Mona Abdullah
Overview
Abdullah was reportedly a member of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) at Columbia in 2012.
In April 2013, Abdullah was reportedly a Junior at Barnard College (Barnard), Columbia, majoring in “Political Science and Asian and Middle Eastern Culture”
Organizing a BDS Initiative
On April 21, 2013, Abdullah organized and promoted a press conference launched by members of the Barnard and Columbia faculty, calling on College Retirement Equities Fund TIAA-CREF (Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association – College Retirement Equities Fund ) to divest from Israeli corporations, including Elbit Systems, Hewlett-Packard and Veolia.On April 23, 2013, Abdullah was listed as a point of contact on Columbia SJP’s“Barnard and Columbia Faculty to Hold Press Conference Calling for Divestment” Facebook event.
The event page description stated: “Barnard College and Columbia University faculty add their voices to the national campaign calling on pension fund giant TIAA-CREF to divest from corporations profiting from Israel’s nearly 46-year-old illegal occupation of Palestine.”
The Facebook event page description said: “TIAA-CREF’s pension fund serves many of Barnard and Columbia’s faculty and staff.”
The event description continued: “Following in Columbia’s rich tradition of activism against racial segregation and Apartheid in South Africa, a growing number of its students, faculty and staff oppose the corporate policies of these companies, which serve to maintain violent military occupation, institutionalized segregation and other grave human rights violations”
The event description also said: “Professor Katherine Franke... will speak on behalf of over 100 Barnard and Columbia professors who have signed the petition.
Katherine Franke was reportedly barred from entering Israel in 2018 because of her “prominent role" with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), as well as her support for the BDS movement. She has also promoted incitement against Israel and spread anti-Israel propaganda.
On May 30, 2013, the TIAA-CREF reportedly said it will not bring a BDS motion to its upcoming shareholder meeting.
Promoting BDS
The letter also alleged that “Israel today is a manifestation of settler colonialism… built on the dispossession and genocide of indigenous peoples.”
Columbia SJP Activism
In response to a comment on the photo that said: “I’m appalled,” Abdullah wrote: “I'll remove it right away due to the controversy it just created.” As of February 2021, Abdullah’s post remained on her Facebook page.
In March 2014, Columbia SJP organizer Jannine Salman reportedly made and hung the banner at the entrance of Barnard.
The banner was reportedly removed after “students, their parents and alumni” said it made them “feel uncomfortable and unsafe in the space” and that its location gave the impression Barnard was “endorsing SJP's message that Israel as a Jewish state does not have the right to exist.”
Promoting an Anti-Israel Activist
Joseph Massad has denied the Jewish connection to Israel, likened Jews to Nazis, propagated allegations that Israel is a “racist settler colony."Massad is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
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.
- Status:
- Unknown
- University:
- Barnard Columbia
- Organizations:
- BDS,
- MSA,
- more...
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- Last Modified:
- 06/23/2025
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