the occupied Palestinian territories.” The group has targeted “corporations that are complicit in human rights violations… to ensure that university funds are not used to finance their crimes.”

On October 10, 2016 Sami attended an OSU Divest event titled “Divestment 101.”

In February 2017, OSU Divest launched a campaign that called on OSU to divest from corporations that “are complicit in the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territories.”

The campaign called on the student body to vote in support of the BDS referendum.

Sami indicated on Facebook that she “went” to the March 6, 2017 USG vote in support of the divestment bill. She also posted to OSU Divest’s Facebook event “U GUYS ARE DOING GREAT.”

The divestment bill was later defeated with 3,843 votes in favor and 4,084 opposed.
On March 9, 2017, following the divestment referendum results, Sami tweeted: “if the human rights violations took place anywhere but Israel/Palestine, divestment would've passed a long time ago.”

SJP OSU Activism

In 2016 and 2017 Sami attended four SJP OSU events.

Sami indicated on Facebook that she “went” toan April 18, 2017 event titled “Meet the new SJP Board.”

Sami also indicated on Facebook that she “went” toa January 28, 2017 event titled “RTK: Raise the Keffiyeh 2016-17.”

Sami indicated on Facebook that she “went” to a September 15, 2016 dinner featuring anti-Israel activist Norman Finkelstein, co-hosted by SJP OSU and MSA at OSU.

Sami also indicated on Facebook that she “went” to a February 15, 2016 SJP OSU bake sale and fundraising event.

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.

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.