Lena Mekdad

Mekdad founded SJP UAB and was the group’s president for the 2012-2013 academic year. She was also president of the UAB chapter of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) for the same academic year.

As of March 2023, Mekdad’s LinkedIn page said she had been a psychotherapist at Compassionate Psychiatric Services since September 2019 and a mental health therapist at Unlocking Fortitude since May 2018. Her LinkedIn also said she had been a volunteer psychotherapist at ICNA Relief in Dallas since October 2019.

Also as of March 2023, Mekdad’s LinkedIn page said she was issued her professional counselor license, credential ID #82186, from the Texas Behavioral Health Executive Board in March 2021. As of the same date, Mekdad had been listed as a mental health counselor with the National Provider Identifier (NPI) database in Frisco, Texas, since October 2019. Her NPI number was 1598306086.

Mekdad’s LinkedIn said she graduated from Walden University in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling in 2018. She also received a master’s degree in applied psychology from Middlesex University in Dubai in 2015. Mekdad graduated from UAB with a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 2013. 

As of March 2023, Mekdad’s LinkedIn page said she was located in the “Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.”  

Hatred of Israel

On February 13, 2013, Mekdad led an SJP UAB-organized balloon-releasing event, to mark four years of the group’s opposition to Israel’s Operation Cast Lead (OCL) in 2008-2009. The event featured a banner that called OCL the “Gaza massacre.” 

Israel commenced Operation Cast Lead (OCL)in 2008-09 in order to stop Hamas rocket fire from Gaza targeting Israeli civilians. In 2010, Hamas admitted that nearly 700 of the Palestinian casualties in OCL were combatants.

During OCL, Hamas placed [00:02:40] Palestinian civilians in harm’s way.

SJP UAB - Solidarity with Terrorists

On May 14, 2012, SJP UAB shared on Facebook a graphic depicting Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jail. SJP UAB included a partial list of prisoners and called for “solidarity with the innocent Palestinian prisoners, supporting their legendary hunger strike.” 

Hamas military commander Abdullah al-Barghouti was on the SJP UAB list of prisoners. Al-Barghouti was sentenced to 67 life sentences for his role in multiple terrorist attacks, including the 2001 Sbarro Cafe Bombing, which murdered 15 people and wounded more than 120. 

Also on the list wereTha'er Halahleh and Bilal Diab, who were both members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terror group. 

SJP UAB - Hatred of Israel

On March 12, 2013, SJP UAB activists installed a mock “apartheid” wall on campus as part of its Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW). 



The SJP UAB display also featured a series of maps popular among anti-Israel activists.

The maps claim that lands once controlled by Britain, Egypt and Jordan as autonomous “Palestinian land” were purportedly stolen by Israel. In February 2016, publisher McGraw-Hill Education recalled copies of a college textbook containing the fraudulent maps. In October 2015, American cable news network MSNBC apologized for airing a similar series of maps and retracted them.

On November 16, 2012, SJP UAB organized a protest against Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense (OPD) against Hamas. The event’s Facebook page called OPD an “offensive against civilians” and criticized the U.S. government for supporting alleged “atrocities against the Palestinian people.” The page also claimed that Gaza was “besieged.”

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. 

Israel launched OPD to stop Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians from Gaza. Over the course of eight days in November 2012, Palestinian terrorist groups fired more than 1,500 rockets at Israel. The majority struck Israel, damaging homes, schools and other civilian areas. Human Rights Watch noted: “Palestinian armed groups made clear in their statements that harming civilians was their aim.”

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.

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.