Melissa Rowan

Overview

Melissa Christine Rowan, known as "Misty", is a radical anti-war activist and poet living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has a string of arrests and convictions connected to her involvement in various demonstrations.

Rowan is the President of the Anti-War Committee (AWC), an organization that "works against direct US intervention around the world" and whose main campaign is ending U.S. aid to Israel. Rowan is also a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement activist.

Rowan is active in The Committee to Stop FBI Repression, Occupy Wall Street Minneapolis and The People’s Bailout Coalition.

Anti-Israel and Anti-Semitic

Rowan’s Twitter feed is replete with anti-Israel invective — some sourced from virulently anti-Semitic websites.

On November 5, 2015, Rowan tweeted: "... killing babies is one of iDF's asymmetrical tactics," citing to a supposed report by “Norwegian doctors to the U.N.” that Israeli troops stomped on the heads of 18 Gazan babies. That “report” — attributed to the mythical Sorcha Faal — can actually be sourced to FirstLightForum — a viciously anti-Semitic web forum (with entries like “Jewish Ritual Murder” and “Satanic Alliance of Jews and Christians”). The report was then recirculated in October 2015 by circusbuoy, a site that equates Zionism with Nazism and claims that Israel harvests Palestinian organs.

Rowan clarified in a Twitter exchange the same day. "This isn’t about Jews, got no problem with Jews. I've got a problem with murderous Zionists and sh*theads."

Also in November of 2015, Rowan referred to Israel as a "monster," tarred it with a litany of atrocities, including genocide, the “ethnocentric nationalism” of Nazi Germany and accused the Israeli Defense Forces and police of callously murdering teenage schoolchildren.

In November of 2012, Rowan addressed a rally to end U.S. aid to Israel, in which she accused Israel of keeping the population of Gaza at "near starvation levels." Rowan also accused the Israeli Defense Forces of murdering Mavi Marmara flotilla “activists”, “carrying desperately needed goods, food and medicine to the people of Gaza,” despite the United Nations’ official findings that the flotilla activists, in an organized manner, armed with weapons, including firearms, initiated the violent confrontation with Israeli forces. Following, the incident there was no usable humanitarian aid found on board the ship — only crude weaponry.

Arrests

On November 3, 2015 — after interfering with a talk on ethics and the law of war, given by an Israeli law professor, Moshe Halbertal — Rowan was arrested and charged with two misdemeanors: disorderly conduct and trespassing at the University of Minnesota Law School (UMN Law). Rowan was incarcerated, along with two other protesters (Jordan Scott Kushner and Sophia Hansen-Day,) and released the next day, on bail.

Rowan was one of 50 protesters who prevented Halbertal from speaking for over 30 minutes. Outside the hall, the protesters — members of the AWC, Students for a Democratic Society and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) — chanted "Free, free Palestine," so loudly that it was difficult to hear Halbertal until 45 minutes after the lecture was scheduled to start.

The next morning, David Wippman, Dean of UMN Law, sharply criticized the nature of the protest: "As members of a university community… we should condemn any efforts to silence free speech through protests of the sort that took place at the law school yesterday," he said. He added that it was "unacceptable" for protesters to deny others the right to hear a guest lecture.

Wippman’s statement was followed up by Minnesota University President, Eric W. Kaler and Provost Karen Hanson, who released this joint statement: "We all have a responsibility to ensure an open and non-threatening environment for education, research and dialogue — for all our students, faculty and staff, and for the general public."

On November 18, 2015, Rowan and Hansen-Day appeared in Hennepin Country District Court, where both face trespassing charges for interrupting the November 3rd event. Their pretrial dates are set for early 2016.

In July of 2014, Rowan was one of 15 activistsarrested for trespassing (what AWC called "civil disobedience") at Senator Al Franken’s campaign headquarters, where she led a group of protesters demanding that he change his pro-Israel stance.

In October of 2011, Rowan was arrested and incarcerated for blocking traffic by setting up a tent in an intersection in front of a bank to protest home foreclosures. She was charged with a misdemeanor and cited for trespassing on government property.

In September 2008, Rowan was arrested for blocking traffic by sitting in an intersection in front of a Senator’s office to protest the Iraq war.

AWC - Raising Funds for a Terrorist

In February of 2015, Rowan hosted a benefit show sponsored by AWC called "Rock for Rasmea" to raise funds for the convicted terrorist ­murderer Rasmea Odeh.

Odeh was a key military operative [00:02:08]with the terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In 1969, Odeh masterminded a PFLP bombing that killed two college students in a Jerusalem supermarket. Odeh also attempted to bomb the British consulate. 

Odeh confessed, in a highly detailed account, the day following her arrest. In a 2004 documentary, one of Odeh’s co-conspirators directly implicated [00:10:53] Odeh as the mastermind. 

In 1970, an Israeli court tried and convicted Odeh for her involvement in both bombings and sentenced her to life imprisonment. However, Odeh was released 10 years later, in a prisoner swap and emigrated to the United States.

On November 10, 2014, a Michigan federal jury convicted Odeh for immigration fraud because she failed to disclose her prior conviction and life sentence on her immigration application. On March 12, 2015, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison. 

In 2017, after an appeal and a lengthy court battle, Odeh admitted to immigration fraud, was stripped of her U.S. citizenship, deported to Jordan and banned from re-entering the U.S.

AWC frequently posts pictures supporting armed terrorist activities as "resistance" against Israel on its social media accounts. AWC’s pro-terrorist messages often feature pictures of terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and statements such as, “no peace for the war maker” and “resistance is justified when the people are occupied.”

As of 2015, AWC’s estimated annual revenue is $87,000. The AWC has highlighted its anti-Israel events, which it conducted almost every week in the summer of 2014, in its annual fundraising pitch. In 2010, AWC’s offices were raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI,) pursuant to its investigation of AWC’s "material support for 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.

Social Media and Weblinks

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/misty.rowan.1 [Deleted]

Twitter:https://twitter.com/missteatree

Instagram:https://instagram.com/missteatree/ [Private]

Google+:https://plus.google.com/116800420806151111004/posts

Youtube:http://www.youtube.com/user/missteatree

Website:http://www.missteatree.com/the-blog/ [Deleted]