Mohammed El-Kurd

Mohammed El-Kurd Spoke at the Pro-Hamas Encampment at Columbia University (Columbia), Called for Violence, Massacres & Israel’s Destruction & Praised Hamas Terrorists

Mohammed El-Kurd called for violence, massacres and Israel’s destruction during its war against Hamas terrorists in early 2024. He praised Hamas on October 7, 2023, the day the terror group murdered 1,200 Israeli Jews and committed other war crimes.

El-Kurd has expressed support for terrorists and spread anti-Semitism and incitement. In addition, El-Kurd has promoted hatred of Zionists and Israel on social media, including denying Jewish history.

Mohammed El-Kurd spoke at the pro-Hamas encampment at Columbia in April 2024.

El-Kurd is best known for his activism in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem, where his family’s residence was at the center of a long-standing property dispute. Incitement in 2021 that he and others spread regarding Sheikh Jarrah and the Al-Aqsa Mosque led to violence across Israel, including rocket attacks from Hamas.

In May 2021, Palestinian violence erupted in anticipation of an Israel High Court ruling on eviction proceedings concerning over 70 Palestinian tenants illegally residing in Jewish-owned properties in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

El-Kurd is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. He has also conducted activism in the United States with multiple anti-Israel groups, including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), where he has performed spoken word poetry.

In July 2023, El-Kurd announced on Twitter his upcoming memoir, “A Million States In One.”

In October 2021, El-Kurd published “Rifqa,” a book of anti-Israel poetry.

As of July 2023, El-Kurd has worked as the “Palestine correspondent” for The Nation magazine since September 2021.

El-Kurd was named one of “The 100 Most Influential People of 2021” by Time magazine in 2021.

As of July 2023, El-Kurd’s website said he graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), in Savannah, Georgia, with a bachelor’s degree in writing in 2020. His website also said he graduated from Brooklyn College (BC), part of the City University of New York (CUNY), with a master’s degree in creative writing.

As of January 2024, El-Kurd’s Facebook page said he was located in New York, New York.

Calling for Violence, Massacres and Israel’s Destruction

On February 26, 2024, during Israel’s war against Hamas, El-Kurd tweeted against critics of the anti-Israel movement by expressing support for hijacking airplanes, throwing Molotov cocktails and rioting.

El-Kurd wrote: “You can’t protest peacefully. You can’t boycott. You can’t hunger strike. You can’t hijack planes. You can’t block traffic. You can’t throw Molotovs. You can’t self-immolate. You can’t heckle politicians. You can’t march. You can’t riot. You can’t dissent. You just can’t be.”

On October 7, 2023, Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 Israelis, kidnapped hundreds and wounded thousands. War crimes included mass rape and torture. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.” For more information, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.

On January 13, 2024, El-Kurd was featured as a speaker at an anti-Israel rally calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The rally reportedly took place in Parliament Square in London, England.

At the rally, El-Kurd concluded [00:00:12] his remarks by saying: “Our day will come, but we must normalize massacres as the status quo.” He then left the stage amid cheers and applause.

In the same speech, El-Kurd also said: “This genocide is not without a culprit. Zionism is the root cause of all that is happening in Palestine.”

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. Zionism is a core part of the identity of most Jews.

El-Kurd also said: “Zionism is apartheid, it’s genocide, it’s murder, it’s a racist ideology, rooted in settler expansion and racist domination and we must root it out of the world.” He also said: “We must de-Zionise because Zionism is a death cult.”

Praising Hamas on October 7, 2023

On October 7, 2023, El-Kurd shared a post on Twitter that included a video of Hamas terrorists breaching [00:00:04] Israel’s security fence with a bulldozer. The video was captioned: “...Today, as Palestinians break down colonial barriers, they breathe life into the dream of an open, liberated geography.”

Hamas is a designated terrorist organization founded in 1987 that is dedicated to destroying Israel and killing Jews. Since 2001, Hamas has launched thousands of rockets at Israel and on October 7, 2023, Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped over 200 hostages, including children and the elderly.

