Lara Kiswani

Overview

Lara Kiswani has called for Israel’s destruction “to benefit everyone in the world,” demonized Israel as well as America, and expressed support for terrorists.

As of August 2023, Kiswani was listed as the executive director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Kiswani is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

As of August 2019, Kiswani’s AROC profile said she co-founded Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis). She was reportedly [00:00:30] an SJP activist at UC-Davis in October 2003. Kiswani also spoke at the 2015 National SJP Conference.

As of August 2023, Kiswani was listed as a lecturer in the department of “Race & Resistance Studies” at San Francisco State University (SFSU).

Also as of August 2023, AROC’s website said Kiswani received a master’s degree in education at SFSU and a bachelor’s degree in International Relations at UC Davis.
As of the same date, Kiswani’s Facebook said she was located in Oakland, California.

Calling for Israel’s Destruction

On November 25, 2014, Kiswani appeared in a Youtube video from a BDS panel earlier that month, claiming that [00:00:18]: “... bringing down Israel really will benefit everyone in the world, everyone in society, particularly the workers.”

The panel she spoke on was convened November 12, 2014, by the “UAW 2865 BDS Caucus,” part of the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW). There, Kiswani and other anti-Israel speakers spoke in favor of a then-upcoming vote for the University of California student workers to vote on BDS.

In the same video, Kiswani was filmed characterizing [00:00:42] Israel as “colonialism in Palestine,” emphasizing that she meant all of Israel. She also addressed Israel supporters, saying [00:01:01]: “As long as you continue to be on that side, I'm going to continue to hate you.”

Demonizing Israel

On January 22, 2018, Kiswani appeared [00:00:01] in an AROC Facebook video speaking at a Women’s March rally in Oakland. Kiswani said [00:03:12]: “Let us remember that just like racism has no place in the women’s movement, displacement, occupation, war, imperialism and Zionism have absolutely no place in the women’s movement.”

Kiswani called [00:02:12] Israel “the settler colonial and apartheid state of Israel,” when she denounced the decision of the U.S. government to move their embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

She also praised [00:02:55] anti-Israel agitator, Ahed Tamimi, for “fighting back against white supremacy.”

Ahed Tamimi has a long history of physically attacking Israeli soldiers. Tamimi is the daughter of Bassem Tamimi, who is known for exploiting young children as political props in staged confrontations with Israeli soldiers.

Demonizing America

On September 4, 2013, Kiswani gave an interview to the anti-Israel website Electronic Intifada (EI), where she supported a hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jail. A photo in the article identified two of the hunger-strikers as Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Sa’adat, both leaders of U.S.-designated terror groups.

In the interview, Kiswani said: “The US exports torture tactics and policing strategies all across the world and specifically within the state of Israel.”

She also decried “interests of the US within the state of Israel and its expansion of empire and its corporate interests” and referred to America as the “US imperialist country.”

Supporting Terrorists

On July 23, 2014, Kiswani posted to Facebook a flyer promoting an AROC protest against Israel during its Operation Protective Edge (OPE) against Hamas. The flyer featured a photograph of terrorist Leila Khaled.

Leila Khaled is a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and participated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 840 in 1969 and El Al Flight 219 in 1970. As of 2017, Khaled was a member of PFLP's Political Bureau. Khaled has said that the second intifada failed because it was not violent enough, advocated [00:36:07] for the use of children in terror activities and compared Zionists to Nazis.

On November 12, 2014, Kiswani posted an image to her Facebook page showing Rasmea Odeh, with the title: “Free Our Beloved Rasmea Now.”

Odeh was a key military operative [00:02:08]with the designated terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In 1969, she masterminded a supermarket bombing that killed two college students and attempted to bomb the British consulate in Jerusalem. In 1970, Odeh was sentenced to life imprisonment for her role in both bombings, but was released after 10 years. She later moved to the United States but was stripped of U.S. citizenship, deported to Jordan and banned for life from reentering the U.S. for immigration fraud.

On October 14, 2015, Kiswani posted an image to her Facebook page, honoring Odeh.

On March 6, 2016, AROC tweeted a photo of Kiswani, with the caption: “@Kiswaniya opening the #justice4rasmea event.”

On August 18, 2017, Kiswani appeared in a Twitter video where she praised Rasmea Odeh, calling [00:01:48] Odeh one of her “heroes.”

Anti-Israel Activism

On October 10, 2015, Kiswani appeared in a Twitter photo, speaking at the opening plenary session of the 2015 National SJP Conference.

On October 31, 2014, EI reported that Kiswani and AROC led a high-profile BDS campaign called “Block the Boat,” designed to stop an Israeli shipping vessel from docking in the Port of Oakland.

On August 4, 2014, Kiswani promoted the “Block the Boat” protests on Facebook with an image that accused Israel of “apartheid.” She wrote: “STOP THE SIEGE ON GAZA! END THE COLONIAL OCCUPATION OF PALESTINE! RIGHT OF RETURN FOR ALL PALESTINIAN REFUGEES!”

The United Nations approved [pp. 39–41] the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza in 2011 as a security measure to stop Hamas from acquiring sophisticated rockets. Multiple flotillas have attempted to breach the blockade, with at least one flotilla initiating a violent confrontation with Israeli forces.

The “right of return” is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel. International law mandates no absolute right of return and UN Resolution 194, which defined principles for “refugees wishing to return to their homes,” was unanimously rejected by Arab nations following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

On October 11, 2003, Kiswani was filmed [00:00:30] speaking at an anti-Israel conference, where she represented SJP at UC-Davis. The video was posted to Youtube on February 6, 2014.

In the video, Kiswani boasted [00:03:43] about having refused to talk to campus Zionist groups.

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.