Michael Kennedy

Overview

Michael Kennedy was a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Columbia University (Columbia).

Kennedy was a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Columbia at least from 2010 to 2012. He received an MA in Anthropology from the American University in Cairo (AUC) and taught photography in the Department of Journalism at An Najah University, Nablus.

CSJP Spreading Hate and Standing with Terrorists

In November 2010, Kennedy and other CSJP members staged a mock Israeli checkpoint on Columbia’s Low Plaza, in which members portraying "Israeli soldiers" harassed and yelled at passers-by. They also blindfolded, and placed tape over the mouths of other students, who were meant to portray security detainees.

On November 20, 2010 the video CSJP uploaded of the event highlighted that "91% of students at An-Najah University miss classes because of delays at checkpoints."

In March of 2016 Al-Najah held a “human reading chain” in honor of a terrorist who killed murdered three Israelis on a bus. An-Najah University, — the largest Palestinian university in the West Bank — also remains notorious for its Sbarro Cafe Bombing Exhibition, celebrating the 2001 suicide bombing attack on the Sbarro Cafe, which killed 16 people — including 8 children and a pregnant woman — and wounded 130. Al-Najah’s exhibit featured a mock-up of Sbarro’s, including gnawed pizza crusts and bloody plastic body parts suspended from the ceiling, as if they were blasting through the air.

As of 2010, the Student Council of An-Najah — dominated by factions loyal to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah — remained infamous for advocating violence and recruiting Palestinian college students into terrorist groups. Associated Press archive footage, published in June 2015, confirmed An-Najah to still be an incubator for terrorists.

In 2013, An Najah’s graduating class was named after terrorist Abu Jihad At "an appreciation ceremony for the outstanding students from the Martyr Abu Jihad Class," Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki "expressed hope that the class would fulfill the dream of Martyr commander Khalil Al-Wazir [Abu Jihad]." Abu Jihad (Khalil Al-Wazir) headed the PLO terror organization's "military wing" and planned many deadly Fatah terror attacks, including the most lethal in Israeli history — the Maghrabi bus hijacking that killed 37 civilians, 12 of them children and wounded 71 others.

Hamas-affiliated Islamists won the student council elections at Birzeit in April of 2015.

In January of 2016, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) swept Birzeit’s campus, seizing Hamas propaganda. The University characterized the sweep as a “belligerent ...attack on the university and our right to education and all the principles involved in the freedom of education."

In November 2012, CSJP staged a mock arrest protest, as part of a "Right to Education week" — an initiative started by Birzeit University, another college whose student body has been ridden with terrorists, since at least 2003. The dramatization falsely represented that Palestinians were arrested solely for the “crime” of attending University — and branded both Israel and the United States as “racist” and “apartheid” states.

Following the checkpoint event in 2010, Kennedy co-wrote an article with Dina Omar and Alaa Milbes excusing Palestinian terrorist attacks on the basis of "inequality." “Terrorist attacks are a desperate response to the inequality between Palestinians and Israelis.

In May 2008, Kennedy exhibited his photography in a Nakba commemoration held in Egypt entitled "between the walls". Nakba is generally translated as “catastrophe” in Arabic and is a term often used to delegitimize the creation of the State of Israel.

CSJP Demonizing Israel

In December 2015, CSJP promoted a video originally produced by Al-Jazeera that referred to Israel’s security fence as “The Apartheid Wall.” The video also suggested falsely insinuated that a non-binding, advisory opinion on the security fence issued by the International Court of Justice is binding international law. 

Israel’s security barrier, 97 percent of which is a low chain-link barrier, was built as a deterrent to Palestinian terror attacks. The concrete portions of the fence were built in response to Palestinian sniper attacks.

On November 17, 2015, CSJP protested opposite an event hosted by Aryeh: Columbia Students Association for Israel, titled: “Israel Week.” CSJP members held signs accusing Israel of apartheid and ethnic cleansing. Another sign said: “Celebrating Israel is celebrating apartheid.”

In March 2015, CSJP’s yearly Israel Apartheid week featured the building of a mock ‘Apartheid’ wall on campus. 

CSJP Excusing Anti-Semitism as Anti-Zionism

Columbia University which includes Barnard College (Barnard), was reported in 2015 to be the most anti-Semitic campus in the United States. Columbia employs a number of notoriously anti-Israel professors including Joseph Massad, Rashid Khalidi and Nadia Abu El-Haj.

In November 2014, CSJP hosted professor Steven Salaita. 

In 2014, The University of Illinois withdrew an offer of employment to Salaita after becoming aware of his anti-Semitic tweets. One tweet, posted shortly after Hamas kidnapped three teenage Israeli high school students, read: "You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f**king West Bank settlers would go missing.” In 2017, Salaita posted to Facebook: “People ask if I would go back in time and change anything. I would not…I will die unapologetic.” In February 2019, Salaita stated that he had become a school bus driver in the Washington, D.C., area.

CSJP’s Banner Controversy at Barnard

In March 2014, Columbia SJP organizer Jannine-Masoud Salman made a large banner that was hung at the entrance of Barnard college. The banner read: “Stand for Justice, Stand for Palestine” and featured a map of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, with no internal borders, colored uniformly green. 

The banner was reportedly removed after “students, their parents and alumni” said it made them “feel uncomfortable and unsafe in the space” and that it gave the impression Barnard was “endorsing SJP's message that Israel as a Jewish state does not have the right to exist.”  

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.

Social Media and Weblinks

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michael.kennedy.9022