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Leila Al-Yasari
Leila Al-Yasari has shown solidarity with violent protesters and is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. Al-Yasari promoted the UMN Divest campaign at the University of Minnesota (UMN), launched by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of Minnesota (UMN) in 2018.
Al-Yasari has also financially supported anti-Israel organizations, including soliciting donations for the Tree of Life Educational Fund on Facebook and personally donating to Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).
In December 2019, Al-Yasari’s Facebook page said she “Studied Global Studies: Human Rights and Justice,” at UMN from “2015 to 2018.”
On April 5, 2018, Al-Yasari wrote on Facebook that her senior thesis was titled, ‘Water as a Tool of Domination in the Israeli Occupation and the Politics of 'Cooperation.'’
As of July 2020, Al Yasari’s social shopping network Poshmark.com profile said she was “Just your average college grad trying to get by and make some extra cash!” and indicated that she was located in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
On April 7, 2018, Al-Yasari wrote on Facebook: “In solidarity with the Palestinians facing horrific violence in Gaza, here are some photos of art I took in Deheisheh refugee camp…”
Al-Yasari continued: “As you read this, Palestinians in Gaza are demonstrating in the March of Return to demand their humanity and dignity. SEVEN HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-NINE protesters have been shot or wounded thus far, including seven women and 31 children...”
Al-Yasari added: “Mainstream media has framed this blatant injustice as ‘clashes’ or ‘confrontations’ at the border to justify the murdering of occupied people by an occupying army. The United States of America, the economic driving force behind the oppressive Israeli occupation of Palestine, doesn't seem to be blinking an eye...
"حقالعودة #غزة.#
On March 30, 2018, about 30,000 Gazans approached Israel’s border fence to join in “Land Day Protests,” which were also called the “March of Return.” The march was organized and funded by Hamas as a campaign of violent protests to spotlight the “right of return,” a policy discredited as a means to eliminate Israel.
March participants sent scores of kites bearing explosive devices across Israel’s border to burn Israeli crops and homes. Participants also attempted to breach the border fence, which caused the Israeli Defense Forces to respond with live fire. Agitators also threw Molotov cocktails and firebombs, shot firearms and threw rocks.
Most of the Gazans who died between March 30 and April 6, 2018, were identified as terror operatives who were killed while carrying out terrorist attacks, rioting against IDF forces or attempting to breach the border fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
During the 2018 March of Return, Hamas routinely directed its members to infiltrate the border between Gaza and Israel to train for an attack on Israeli communities in the area, leading to the October 7, 2023 massacre. For more information, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.
In March 2018, Al-Yasari supported the UMN Divest campaign.
The 2018 UMN Divest campaign launched a petition calling to “demand that the University of Minnesota Investment Committee and any other responsible bodies authorized to make investment decisions divest fully from the companies mentioned in the UMN Divest campaign.”
On February 25, 2018, SJP UMN shared to Instagram a post launching the UMN Divest 2018 campaign that said: “UMN Divest is back and this time we’re doing a campus wide referendum. March 5-7 all undergraduate and graduate students can vote ‘yes’ to divest.”
SJP UMN’s “explanation statement” in support of its proposed “campus-wide” referendum claimed that UMN had investments in companies “that violate human rights” and called on UMN to divest from G4S, Boeing and Raytheon and Elbit Systems for being “complicit in Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights, 2) maintaining and establishing private prisons and immigrant detention centers, or 3) violating Indigenous sovereignty.”
In March 2018, the divestment referendum reportedly was passed by the UMN “All Campus Elections Commission” and sent to the UMN Board of Regents for review.
It was reported that 6,567 people out of UMN’s 51,367 students who were eligible to vote on the referendum actually voted upon the divestment referendum, representing less than 13% of eligible voters.
The resolution reportedly passed by 217 votes, with a total of 3,392 voting "yes" and 3,175 voting "no" on divestment. The “yes” votes represented 6.18% of the eligible voters.
On March 23, 2018, Al-Yasari wrote on the UMN Divest organized Facebook event page, titled: “Day of Action.”
Al-Yasari wrote: “Don't forget to take a few minutes to call and email the Board of Regents today to hold them accountable to the student body's vote to divest. Every call/email counts and is necessary to demand action.
She continued: “I called today and the woman told me we can also use this email (uregents@umn.edu) in addition to the office of the president's email. I am sending a personal message to each of the Regent members listed here:
https://regents.umn.edu/about-board/meet-regents
Make your voice heard!”On December 3, 2019, Al-Yasari indicated on Facebook that she donated to a Facebook fundraising page for JVP.
The Facebook page description said: “For this #GivingTuesday and until Dec. 8, JVP is splitting funds with 2 great grassroots organizations, the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM)- حركة الشباب الفلسطيني and the native American group The Red Nation.”
The Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) is an organization that has expressed support for terrorists, promoted incitement to violence and advocated for the dissolution of the State of Israel.
On August 10, 2018, Al-Yasari created a Facebook fundraising page to solicit funds for the Tree of Life Educational Fund Inc, a pro-BDS non-profit organization that reportedly organizes tours of Israel and the West Bank, where participants have met with leaders of various anti-Israel organizations.
Al-Yasari wrote on her Fundraising page: “For my birthday this year, I'm asking for donations to the Tree of Life Educational Fund. Many of you have followed my personal accounts of my experience in Palestine - this is the organization that made it happen.”
Al-Yasari concluded: “I hope you'll consider contributing what you are able to their meaningful work as a way to celebrate with me and show appreciation for the transformative opportunity they granted me. Every single dollar will help me reach my goal! Thank you for reading. I'd love to chat more about the work of TOL and why their work is so important to me - send me a message!”
