Leyan Saleh

Overview

Leyan Saleh has spread anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel and was the events coordinator for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Toronto Metropolitan University (SJP TMU) in 2015.

Saleh has also engaged in anti-Israel activism and is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. TMU was known as Ryerson University until April 2022.

Saleh was also a member of TMU’s Muslim Students Association (MSA) for the 2015 - 2016 academic year. As of August 2023, Saleh’s LinkedIn said she served as the director of communications for TMU’s Sociology Student Union (SSU) from “Apr 2014 - Apr 2016.”

Saleh’s LinkedIn also said she has been a senior group travel consultant at Goway Travel since October 2019. Saleh received a TEFL [Teaching English as a Foreign Language] certification from the University of Toronto (U of T) in 2017 and graduated from TMU with a bachelor’s degree in sociology in 2016.

Anti-Semitism

On December 8, 2015, Saleh tweeted: "Happy Hannukah to my Jewish bas ballah jad [seriously] neighbors but really I think it's time for you to move out, no? ."

On July 15, 2015, Saleh tweeted: #GrowingUpPalestinian the problem is always the yahood [Jews] no matter what the situation is.”

On June 4, 2015, Saleh tweeted: “#tweetpalestinianexpressionsinenglish
May god ruin the homes of the Jew ‘ye5rib bait il yahud [May Allah ruin the homes of the Jews.]’”

On May 26, 2015, Saleh retweeted a tweet that said: “This is not an attack, it's ethnic cleansing. It's the same thing Hitler did, it's genocide not another attack!! #GazaUnderAttack."

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) highlights as one possible contemporary example of anti-Semitism: “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” The U.S. State Department adopted the IHRA’s working definition of anti-Semitism in 2016. Over 40 countries have adopted the definition as well.

On December 9, 2013, Saleh tweeted an image of a fabricated quote attributed to Albert Einstein that read: “It would be my greatest sadness to see Zionists [Jews] do to Palestinian Arabs much of what Nazis did to Jews.”

Hatred of Israel

On September 11, 2014, Saleh tweeted a photo from TMU’s campus of a banner that included a graphic of misleading maps and the words: “...ISRAELI APARTHEID.”

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 August 1, 2014, during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE), Saleh tweeted a video titled: “THE WORLD IS WITH PALESTINE! During the video, one man claimed [00:00:46] Israel is committing “genocide.”

Israel commenced OPE in July 2014 to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.
On July 31, 2014, Saleh tweeted: “Social media is great! So many people are now aware of the genocide in Palestine.”

On July 24, 2014, Saleh tweeted: “Keep Palestine in your prayers. During this holy night. Ya Allah #3rdIntifada.”

The term “intifada,” which translates from Arabic as “uprising” or “insurrection,” carries the connotation of violence. Palestinian intifadas waged against Israel have been marked since 1987 by hundreds of hijackings, shootings, stabbings, bombings and suicide missions.

On July 14, 2014, Saleh tweeted: “No two states will NOT be a solution! Just get the hell out! It's been enough. I want to go to Palestine and enjoy my country!”

Anti-Israel Activism (SJP)

On May 15, 2022, Saleh posted a TikTok video of herself on the way to an anti-Israel protest in Toronto.Her video included [00:00:15] footage taken from the protest where there was a banner supporting BDS. She wrote: “74 years of Nakba.”

The term “Nakba” is generally translated as “catastrophe” in Arabic, referring to the outcome of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It is a term often used to delegitimize the creation of the State of Israel by defining it as a catastrophe.

The Facebook event page said: “Join… in commemorating 74 years of the ongoing Nakba to demand the dismantlement of the Zionist colonial and imperialist entity. On May 15, we will honour the resistance of our people by any means necessary against settler colonial violence and ethnic cleansing.”

The event was co-organized by local anti-Israel groups, including the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM)’s Greater Toronto Area (GTA) chapter, the Palestinian Solidarity Collective (PSC) at York University (YU), Independent Jewish Voices Canada (IVJ)’s Toronto chapter, and others.

On January 26, 2016, Saleh promoted an SJP TMU event to Facebook titled: “Layalee Falasteen/Palestinian Nights” and wrote that “DR BASEL [Basel Abuwarda] will be skying into our event this Wednesday!”

On March 11, 2015, Saleh mentioned anti-Israel poet Remi Kanazi in a tweet saying it was “Our honour to have you here at Ryerson [TMU]. Looking forward to seeing you again !” The tweet followed an SJP TMU event titled: “Sounds of Palestine” that featured Kanazi as a performer.

Poet Remi Kanazi is known for his aggressively anti-Israel spoken-word performances. He has supported terrorism and has compared Israel to both ISIS and the Ku Klux Klan.

For more information, see the SJP TMU Chapter Profile.

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.

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.