Mohannad Rachid
Overview
Mohannad Rachid [MoeDee Rachid] has glorified the terror organization Hamas and trivialized its terror activity. He was a board member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Loyola University Chicago (Loyola) from 2013-2015 and an activist within the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. He was also “heavily involved” in the Muslim Student Association (MSA) and demonized Israel on social media.On November 8, 2018, Rachid tweeted that he had moved to Washington, D.C. to pursue a career in journalism with the Al Jazeera Media Network. As of December 2018, Rachid’s Twitter said that he was “currently with @ajstream.”
As of December 2018, Rachid’s LinkedIn page said that he was a “Digital Consultant and Associate Producer at Al Jazeera's The Stream, as well as the Co-founder and Creative Director of Young Lens and the Media Co-Chair for the annual Muslim American Society (MAS) and Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) convention, since December 2012.
Rachid’s LinkedIn page also said that he received a master’s degree in Journalism from Northwestern University (Northwestern) in 2018 and a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Loyola in 2015.
Glorifying Hamas
On September 22, 2013, Rachid tweeted: “I love Hamas. Baddest of the bad a**es.”On December 13, 2013, Rachid tweeted a picture of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the co-founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, with the comment: “A good man that left us long ago. #FreePalestine.”
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin has been described as the “mastermind of Palestinian terror” behind many suicide bombings against Israeli civilians on buses and in cafes during the second intifada. In January 2003, Yassin said in an interview: “Suicide attacks and jihad reinforce national unity in the ranks…Our voice is one of struggle, of jihad and of suicide…”
Trivializing Hamas Terror
Israel commenced OPE in July 2014 to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.
On July 16, 2014, Rachid tweeted: “Lets say it is a Hamas vs Israel war and no civilians involved.Ur going to compare the American aided top tech missiles to homemade mortars?”
Hamas fired over 4,564 missiles and rockets at Israeli population centers during Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in July 2014.
Hamas fired rockets from Shifa Hospital (Shifa) at Israeli population centers during Operation Protective Edge. Hamas misfires also struck Shifa and the nearby al-Shati refugee camp. Hamas cleanup crews then concealed the evidence of the misfires, as was confirmed by Amnesty International and an independent Italian journalist.
SJP Campus Activism
In April 2014, Rachid was a host of “Palestine Solidarity Day,” in which all participants were encouraged to wear the Palestinian kaffiyeh. SJP Loyola promoted wearing the kaffiyeh as "a symbol of 65 years of resistance against an occupation that has exhausted them socially, economically, and politically.” The event was a finale to SJP Loyola's “Palestine Awareness Week” that year.In September 2014, while Rachid was a board member of SJP Loyola, the group surrounded and disrupted a Hillel student group tabling for Birthright heritage trips to Israel in September 2014. Hillel was processing applications for the trip at their table.
During the disruption, SJP Loyola members formed a human wall in a reported attempt to block Hillel’s tabling to advertise the trip and reportedly accosted Hillel students with “a variety of insults,” asking: "How does it feel to be an occupier?" and "How does it feel to be guilty of ethnic cleansing?"
SJP Loyola was later “found responsible” for not adhering to the university's free expression and demonstration policy, was put on probation for the rest of the academic year and was directed to attend “intergroup dialogue training.”
BDS Campus Activism
On February 20, 2015, Rachid posted a photo of himself on Instagram celebrating the passage of a BDS resolution at Northwestern, which he referred to as “Zio-Ville.”The term "Zio" is a common derogatory reference to Zionists, as well as an often-used anti-Semitic slur among white supremacists.
The divestment effort culminated in a resolution, titled “Divestment from Companies Profiting from the Illegal Occupation of the Palestinian Territory To ensure adherence to Loyola University Chicago’s Socially Responsible Investment Policy.
The resolution resolved to urge the Loyola’s Chief Investment Office to collaborate with “students, faculty and staff” to “create and enforce a publicly available socially responsible investment policy and the Shareholder Advocacy Committee that will ensure that Loyola is upholding its Jesuit Catholic mission and Jesuit values in regard to investments” and divest from “corporations profiting from human rights violations committed against the Palestinian people.”
The bill also invoked the 2005 Palestine civil society call for BDS, and quoted Al Jazeera, claiming that “Israel had been buying and ‘weaponizing’ Caterpillar bulldozers then using them to demolish Palestinian homes, build settlements and the separation wall, clear land to build Jewish-only roads, uproot olive and fruit trees, and carry out military operation [sic].”
The resolution, which was the third such proposed in as many years, passed on March 24, 2015, after an initial tie vote.
The Loyola Divest Facebook page, created on January 30, 2014, said that it was previously named “SJP Loyola” and listed the group’s email address as “sjpluc@gmail.com” and the group’s website as “http://sjployola.com. The SJP Loyola Facebook page history said the page changed its name to “Loyola Divest” on September 16, 2014.
In response to the resolution, Loyola University President Michael J. Garanzini wrote an open letter, titled “Endorsing a Community of Dialogue” to the student body.
Garanzini’s letter decried the divestment resolution as a divisive, harmful and ineffective way to conduct discourse about the situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Demonizing Israel
Rachid has frequently demonized Israel on Twitter.On January 19, 2015, Rachid compared Israel to the terror organization Hezbollah, writing: “F**k Hezbollah and f**k Israel even more. One is helping oppress Syrians and the other is oppressing Palestinians. Same s**t different smell.”
On March 25, 2015, Rachid tweeted: “What's the similarity between Israel and ISIS? They both stole land, claimed it theirs and built some sort of religious ‘god-promised’ state.”
On May 26, 2015, Rachid tweeted: “Israel's goal: find any reason to bomb Gaza out of the map. Destroyed houses from last year are being destroyed again. #GazaUnderAttack.”
That day, it was reported that Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists in Gaza launched a rocket at the Israeli city of Ashdod, following reported infighting among the terror group’s militants.
On October 14, 2015, Rachid tweeted: “When Israel kills a Palestinian child everyday, know that they're afraid of the Palestinian future.”
In October 2015, there was an upsurge in violence across Israel incited by Palestinian political and religious leaders. The wave of stabbings, known as the “Knife Intifada,” was characterized by young Palestinians throughout the country stabbing and attempting to stab Israeli civilians. The attacks were incited by Palestinian leaders propagating the libel that Israel intended to desecrate the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
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.
MSA
The MSA was established by members of the Muslim Brotherhood in January 1963 at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, with the goal of "spreading Islam as students in North America." A 2004 FBI investigation uncovered an internal Muslim Brotherhood document in which a brotherhood leader identified the MSA as "one of our organizations."
The MSA reportedly has “nearly 600 chapters” located in the United States and Canada, and is “the most visible and influential Islamic student organization in North America,” boasting conferences, special events, publications, websites and other activities.
The organization includes a number of previous chapter presidents with explicit links to terrorist groups. Included are al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki (Colorado State University), Somali al-Shabaab militant leader Omar Shafik Hammami (University of South Alabama) and Pakistani Taliban recruiter Ramy Zamzam of the MSA's Washington, D.C. council.
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