Leyla Abdella
Overview
Leyla Abdella has expressed support for terrorists and promoted the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement at the University of Chicago (U of C), in 2017 and 2016.Abdella was an activist with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at U of C from 2015 through 2017 and attended the 2017 National SJP Conference (NSJP 2017).
NSJP 2017 was held October 27-29, 2017 in Houston, TX. The conference was themed “A Reimagined World: Dismantling Walls from Palestine to the Rio Grande.” Per the 2017 National SJP Conference website, the conference aimed to strengthen “collaborative efforts within all regions to pass BDS” and envision “pathways to achieving sanctions in the future.”
Abdella is also affiliated with the Muslim Students Association (MSA) at U of C. As of January 2018, Abdella was listed as an administrator and moderator of the UChicago MSA Facebook group.
As of January 2018, Abdella’s Facebook page said she was a student at U of C from 2015-2019.
Support for Terrorists
On May 5, 2017, Abdella participated in a display of solidarity outside the Israeli consulate in Chicago, supporting the “Dignity Strike” — a Palestinian Prisoners’ Hunger Strike.On May 9, 2017, Abdella also joined SJP U of C activists in a “Saltwater Challenge” held in solidarity with the Palestinian inmates hunger-striking in Israeli prisons.
According to CNN, the “Saltwater Challenge” appears to have been started by Aarab Marwan Barghouti, the son of Marwan Barghouti.
Promoting BDS
On March 28, 2016, a coalition of organizations, including Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Chicago (JVP UChicago) and SJP U of C, launched the UofC Divest campaign. The campaign called on U of C’s College Council to pass a resolution urging the university’s divestment from targeted companies doing business with Israel.Abdella is a UofC Divest team member and, as of January 2018, appeared in the “Meet U of C Divest” photo album on the group’s Facebook page.
On March 28, 2016, Abdella changed her Facebook profile picture to a UofC Divest campaign poster and commented: “For press release and more uofcdivest.com Also, rally in the quad at 4:20! #UofCDivest.”
On April 11, 2016, Abdella was featured [00:00:04]in a UofC Divest promotion video with UofC Divest activists.
On April 14, 2016, two-weeks after the UofC Divest campaign’s launch, the College Council reportedly passed the resolution in an 8-4-3 vote. Abdella posed in a celebratory photo with other UofC Divest activists.
On April 12, 2017, Abdella again changed her Facebook profile photo to the UofC Divest campaign poster and wrote: “#TellTheTrustees to honor our resolution by divesting from Israeli apartheid and creating a Socially Responsible Investment Committee.”
On April 19, 2017, Abdella tabled on campus for UofC Divest urging students to sign a petition titled: “Petition to UofC Trustees: Divest & End Our Complicity in Apartheid.”
The petition alleged “the University is likely invested in companies that support Israeli crimes” and claimed: “To date, student petitions to divest from companies perpetrating abhorrent crimes against humanity have been rejected or ignored.”
Anti-Israel Activism
On January 23, 2017, Abdella promoted an SJP at U of C-organized event on Facebook titled “BDS 101: Trump and Palestinian Human Rights.”
On April 1, 2016, Abdella attended an event titled “Narratives of Resistance,” organized by several organizations, including SJP U of C and JVP UChicago. The event featured anti-Israel poets Remi Kenazi and Lubna Morrar.
On October 28, 2015, Abdella urged UChicago MSA members on Facebook to attend SJP U of C’s Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) events.
Abdella wrote: “I encourage you all to come out to one of SJP's events...We would really appreciate the MSA's support, especially in light of recent harassment towards SJP. InshaAllah, I'll see some of you at both events!”
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.
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.
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.
Social Media and Weblinks
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/leyla.abdella
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/leylaaa97/ [Private]
- Status:
- Student
- University:
- U of C,
- more...
- Chicago
- Organizations:
- BDS,
- SJP
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