Also on October 7, 2023, El-Kurd tweeted: “The siege is the provocation. Forcing people to live in an open-air prison is an escalation. Occupation, colonization, and land-theft are the root cause of the ‘conflict.’ Everything else is retaliation.”

Referring to Gaza as an “open-air prison” is a way to delegitimize the UN-approved [pp. 39–41] joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip imposed in 2011 to prevent Hamas from acquiring more sophisticated rockets. Following Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the Israeli military discovered that Hamas went around the blockade by smuggling weaponry through tunnels under the Philadelphi corridor separating Gaza from Egypt.

Support for Terrorists

On September 23, 2020, El-Kurd posted a graphic to Instagram of a hand holding a flaming Molotov cocktail. The image said: “NORMALIZATION IS BETRAYAL!” in four languages. He was referring to the policy of “anti-normalization,” which refuses to recognize Israel and seeks to police all interactions between Israelis and Palestinians.

On July 8, 2021, El-Kurd tweeted about terror group leader Ghassan Kanafani: “...His revolutionary articulations of the Palestinian plight for liberation shook the colonial regime. Yet he is not dead: his ideas remain ever timely & teachable.”

Kanafani was a leading member and spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) during the terrorist organization’s early years. Kanafani announced the PFLP’s responsibility for the Lod Airport Massacre of May 1972 and was linked to the airport attackers. The attack killed 26 people and wounded 80 others.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is dedicated to the violent destruction of Israel. It is designated as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) by the United States. The EU, Canada, the Gulf Cooperation Council, Australia and Israel also list it as a terror group due to its history of carrying out assassinations, suicide bombings, hijackings and multiple murders.

On July 9, 2021, El-Kurd posted on Instagram an image of Kanafani giving a press conference, with PFLP and other communist propaganda behind him. El-Kurd wrote: “49 years since the Zionist regime assassinated revolutionary author Ghassan Kanafani. His wisdom remains teachable and undying.”

On July 12, 2021, El-Kurd tweeted: “...Khalida Jarrar should be free, especially now. Please take a minute to sign this petition & tweet #freeKhalidaJarrar…” The petition called Jarrar “a revolutionary leader” and “a Palestinian political prisoner, who was arrested for her national political activism.”

Khalida Jarrar is a senior PFLP member who has been in Israeli prison multiple times. In 2019, she was one of 50 PFLP operatives arrested, following a deadly 2018 bombing attack that targeted an Israeli family on vacation.

On September 10, 2021, El-Kurd tweeted: “...the triumph that the six freedom fighters achieved cannot be undone. They’ve quite literally shown us the light at the end of the tunnel.”

On September 6, 2021, six Palestinian prisoners escaped from the maximum-security Gilboa Prison in Israel. The escaped prisoners were convicted members of the terror organizations Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, who were jailed for their involvement in attacks carried out during the second intifada. All were recaptured by September 19, 2021, by Israeli authorities.

On September 28, 2021, El-Kurd tweeted: “Today marks 21 years since the start of the Second Intifada. Glory to those who resisted and sacrificed. Glory to the martyrs…The struggle continues, until liberation.”

The second intifada took place from 2000 to 2005 where Palestinian terrorists carried out over 130 suicide bombings, murdering over 1,000 Israeli civilians and soldiers. Terrorists targeted city buses, shopping centers, dance clubs and cafes. Palestinian leadership encouraged children to carry out “martyrdom” operations against Israel.

Also on September 28, 2021, El-Kurd tweeted: “The [second] Intifada lasted for five years and, although it has unified the Palestinian people in resisting decades of colonial violence, the Israeli crackdown on the uprising was bloody…”

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.

On July 4, 2023, during an Israeli counterterrorism operation in the Jenin refugee camp, El-Kurd tweeted: “What courage it must take for these young men who were raised in the violence of the occupation and the bloodiness of the 2002 Jenin Massacre to take on one of the world’s most lethal and immoral colonizer armies, defending their homes and communities against Zionist terror.”

El-Kurd’s tweet was in response to a tweet that showed images of armed young men, some in military uniforms, that said: “Peaceful ‘bunch of teenagers’ in question.” El-Kurd had referred to them as “a bunch of teenagers” in a previous tweet the same day.

