Marwan Abdelhamid

Overview

Marwan Abdelhamid has glorified a terrorist, spread hatred of Israel and promoted anti-Israel agitators. In 2019, Abdelhamid was affiliated with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and attended the 2019 National SJP Conference.

National SJP held their conference at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities (UMN), from November 1-3, 2019. The conference was themed: “Beyond Struggle: From Roots to Branches Towards Liberation.”

In October 2020, Abdelhamid announced his partnership with the clothing company PaliRoots on Instagram and also indicated on Facebook that he was the “Founder, Director, CEO” at Pygeon since January 1, 2020.

As of October 2020, Abdelhamid’s LinkedIn page also said he was the founder of GrowHome, in Santa Barbara, California, since April 2020 and was a sophomore studying for a bachelor’s degree in Global and International Studies at University California, Santana Barbara (UCSB) since September 2018.

Also as of February, 2021, Abdelhamid had 65.5K Tiktok followers.

Glorifying a Terrorist

On June 20, 2020, Abdelhamid posted a graphic to Instagram that glorified PFLP terrorist, Leila Khaled to Instagram. The graphic included text that referred to Khaled as a “Palestinian icon” and “famous for being the first woman to hijack and airplane.”

Khaled is a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and participated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 840 in 1969 and El Al Flight 219 in 1970. As of 2017, Khaled was a member of PFLP's Political Bureau.

Khaled has said that the second intifada failed because it was not violent enough, advocated for the use of children in terror activities and compared Zionists to Nazis.

The PFLP claimed credit for the 2014 Har Nof Massacre where six people were murdered during morning prayers in a Jerusalem synagogue. The PFLP also claimed credit for the 2001 assassination of the Israeli tourism minister.

On his Instagram post, Abdelhamid wrote: “5 Arab Women You Should Know About! These ladies are an inspiration to myself and many others, and they deserve more recognition! I highly suggest you follow @women.of.the.levant, super cool account.”

The @women.of.the.levant Instagram account has multiple posts promoting PFLP terrorists Khaled as well as Rasmea Odeh.

Odeh was a key military operative with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization. In 1969, she masterminded a PFLP supermarket bombing that killed two college students. She also attempted to bomb the British consulate in Jerusalem. Odeh later moved to the United States but was deported to Jordan in 2017 for immigration fraud.

On June 20, 2020, Abdelhamid also tweeted the same graphic.

Spreading Hatred of Israel

On July 27, 2020, Abdelhamid posted a Tiktok video where he expressed [00:00:02] his opinion on Zionism from a “Palestinians perspective.” He described [00:00:14] Zionism as “colonial” and claimed [00:00:19] that the “success of turning the land of Palestine...into an ethno-national Jewish state, depended on the destruction of Arab society…”

Zionism is the belief that Jews have the right to self-determination in their own national home, and the right to develop their national culture.

On September 12, 2019, Abdelhamid published a poem to Facebook that said: “Israel is an apartheid state” and that “it is easy to overlook the fact that it is domination not security or fear of arabs that drives israeli apartheid.”

Abdelhamid’s poem also claimed: “Zionism in Israel is driven by a need for the Jewish people to control non-Jewish people in every aspect of life” and that “Palestinians threaten the statehood of a dominating Jewish population which has turned to apartheid as a ruling method.”

Endorsing Anti-Israel Agitators

On October 4, 2020, Abdelhamid posted to Instagram: Why You Should Listen To Palestinians...Also a huge shoutout to @nouraerakat...@dianabuttu.”

Former Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) spokesperson Diana Buttu served in the PLO during the second intifada when the PLO, under the auspices of Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, carried out terror attacks and suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

Human rights attorney and professor Noura Erakat is a BDS activist who has frequently endorsed Rasmea Odeh, defended Hamas and has described herself as an anti-Zionist.

On August 3, 2018, Abdelhamid posted to Instagram a photo of himself posing next to Ahed Tamimi.

Ahed Tamimi has a long history of physically attacking Israeli soldiers. Tamimi is the daughter of Bassem Tamimi, who is known for exploiting young children as political props in staged confrontations with Israeli soldiers.

Attending the 2019 National SJP Conference

On November 3, 2019, Abdelhamid featured in a Twitter photo, posted by the SJP chapter at the University of Florida (UF). The post read: “UF SJP is learning lots @NationalSJP, and we’re giving back by teaching other SJPs the gator chomp!”

The 2019 National SJP Conference was held at the University of Minnesota- Twin Cities (UMN), from November 1-3. The Conference themes centered on support for BDS as well as the rejection of Israel and Zionism.

The Conference partnered with numerous anti-Israel organizations and conducted their event in a clandestine manner.

2019 National SJP - Supporting BDS

The Conference website called to capitalize on shifts in the political climate, represented by the elections to the U.S. Congress of Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who both support BDS. National SJP speakers also reportedly drew attention to Rep. Omar’s support for the BDS movement as the Representative for UMN’s Congressional district.

During the Conference, National SJP speakers reportedly “noted the success of past divestment campaigns at the University [UMN], which ultimately resulted in the passing of a campus-wide [BDS] referendum in 2018.”

The UMN resolution passed in 2018 by a margin of 3.4 percent of those students who voted, translating to approval by 6.18% of all eligible voters. Less than 13% of the eligible voters actually voted on UMN’s BDS referendum.

2019 National SJP - Rejecting Israel and Zionism

The 2019 National SJP Conference website indicated that the goal of their “solidarity movement” was to push for policies that “demanded the end of” the state of Israel, referred to as “the Israeli occupation.”

The website clarified that “the Palestinian struggle against Zionism, extends beyond the confines of 1967, and well before the Nakba,” and was based on the rejection of Jewish national self-determination in Israel.

Nakba is an Arabic term for “catastrophe” and refers to the outcome of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It is a term often used to delegitimize the creation of the State of Israel.

2019 National SJP - Heightened Secrecy

The 2019 National SJP Conference required attendees to be “verified and vouched for” by an SJP chapter to which they belonged and required each chapter to register as a group. The conference also required each group to be verified by a “reference––someone who is NOT going to this conference but who is or has recently been a part of your SJP.”

Members of allied student groups could register only as part of an SJP chapter delegation which, in turn, needed to be “vouched for by their campus’s SJP” for “security culture and accountability reasons.”

The Conference also restricted media access to journalists “registered and confirmed by our Media Committee in advance to attend the conference. Absolutely no exceptions will be made.”

During the Conference, National SJP reportedly covered the windows of the conference hall.

2019 National SJP - Partnering Organizations

National SJP partnered with other anti-Israel organizations to table, sell merchandise and lead workshops, including CODEPINK, Palestine Youth Movement (PYM), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), Palestine Legal, Watan Palestine and the Adalah Justice Project.

Keynote speakers included Loubna Qutami, Chair of PYM, as well as Taher Herzallah of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). Other speakers included Miko Peled, Sandra Tamari, Suhad Katib, Chris Gazaleh, Clarissa Bitar, Tariq Luthun, Maytha Alhassen and Sima Shakhsari.

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.