Laith Shakir
Overview
Laith Shakir is a member and spokesperson for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at American (AU SJP). He supports the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment (BDS) movement.
Shakir has also published anti-Israel articles in the online journal Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF).
Shakir went to study Palestine and Arabic Studies at Birzeit University, Gaza, in June 2014, shortly after Hamas-affiliated Birzeit students held a massive pro-terror demonstration on campus.
Laith Shakir is a student at American University (American), studying Philosophy and History (2013-2017).
Blaming Israel for Palestinian Attacks
On December 9, 2015, Shakir published an article in FPIF promoting the debunked proposition that Israel’s policy of "punitive" home demolitions against Palestinian terrorists causes further acts of terrorism rather than preventing them.
Shakir insinuated that the terror attack by Alaa Abu Jamal — who drove his employer’s car into a Jerusalem bus stop and hacked to death the injured victims with a meat cleaver — was prompted by the house demolitions carried out against his cousins, Uday Abu Jamal and Ghassan Abu Jama. The cousins attacked worshippers at a Jerusalem synagogue, killing five and injuring eleven.
Alaa Abu Jamal revealed his approval of murdering Jews long before the demolition of his cousins’ houses, in an interview broadcast shortly after his cousins’ terror attack.
AU SJP - Promoting Terror Ties
On March 26, 2016, AU SJP promoted Ramallah-based Birzeit University’s Right to Education tour.
The Right to Education Tour brings Birzeit University students to U.S. campuses, where they claim that Israel is obstructing the rights of Palestinians to higher education. This claim mischaracterizes the sweeps Israeli security forces have made to shut down terror cells operating on the Birzeit campus, including cells linked to Hamas.
AU SJP - Propagating Incitement
On September 13, 2015, AU SJP posted on Facebook an AJ+ video with the incendiary headline "Israeli police have stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Occupied East Jerusalem and reportedly fired tear gas and stun grenades."
Palestinian propaganda is regularly used to incite violence against Jews and Israelis. The message that Jews "threaten" to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque — which sits atop the ruins of the Judaism’s holiest site — has been a traditional pretext for Arab attacks on Jews long before the existence of the modern Jewish state.
Such propaganda was the excuse for a wave of violence against Israelis that began in the fall of 2015. Hamas called on Palestinians to violently "rise up and defend Al-Aqsa." Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas also praised those willing to “martyr” themselves for Al-Aqsa and declared that Jews would not be allowed to “desecrate” Al Aqsa with their “filthy feet.”
AU SJP - Promoting Disruption of Israel-Related Events
On May 21 2014, AU SJP posted a video showing GMU Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) and SJP members crashing a Mosaic Street Israeli Independence Festival, while wearing Keffiyehs and garments with the SAIA emblem. The police permitted the group to enter only after issuing a warning not to cause trouble.The group members subsequently spent their time at the festival arguing with pro-Israel attendees, handing out fake "pro Israel" pamphlets and driving by in cars, with banners falsely accusing Israel of "apartheid."
On November 13, 2014, AU SJP staged a "walkout" from a Bipartisan Discussion on the US Israel Relationship event. Defending their behavior on the AU SJP blog, the walkout organizers claimed Israel has “segregated roads and schools.”
AU SJP - Hosting Propagandist Bassem Tamimi
On October 16, 2014, AU SJP posted on Facebook an event they had organized hosting Bassem Tamimi.
Bassem Tamimi has exploited young children as political props in staged confrontations with Israeli soldiers. In 2011, he was jailed for organizing violent rallies and inciting minors to commit violent crimes such as rock-throwing.
Tamimi’s United States visa was revoked in 2015, for his failure to disclose his prior arrest and conviction. Prior to the revocation of his U.S. visa, Tamimi delivered a controversial presentation to third-graders in Ithaca, New York. The presentation was geared to foster hatred of Israel and Tamimi concluded by encouraging [00:11:29] the children to become “freedom fighters for Palestine.”