In early July 2023, Israeli forces launched a two-day counterterrorism operation in the Jenin refugee camp. Its goal was to target terrorists and dismantle the terror infrastructure of organizations such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). By the end of the operation, the Israeli army had reportedly dismantled “hundreds of explosives, weapons caches and underground tunnels.”

Also on July 4, 2023, El-Kurd tweeted: “Palestinians living in a refugee camp under brutal occupation have every f**king right to resist those who are killing them and keeping them hostage no matter what any of you pearl-clutching idiots think.”

Anti-Semitism and Incitement

On July 24, 2023, El-Kurd was featured on the “Lex Fridman Podcast #391” during which Fridman asked [00:41:13]: “...you’ve tweeted a comparison between Israel and Hitler, and thereby diminishing the evil that is Hitler. What would you say to that?”

El-Kurd responded [00:41:54]: “...I am allowed analogy and I’m allowed to say whatever I want.”

El-Kurd also said [01:38:45], referring to U.S. economic support of Israel: “I don’t think they’re [Americans] are concerned with funding apartheid in another country” and [01:39:17]: “And I wonder if the everyday American is concerned that many of their politicians are Israel first politicians, are politicians who care more about maintaining a relationship with the Israeli regime, than they care about their own districts.

The term “Israel-Firster” is an anti-Semitic slur used against Jews to accuse them of dual loyalty. The term also applies to non-Jews to allege they are more loyal to Israel than to their own countries.

On March 15, 2021, El-Kurd tweeted: “‘ancestral homeland?’ Then explain why y’all can’t walk around Jerusalem without getting sunburnt?”

One way that anti-Israel activists spread anti-Semitism is to claim [00:06:46] that Jews, particularly Ashkenazi Jews, do not descend from the ancient Israelites. This claim alleges that Jews are white Europeans who lack a connection to the Land of Israel.

On May 10, 2021, El-Kurd tweeted, referring to the Al-Aqsa mosque: “While the occupation forces empties out a mosque that was built in 705 CE out of its Muslim worshippers, Israeli Jews ready themselves to invade it.”

The “Israeli Jews” to whom El-Kurd was referring were depicted in a video embedded in his post. They were shown praying at the Western Wall on Jerusalem Day, an Israeli national holiday.

In May 2021, violent clashes broke out between Palestinian worshippers and Israeli police at the Al-Aqsa compound following claims the Al-Aqsa Mosque was in danger. The subsequent incitement was a leading factor in Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists firing over 4,300 rockets from Gaza into Israel later that month. Israel responded by launching “Operation Guardian of the Walls (OGW),” carrying out targeted military strikes in Gaza. Allegations of Jews “threatening” to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque have been a traditional pretext for Arab attacks on Jews predating the State of Israel.

Palestinians and anti-Israel activists have historically described visits by Jews to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem as “incursions” during which Jews purportedly “storm” the Temple Mount and Al-Aqsa Mosque. Palestinians have also frequently used the mosque to stockpile stone slabs, fireworks and rocks, with which they attack Israeli security officers and non-Muslim visitors to the Temple Mount.

Also on May 10, 2021, El-Kurd tweeted: “Now in Al-Aqsa Mosque, Israeli occupation forces are attacking worshippers w/ coated bullets, tear gas & stun grenades…Thousands of settlers will invade the Old City & assault Palestinians in the coming hours.”

Incitement surrounding Al-Aqsa and Sheikh Jarrah were leading factors in Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists firing over 4,300 rockets from Gaza at Israeli population centers from May 10 to 21, 2021. In response to rocket attacks from Gaza, Israel launched “Operation Guardian of the Walls (OGW),” striking military targets in the terrorist-controlled enclave.

On May 12, 2021, during OGW, El-Kurd tweeted: “I don’t care who this offends they have completely internalized the ways of the nazis.”

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) highlights as one possible contemporary example of anti-Semitism: “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” The U.S. State Department adopted the IHRA’s working definition of anti-Semitism in 2016. Over 40 countries have adopted the definition as well.

