Mohammad Ghassan
Overview
Mohammad Ghassan expressed support for Hamas terrorists and called for Israel’s destruction as a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) officer in late 2023. During the same period, Ghassan spread hatred of Israel during its war against Hamas.In late 2023 and early 2024, SJP OSU expressed [slide 3] support for Hamas, spread [00:00:19] anti-Semitism and promoted hatred of Israel and the United States on campus. SJP OSU also showed support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Ghassan’s SJP chapter expressed [slide 3] support for Hamas one week after its terror atrocities and war crimes against Israeli civilians, including mass murder, torture, rape, beheadings and kidnappings, which were executed on October 7, 2023.
The Hamas terror attacks left over 1,200 Israelis dead, hundreds kidnapped and thousands wounded. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.”
Support for Hamas Terrorists
On October 8, 2023, one day after Hamas massacred 1,200 Israeli Jews, Ghassan participated [00:00:34] in an SJP OSU protest outside the Ohio Statehouse called: “Stand with Gaza.”Ghassan was at the front of the protest, holding a megaphone and chanting.
SJP OSU co-president Heba Latif reportedly expressed support for Hamas. One local journalist said [00:00:59]: “Latif calls the Hamas attack a ‘resistance movement against the occupation.’”
Among Palestinians and anti-Israel activists, the term “resistance” can be a euphemism for nationalistic terror. It is often used to excuse or even glorify anti-Israel and anti-Semitic violence.
The modern State of Israel was founded in 1948.
The SJP OSU statement accused [slide 5] Israel of “genocide” and also said [slide 3]: “It is crucial that the University acknowledge the 75-year occupation, including the 16-year blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip, controlling the area from land, sea, and air.”
Israel and Egypt implemented a United Nations-approved [pp. 39–41] joint blockade of the Gaza Strip in 2011 to stop Hamas from acquiring more sophisticated rockets.
On Saturday, October 7, 2023, approximately 2,900 heavily armed Hamas terrorists breached Israel’s border with Gaza. They executed numerous war crimes on civilians, including mass murder, beheadings of children, rape of men and women, torture, kidnappings and mutilation. Hamas broadcast videos of their butchery on social media, often to victims’ accounts for families to see. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.” As of November 10, 2023, over 1,200 Israelis, the vast majority of them civilians, were murdered during the attacks. Hamas kidnapped 242 Israelis, including at least 30 children. At least 3,500 people were wounded, many severely.
Calling for Israel’s Destruction
On February 20, 2024, Ghassan was featured in an SJP OSU group photo posted to Instagram. Ghassan commented: “From the river to the sea
.”“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” is a chant calling to dismantle the State of Israel. It has also been employed by Hamas leader Khaled Mashal to call for the replacement of Israel with an Islamic state.
Spreading Hatred of Israel
On November 17, 2023, Ghassan attended [00:01:45] an SJP OSU “DAY OF ACTION” event held in Thompson Library on campus. The event description accused Israel of an “ongoing genocide.” He was also interviewed [00:01:44] by OSU’s Student Television Station during the demonstration.On November 1, 2023, Ghassan signed an anti-Israel statement titled: “Statement in Solidarity with Palestine: A Letter to Our University Community.”
The statement said: “We must not lose sight of the fact that the root cause of this cycle of violence is Israeli settler colonialism, military occupation, and apartheid.”
The same statement claimed: “To be clear, occupation, genocide, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes are not matters of opinion.” The statement also promoted SJP OSU and called on OSU to “support the wider efforts” of the BDS movement.
On October 17, 2023, Ghassan attended [00:00:17] an anti-Israel event co-hosted by SJP OSU titled: “A Night of Remembrance & Prayer.”
Ghassan was interviewed [00:00:22] at the event, where he claimed [00:00:31] that “innocent lives are being murdered by IOF soldiers.”
“Israeli Occupation Forces,” or “IOF,” is a derogatory name for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) used by anti-Israel activists to demonize Israel’s army.
SJP OSU Anti-Semitism and Hatred of Israel & the U.S.
As of January 27, 2024, the anti-Israel website Mondoweiss reported that SJP OSU and all other Big 10 Conference SJP chapters signed a pro-BDS letter accusing their schools of “complicity in the Palestinian genocide.”The SJP chapters also called on their schools to “immediately divest from all entities associated with the internationally condemned state of Israel.”
On December 8, 2023, during Ghassan’s tenure as the events coordinator of SJP OSU, the group erected a display with signs that said: “NEVER AGAIN?,” “GENOCIDE UNIVERSITY,” “#Lift the Siege on Gaza NOW,” and “#End the Israeli Occupation NOW.”
The phrase “Never Again” is often deployed as a general declaration against genocide, invoking the Nazis’ war of extermination against the Jews.
On November 22, 2023, SJP OSU held an event titled: “Teach-ins for a free Palestine.” One teach-in was titled: “Zionism, Media Misinformation, & How the U.S. Funds Genocide.”
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 October 12, 2023, SJP OSU held an event at the Ohio Statehouse titled: “Day of Resistance Protest for Palestine.” SJP OSU and the Palestinian Women’s Association, another anti-Israel OSU group, co-hosted the event.
Protestors at the front of the march held a banner that said: “FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA / عاشت الانتفاضة [Long live the Intifada].”
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.
Individual protesters held different signs that said [00:00:17]“FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA,” and “STOP ETHNIC CLEANSING AND GENOCIDE.” Other signs said: “IT’S NOT ‘CONFLICT’ IT’S GENOCIDE” and “‘RESPECT EXISTENCE OR EXPECT RESISTANCE.’”
Biographical Information
As of March 2023, Ghassan was listed as the events coordinator of SJP OSU. He served in the same position in November 2023.As of November 2023, Ghassan was reportedly a third-year biology student at OSU.
As of March 5, 2024, Ghassan’s Instagram indicated that he was slated to graduate from OSU in 2025.
As of the same date, Ghassan’s Instagram indicated he was affiliated with the Art of Freedom Dabke Troupe (AOF) at OSU, another anti-Israel campus group that has also promoted hatred of Israel.
Full Profile Coming Soon
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.