AU SJP - Promoting Anti-Israel and Anti-Semitic Websites
AU SJP’s blog post also directed followers to Electronic Intifada and the anti-semitic hate site If Americans Knew (IAK) that was founded by Alison Weir.
Weir is the founder and executive director of the anti-Semitic organization If Americans Knew (IAK) and president of Council for the National Interest (CNI).
In a 2013 backgrounder on Weir, the Anti Defamation League (ADL) noted Weir’s propagation of numerous anti-Semitic and anti-Israel conspiracy theories, including one about organ harvesting. ADL also highlighted Weir’s “extreme anti-Israel ideology” and “conspiratorial obsession,” in a 2013 primer titled “The Top Ten Anti-Israel Groups in America.”
IAK bears the rare distinction of being condemned for furthering anti-Semitism by both the Anti-Defamation League and the Israel-hating U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation.
AU SJP - Supporting a PFLP Terrorist
On November 10, 2014, AU SJP posted on Facebook in support of terrorist Rasmea Odeh.
Odeh was a key military operative [00:02:08]with the terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In 1969, Odeh masterminded a PFLP bombing that killed two college students in a Jerusalem supermarket. Odeh also attempted to bomb the British consulate.
Odeh confessed, in a highly detailed account, the day following her arrest. In a 2004 documentary, one of Odeh’s co-conspirators directly implicated [00:10:53] Odeh as the mastermind.
In 1970, an Israeli court tried and convicted Odeh for her involvement in both bombings and sentenced her to life imprisonment. However, Odeh was released 10 years later, in a prisoner swap and emigrated to the United States.
On November 10, 2014, a Michigan federal jury convicted Odeh for immigration fraud because she failed to disclose her prior conviction and life sentence on her immigration application. On March 12, 2015, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
In 2017, after an appeal and a lengthy court battle, Odeh admitted to immigration fraud, was stripped of her U.S. citizenship, deported to Jordan and banned from re-entering the U.S.
AU SJP - Supporting Hate Speech
On September 9, 2014, AU SJP posted on their blog in support of Steven Salaita.
In 2014, The University of Illinois withdrew an offer of employment to Salaita after becoming aware of his anti-Semitic tweets. One tweet, posted shortly after Hamas kidnapped three teenage Israeli high school students, read: "You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f**king West Bank settlers would go missing.” In 2017, Salaita posted to Facebook: “People ask if I would go back in time and change anything. I would not…I will die unapologetic.” In February 2019, Salaita stated that he had become a school bus driver in the Washington, D.C., area.
AU SJP - Promoting Rallies Demonizing Israel
On July 10, 2014, AU SJP promoted a rally at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. on Facebook, saying: "Angry about the slaughter of innocents in Gaza? Come out Friday afternoon to protest outside the Israeli Embassy!"
At the rally, one protester held a sign saying "Israel is the real terrorist," and another held a flag of terrorist organization Hezbollah, whose goal is the destruction of Israel and the genocide of the Jewish people. Yet another sign trivialized the Holocaust and fraudulently likened Israelis to Nazis; “Zionist = Nazi, Israel = the 4th Reich, Netanyahu = The Fuhrer, Gaza = the Warsaw Ghetto, Operation Protective Edge = The pogrom.”
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/laith.shakir
Twitter: https://twitter.com/l_shakir
https://twitter.com/Laith_Shak [Deleted]
https://twitter.com/theory_trash [Deleted]
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/laith-shakir-8799a8100
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/sirlaithsalot/
Google+:https://plus.google.com/10498874044706095423
- Status:
- Student
- University:
- American
- Organizations:
- SJP
- Related Profiles:
- Adrienne Pine,
- Rachel Mandelbaum,
- Zachariah Barghouti,
- Abrara Rageh,
- Mostefa Souag,
- Alaa Alaeddin,
- Ntebo Mokuena,
- Last Modified:
- 01/06/2025