Also on May 12, 2021, El-Kurd tweeted: “SHUT THE F**K UP MY GOD YOU ARE SO DELUDED. YOU ARE KILLING MURDERING BOMBING ETHNICALLY CLEANSING COLONIZING LYNCHINGKRISTALLNACHTING US IN REAL TIME CURRENTLY RIGHT NOW…”

Kristallnacht, or “the Night of Broken Glass,” was a two-day violent pogrom that took place November 9-10, 1938, against the Jewish populations of Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland. Jewish stores, synagogues and houses were destroyed and burned, and tens of thousands of Jews were arrested by the Gestapo and the SS, and put into prisons and concentration camps.

El-Kurd’s tweet was in response to a tweet by a London-based Jewish educator that said: “My reality is teaching a class on the Holocaust - the extermination of 6 million Jews - & then constantly checking your phone to see updates on Hamas - a genocidal terrorist organisation - raining bombs down on your family in the Jewish state. Is this Jewish privilege?”

On October 24, 2022, El Kurd was featured as a guest speaker at Harvard at an event co-hosted by the Harvard College Palestine Solidarity Committee (Harvard PSC), the SJP affiliate at Harvard.

El-Kurd was asked whether recent attacks “on innocent Jews and civilians in Israel and Palestine and Jews across the world” by anti-Israel activists “are correct and justified” or “merely just acts of terror.” El-Kurd replied: “I’m not going to dignify…that racist question with a response.”

In the fall of 2022, Israel saw a wave of Palestinian terror attacks against both civilians and soldiers. There were likewise attacks by anti-Israel activists against Jews in the United States throughout 2021 and 2022.

Hatred of Zionists, Zionism and Israel

On March 22, 2025, El-Kurd posted on X: “being a zionist in 2025 is laughable."

On February 25, 2025, El-Kurd posted on X: “A brief history of Israel’s theft and trafficking of Palestinian organs.”

Accusations against Israel stealing or harvesting organs have been revived over the years, echoing old anti-Semitic blood libels against Jews.

On February 18, 2025, El-Kurd posted on X referring to a map titled “Western Palestine,” writing: “This map is from before Israel existed. Even my dad is older than this stupid made up country. Though it would have been a striking political statement if this was indeed a modern map—Israel is a fiction, like the tooth fairy, santa claus, and good American journalism.”

On February 7, 2025, El-Kurd posted on X: “Zionism is indefensible—whether it is political or ‘cultural.’”

On February 6, 2025, El-Kurd posted on X referring to Israel as “a state full of pedophiles.”

On January 16, 2025, El-Kurd posted on X: “how is it after 15 months and countless atrocities many zionists are even more zionist than before? talk about rotten to the core.”

On November 17, 2024, El-Kurd posted on X: “Zionists are depraved.”

On October 30, 2024, El-Kurd posted on X: “been thinking about those zionist soldiers with ptsd [post-traumatic stress disorder] and it’s wild that their own brains intervened to punish them long before the ICC [International Criminal Court] tried to prosecute them for their crimes against humanity.”

On the same day, El-Kurd responded to his own post on X: “and ofc [of course] ptsd is nowhere near being a sufficient punishment for genocide.”

On September 23, 2023, El-Kurd tweeted: “Zionism is a racist and colonial political ideology—opposing it is a moral duty.”

On September 1, 2024, during Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists, El-Kurd posted on X: “I’ve had enough of this. Day after day, our people are incinerated, are [our] men are raped, our children are packed into plastic bags by a SELF-PROCLAIMED Jewish army. We are a year into a GENOCIDE…”

On July 26, 2024, El-Kurd posted on X: “If Zionists do not want to be compared to Nazis, they should stop acting like Nazis…It’s that simple.”

On March 31, 2022, El-Kurd participated in a keynote panel sponsored by the Duke University (Duke) SJP chapter (Duke SJP).

Several sources reported that when a member of the panel’s audience asked El-Kurd what would happen to the Israelis if the Palestinians took all of Israel “from the river to the sea,” he reportedly replied: “I don’t care. I truly, sincerely, don’t give a f**k.”

