Layanne Hazim

Overview 

Layanne Hazim reportedly organized the disruption of a pro-Israel event as an activist with Students Against Israeli Apartheid (GMU SAIA), an affiliate of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at George Mason University (GMU). She was also listed as vice president of GMU SAIA. 

Hazim has also supported anti-Israel professor Steven Salaita.

Event Disruption

In a December 2014 article, it was reported that Hazim organized a GMU SAIA-staged walkout to disrupt a talk given at GMU by Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) Sgt. Benjamin Anthony about his personal experiences of the Israeli-Arab Conflict. The event was sponsored by the pro-Israel Committee for Accuracy of Reporting of the Middle East in America.

SAIA also projected [00:00:48] the SAIA logo on the building used to host the event and produced a video of the walkout with a description claiming: “The walkout was part of SAIA's anti-normalization strategy that seeks to expose normalizing events…” 

Proponents of the “anti-normalization” policy seek to police all interactions between Israelis and Palestinians and shut down all conversations, interactions and speech that they perceive as being ideologically unaligned with their own agenda. 

Supporting Anti-Israel Professor

In December 2014, Hazim signed a petition in support of professor 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.

GMU SAIA - Shutting Down Dialogue 

In June 2013, SAIA members interrupted a speech given by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at the Wilson Center in Washington D.C, screaming insults and accusations at Olmert, including [00:01:40]“War Criminal” and “Murderer.”

One individual screamed [00:02:01] a blood libel that Israeli soldiers were seen “playing soccer with the head of a dead two-year-old child.” The only documented abuse of severed heads in Gaza was committed by Palestinian factions, Islamic Jihad and Hamas, as revealed in a 2004 Al Jazeera broadcast.

SAIA’s repeated interruptions forced the Wilson Center Director Jane Harman to call for a tightening of security. Harman later commented: “I also defend free speech in this country...but it is unfortunate that people feel the need to disrupt a gathering where they could peacefully and civilly ask questions.”

GMU SAIA - Promoting A Graduation Day Walkout

On December 19, 2013, SAIA staged a graduation day walkout during a speech delivered by American-Israeli businesswoman and philanthropist Shari Arison, who SAIA described as an “apartheid profiteer.”


During the walk-out,several graduates reportedly wore “no honor in apartheid” stickers on the tops of their graduate caps while their guests waved [00:02:04]keffiyehs.


Before the event, SAIA leader Tareq Radi co-authored with GMU professor and SAIA advisor Craig Willse an "open letter outlining our concerns," hosted on the GMU SAIA website. The open letter quoted University President Ángel Cabrera’s praise of “Arison’s example of practicing moral responsibility in business” as the basis to allege that the “university’s name is being used to whitewash the activities of the Arison Group.”


Radi and Willse claimed “Honoring Arison makes Mason appear to be a PR machine for robber baron billionaires” and claimed that the Arison Group was displacing Bedouins, constructing a “cross-Israel Jewish-only highway”, building a portion of “the Apartheid Wall,” operating “an illegal factory for construction materials” and illegally extracting minerals from the occupied portion of the Dead Sea.  

GMU SAIA  - “Day of Anger” Rally 

On August 1, 2013, GMU SAIA hosted a "Day of Anger: Stop Prawer DC" rally outside The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) headquarters in Washington D.C.

The event’s Facebook description said the rally was to “spread awareness of the biggest impending ethnic cleansing campaign against Palestinians by Israel since 1948” and called on participants to “Demand that the US Government stops its unquestioning support of Israel!”

The “Prawer Plan” is a proposed Israeli government plan (the Begin-Prawer Plan) to officially recognize and register the vast majority of Bedouin settlements throughout southern Israel and relocate and compensate the residents of 35 unrecognized villages.

At the protest, students chanted [00:00:07] “5-6-7-8 Israel is a racist state” and [00:00:32] “1-2-3-4 occupation no more.” 


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.



Videos

2 videos

Photos & Screenshots

10 images