On October 20, 2017, SJP UMN shared on Instagram a graphic that featured a Palestinian woman carrying an assault rifle. The graphic was based on a poster originally published by the terror group, the Palestinian Front for Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
The graphic shared by SJP UMN had the caption: “Glory to the Women of the Intifada.”
“Intifada” has carried the connotation of violence since the early 2000’s.
SJP UMN wrote on their Instagram post: “..come learn about Palestinian women’s resilience, contribution to the movement, and what a Palestinian feminist vision for liberation looks like…”
On July 8, 2018, SJP UMN shared to Facebook a post that read: “This week marks the anniversary of the assassination of Ghassan Kanafani. A writer, intellectual, and spokesperson for the Palestinian resistance, he is remembered as one of the most significant literary and political figures of the 1960s-70s Palestinian revolution.”
Kanafani was a leading member and spokesperson for the terrorist organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) during their formative years. Kanafani was also involved in the Lod Airport Massacre near Tel Aviv, for which PFLP took responsibility.
On September 16, 2019, SJP UMN shared a flier on Instagram announcing that the chapter would be hosting the 2019 National SJP Conference on November 1-3, 2019.
SJP UMN wrote on their Instagram post: “We are excited to officially announce that the 9th annual national SJP conference, Beyond Struggle: From Roots to Branches Towards Liberation, will be hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities (SJP UMN) on Fri.-Sun., November 1-3, 2019 in the Twin Cities, MN…”
On March 30, 2019, SJP UMN and American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) Minnesota co-hosted an event titled: “Palestine Day Conference.”
The Facebook event page description said the event's speakers included Miko Peled and Taher Hezallah.
Miko Peled is an anti-Israel activist. In January 2017, Peled said [00:00:06] that the Israeli army was one of the “best trained, best equipped, best fed, terrorist organizations in the world,” and claimed [00:00:16] that “their entire purpose is terrorism.”
Taher Herzallah is the Associate Director of Outreach & Grassroots Organizing of AMP, working to expand AMP activism.
On November 27-29, 2014, during the seventh annual AMP conference, Herzallah idolized [00:47:27] violent revolutionaries as models for change — and rhetorically asked [00:49:06]: “What if, as Muslims we wanted to establish an Islamic state? Is that wrong? What if, as Muslims, we wanted to use violent means to resist occupation? Is that wrong?”
On March 24, 2019, AMP shared on Facebook the program for the conference which included a session run by SJP UMN of a “detailed presentation on how to run a divestment campaign on campus and the important on Palestine in media.”
On September 24, 2011, SJP UMN promoted a post on Facebook alleging that Israel controls America and influences American mainstream media, so that one “will always find the news tailored” in Israel’s favor.
SJP UMN urged their followers to “READ IT & SHARE IT.”
On March 9, 2012, SJP UMN was scheduled to host an event for Israel Apartheid Week (IAW), titled “United States of Israel.” IAW is a series of events on university campuses promoting BDS.
One event included a screening of a documentary, titled: “AIPAC: The Israeli Lobby,” which claims AIPAC, Congress, the White House and Israel “seem to have ended up in a suffocating embrace.”
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)’s mission is to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship and to enhance both nations’ security. Denouncing the influence of “the Israeli lobby” echoes an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory about Jewish control over foreign governments, popularized in the book “The Israel Lobby” by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.
SJP is the leading 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, who has spread anti-Semitism and defended the Hamas terror group.
SJP organizes anti-Israel campus campaigns, including running annual Israel Apartheid Weeks and pushing the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. SJP activists have reportedly physically assaulted, intimidated and harassed Jewish students, and SJP chapters have often endorsed and campaigned for terrorists.
JVP was founded in Berkeley, California in 1996, as an activist group with an emphasis on the “Jewish tradition” of peace, social justice and human rights. The organization is currently led by Rebecca Vilkomerson and its board members include Israel critics Naomi Klein, Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky and Tony Kushner.
JVP, which generally employs civil disobedience tactics to disrupt pro-Israel speakers and events, consists of American Jews and non-Jewish “allies” highly critical of Israeli policies. A staunch supporter of the BDS movement, JVP claims to aim its campaigns at companies that either support the Israeli military (Hewlett-Packard) or are active in the West Bank (SodaStream).
Although several Jewish groups critical of Israeli policies, like J Street and Partners for a Progressive Israel, make efforts to operate within the mainstream American Jewish community, JVP functions outside. The group is often criticized for serving as a tokenized Jewish voice for the pro-Palestinian camp and is widely regarded as the BDS movement’s “Jewish wing.”
JVP denies the notion of “Jewish peoplehood” and has even gone so far as to refer to its own Ashkenazi (Jews who spent the Diaspora in European countries) leadership as “white supremacy inside of JVP."
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has accused JVP of being “the largest and most influential Jewish anti-Zionist group in the United States,” and said the group “exploits Jewish culture and rituals to reassure its own supporters that opposition to Israel not only does not contradict, but is actually consistent with, Jewish values.”
The ADL also claimed that “JVP consistently co-sponsors rallies to oppose Israeli military policy that are marked by signs and slogans comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, demonizing Jews and voicing support for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.”
According to the ADL website, JVP “uses its Jewish identity to shield the anti-Israel movement from allegations of anti-Semitism and provide it with a greater degree of legitimacy and credibility.”
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by pro-terror activist Omar Barghouti in 2005 to turn “Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.” Barghouti has also called for Israel's destruction and the BDS movement demands would result in that same goal.
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 infiltrating university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments propose resolutions to boycott or divestment from Israel or Israeli-affiliated entities. 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 and pro-terror activism on campus.