“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” is a chant used [00:02:47] to call for the elimination of 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. In April 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning the chant as antisemitic.

In November 2021, El-Kurd expressed solidarity with Yasmeen Mashayekh, a graduate student at the University of Southern California (USC) and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Senator who tweeted her desire to “kill every motherf**king Zionist.”

On May 19, 2021, during OGW, El-Kurd featured in a Zoom webinar posted on YouTube. Referring to Gaza, he said [01:15:32]: “The mere fact of two million people being in an open-air prison…where they don’t have freedom of movement, is incredibly unacceptable and violent and within itself warrants riots and burning tires and warrants a revolution and warrants all kinds of resistance.”

Referring to Gaza as an “open-air prison” is a way to delegitimize the UN-approved [pp. 39–41] joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip imposed in 2011 to prevent Hamas from acquiring more sophisticated rockets. Following Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the Israeli military discovered that Hamas went around the blockade by smuggling weaponry through tunnels under the Philadelphi corridor separating Gaza from Egypt.

Anti-Israel activists use the term “resistance” to refer to violence and terror perpetrated against Israeli civilians and their allies. It is used to glorify and encourage anti-Israel and anti-Semitic violence. Anti-Israel activists chant slogans such as: “Resistance by any means necessary!” and “Resistance is justified when people are occupied!” in response to terror attacks.

On May 16, 2021, during OGW, El-Kurd posted on Twitter: “The IOF shot & reportedly killed a man after his car crashed into a police car in Sheikh Jarrah. We expect increased police brutality & isolation from the city as the blockade of the neighborhood continues…” El-Kurd included in his Twitter post an edited video of the car-ramming.

On May 16, 2021, a Palestinian terrorist rammed his car into a police checkpoint in Jerusalem, injuring seven Israeli border police officers, before he was shot dead.

“IOF” stands for “Israeli Occupation Forces,” a derogatory name used by anti-Israel activists to demonize Israel’s army in place of its official name, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

On May 15, 2021, El-Kurd tweeted, referring to Israeli security forces in Sheikh Jarrah: “I hope every one of them dies in the most torturous & slow ways. I hope that they see their mothers suffering (not that these conscienceless pigs would care). I hope these terrorists get what they deserve tenfold…”

On May 14, 2021, El-Kurd tweeted: “IDF is a terrorist organization. Pass it on.”

On May 12, 2021, during violent Arab riots in multiple Israeli cities, El-Kurd tweeted: “Across the country Zionists are beating, gassing, shooting, lynching Palestinians. They’re unhinged. The videos we’re seeing are reminiscent of the Nakba. State-settler collusion emboldening an unquenchable thirst for Palestinian blood & land. Terrorist, genocidal nation.”

On May 11, 2021, during OGW, violent Arab riots broke out in Israel’s mixed Jewish-Arab city of Lod and in other Israeli cities with large Arab populations. The rioters in Lod reportedly raised Hamas and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) flags and attacked Israeli civilians with slabs and rocks, as well as firebombs and metal rods. Rioters also torched synagogues, cars and businesses, and vandalized hospital medical equipment, schools and government buildings.

The term “Nakba” is generally translated as “catastrophe” in Arabic, referring to the outcome of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It is a term used to delegitimize the creation of the State of Israel by drawing a comparison to the Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, meaning “catastrophe.”

On May 10, 2021, the first day of OGW, El-Kurd tweeted: “I think the correct place of blame here is the Israeli occupation. Nothing Hamas does, (and ‘nothing’ is a great encapsulation of what Hamas did today) warrants Israeli forces intentionally targeting civilians and killing 20 people, including 9 children.”

On May 10, 2021, Hamas fired 200 rockets at Israeli population centers, reportedly wounding at least 28 Israelis. In response, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched strikes on terrorist targets in Gaza. Israeli military sources reportedly said that the majority of Palestinians killed that day were Hamas terrorists or victims of stray Hamas rockets.

On April 22, 2021, El-Kurd tweeted: “You are either anti-Zionist or for the expulsion and genocide of Palestinians. There is no in-between.”

On July 21, 2019, El-Kurd posted on Instagram an image Israel’s security barrier with a painted mural of terrorist Leila Khaled holding an assault rifle.

El-Kurd wrote: “I’m standing next to a Leila Khaled graffiti painted on the #Israeli Annexation Wall. - This illegal, #racist #apartheid wall was built beginning 2002, and ever since it has acted as a literal open-air prison, depriving #Palestinians from the fundamental human right of freedom of movement…”

Leila Khaled is a leading member 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 [00:36:07] for the use of children in terror activities and compared Zionists to Nazis.

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 February 16, 2021, El-Kurd wrote: “Zionist salivation over Sheikh Jarrah’s prime strategic location hasn’t paused since 1948…If the Zionists are successful in stealing Sheikh Jarrah, they will steal all of Jerusalem.”

On February 12, 2019, El-Kurd tweeted: “f**k israel & f**k aipac & f**k zionism & f**k anti-semitism & f**k manipulation & f**k smearing & f**k racism & f**k all of you.”

Denying Jewish History

On July 18, 2021, El-Kurd alleged in a tweet that “there is no solid archeological evidence” of the existence of the ancient Jewish Temples in Jerusalem.

“Temple Denial” is a part of a broader political effort to deny Jewish history in Israel, in order to delegitimize restored Jewish sovereignty, attack Israel’s legitimacy and portray Jews as foreign to the Land of Israel. It is also a form of historical revisionism that has been compared to Holocaust denial.

Temple Denial reportedly began in the 1990’s with Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat, but its roots trace back to actions taken by the Islamic Waqf in 1948, the year the modern State of Israel was founded.

Palestinian guidebooks and politicians have erased Jewish history, denying the long-documented history of Jerusalem’s two ancient Jewish Temples, which were the center of Jewish life for nearly one thousand years.

Also on July 18, 2021, El-Kurd tweeted: “...even if there *were* future evidence that confirms the temple existed beneath alAqsa…this fanatic religious narrative isnecessary to complicate the perception of Israeli land theft & political domination of occupied Jerusalem.”

On July 18, 2021, Palestinians fought Israeli forces on the Temple Mount in protest against Jews visiting the compound. Hamas had called on supporters to confront Israelis that day, as Jewish worshippers were commemorating Tisha B’Av, a Jewish day of mourning marking the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem.

Anti-Israel Activism (SJP, AMP)

In November 2021, El-Kurd was featured as a guest speaker at the “Annual Convention for Palestine in the US,” hosted by American Muslims for Palestine (AMP).

On November 18, 2021, El-Kurd performed his poetry at an event sponsored by Claremont College’s SJP chapter.

On April 4, 2019, El-Kurd gave a poetry reading sponsored by SJP of Kent State. The event took place during Kent State University’s Israeli Apartheid Week.

In November 2018, El-Kurd performed at the 2018 National SJP Conference at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

On September 14, 2018, El-Kurd gave a poetry reading at an event co-hosted by the SJP chapter at the University of New Orleans (UNO).

On November 1, 2017, El-Kurd gave a poetry reading at the 2017 National SJP Conference held October 27-29, 2017 in Houston.

Speaking at the Pro-Hamas Encampment at Columbia

El-Kurd was featured in a video uploaded to YouTube by the Middle East Eye on April 19, 2024 speaking at the pro-Hamas encampment at Columbia on April 18, 2024.

El-Kurd said [00:00:45]: “I really hope this encampment continues and I hope that more and more…show up to support, sneak in like I did…”

On April 17, 2024, Columbia students and anti-Israel activists set up a pro-Hamas “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on the university's main lawn. Many participants were arrested and the encampment featured multiple violent incidents, including taking over a campus building and taking a university worker hostage.

Activists protested Israel’s war against Hamas and demanded that Columbia “divest from companies and institutions that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide and occupation…”

The action had reportedly been planned for months and was organized by the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) coalition. The encampment was also organized by Columbia’s banned pro-Hamas activist group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the university chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). Activists reportedly received training from National SJP and other anti-Israel organizations.

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 Student 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.