Monica Santana
Overview
Monica Santana Melendez [Monica Santana] is an activist with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of South Florida (SJP USF) and attended the 2018 National SJP Conference.The 2018 National SJP conference was held on November 16-18, 2018 at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The conference was themed “Radical Hope: Resistance in the Face of Adversity.” The conference website stated: “[t]he reason we can have hope is that Zionism...can be destroyed.”As of March 2019, Santana’s LinkedIn page said she is a “Research Intern at the Moffitt Cancer Center” and a “Patient Care Navigator at CareThrough.” Santa is also a student of the University of South Florida (USF), studying “Health Sciences with a concentration in Biological Sciences and Health Information Technology” and is slated to graduate in 2019.
SJP Activism
As of March 2019, Santana listed SJP under “Organizations” on her LinkedIn account and as of December 2018, Santana listed SJP under “Activities and Societies” on her LinkedIn account.On October 11, 2018, Santana attended SJP at USF’s event titled: “Benjamin Walks to Palestine Lecture.” Benjamin Ladraa is an anti-Israel activist who has defended terrorists, promoted the violent “March of Return,” demonized Israel, and advocated for anti-Israel agitators.
Santana indicated on Facebook that she “went” to SJP at USF’s event titled: “Mock apartheid wall,” on October 9, 2018. The event’s Facebook description said: “learn about the Apartheid wall that runs throughout Palestine. SJP will be displaying a mock apartheid wall.”
The wall at USF, meant to represent Israel’s security barrier, promoted BDS and the right of return.
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 May 16, 2018, Santana updated her profile picture on Facebook to say “Free Palestine.”
Santana indicated on Facebook that she “went” to SJP at USF’s event titled: “Rally for Al Nakba on May 11, 2018. ”
The event’s Facebook description said: “zionist forces have been taken more than 78% of historic Palestine, ethnically cleansed and destroyed about 530 villages and cities, and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities, including more than 70 massacres.”
The term “Nakba” is generally translated as “catastrophe” in Arabic, referring to the outcome of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It is a term often used to delegitimize the creation of the State of Israel by defining it as a catastrophe.
Santana indicated on Facebook that she “went” to SJP at USF’s event titled: “70th Memorial of Al Nakba” on April 10, 2018. The cover photo for the event said: “Never forget the right of return.” The event’s Facebook description said: “This event is all about commemorating the Palestinians right to return.”
The “right of return” is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel.
The “right of return” is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel.
Attending the 2018 National SJP Conference
Santana appeared in a group photo and video taken during the 2018 National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) Conference.2018 National SJP - Celebrating Violence
During the 2018 National SJP conference, anti-Israel activist Mohammed Nabulsi led the attendees in the chant [00:00:52] “Long Live the Intifada! Intifada! Intifada!”
Since the early 2000’s, the term “intifada” has carried the connotation of violence. The second intifada was characterized by more than 120 suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians on buses and in cafes.
Anti-Israel activist Omar Zahzah also reportedly [00:00:07] led National SJP attendees in chanting, in Arabic, “With our bodies and our blood, we will free Palestine.”
As of November 2018, the 2018 National SJP website glorified “radical hope and upfront defiance of Zionism,” citing as examples the “early revolts through the Intifadas to the Great Return March.”
The Great Return March of 2018 was organized and funded by the terror group Hamas as a campaign of violent protests along Israel’s border to spotlight the demand of Palestinians to “return” to Israel.
Tens of thousands of rioters gathered on Israel’s Gaza border, attempting numerous breaches of Israel’s border fence, with leaders andparticipants declaring their intention to harm Jews.
National SJP originally promoted a conference logo featuring a keffiyeh-wearing bear, looking toward a kite bearing the colors of the Palestinian flag.
On October 27, 2018, National SJP said the kite signified “the power in the Gaza March of Return.”
Since March 2018, March of Return participants and Hamas’s “Kite Unit” have sent hundreds of kites bearing incendiary devices and IEDs (improvised explosive devices) across the border into Israel to terrorize Israelis. The kites are often marked with swastikas.
By the time National SJP produced its 2018 conference logo highlighting the kites in October 2018, Gazan terror kites and balloons had ignited more than 1,300 fires in Israel, over seven months.
2018 National SJP - Undermining U.S. Support for Israel
On November 18, 2018, the US Palestine Community Network (USPCN) posted on Facebook the 2018 National SJP keynote speech by Hatem Abudayyeh, USPCN’s co-founder.Abudayyeh has supported [00:08:45] convicted terrorists, praised terror organizations, called for Israel’s destruction and is an activist in theBoycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
In his 2018 National SJP Keynote, Abudayyeh said [00:53:01] that the “specific role” of Palestinian and Arab students was to organize [00:53:42] in order to weaken “Zionist Israel” and force [00:54:23] the U.S. to “no longer provide it with diplomatic, political, financial and military cover and support.”
Abudayyeh predicted [00:55:37] that once U.S. support to Israel ends, National SJP attendees would return to Palestine as “conquering heroes,” end [00:54:38] the “occupation and colonization of all Arab lands including the Golan Heights” and replace “Zionist Israel” with a Palestinian state.
2018 National SJP - Whitewashing Terror Organizations
During his keynote speech, Abudayyeh also painted [00:14:01] terrorist organizations as “liberation movements” and “resistance organizations,” stating [00:14:21] “what we also know is that the majority of the resistance organizations in Palestine are on the U.S. state department list of foreign terrorist organizations.”Abudayyeh also celebrated [00:52:00] that all of the “armed resistance” organizations in Gaza are part [00:52:14] of a “unified resistance in Gaza, that includes all of the resistance organizations, working together under a unified military command.”
2018 National SJP - Defending Terrorist Rasmea Odeh
During his keynote speech, Abudayyeh claimed [00:08:28] that pro-Israel organizations “go after students like you,” adding [00:08:20] “just like they went after my friend and colleague, Rasmea Odeh.”Odeh was a key military operative with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization. In 1969, she masterminded a PFLP supermarket bombing that killed two college students. She also attempted to bomb the British consulate in Jerusalem. Odeh later moved to the United States but was deported to Jordan in 2017 for immigration fraud.
Abudayyeh added that he was asked [00:08:45] to talk about Odeh’s case, and praised SJP and SDS students who organized [00:09:15] “absolutely valuable” events on behalf [00:9:11] of Odeh, “as she was fighting to stay in the U.S.”
2018 National SJP - Demonizing Israel and Jews
During his keynote speech, Abudayyeh defended [00:27:25] the “Irvine 11” — eleven Muslim Student Union (MSA) members who were arrested in 2010 for repeatedly shouting down former Israeli ambassador Michael Oren during an address at the University of California at Irvine (UC Irvine).Abudayyeh referred [00:27:37] to Oren as a “racist fascist speaker, representative of a racist, fascist country.”
Abudayyeh went on to claim [00:29:48] that “today, even in the United States, Israel is finally being seen as the criminal, apartheid, racist state that it is.”
Abudayyeh also called for increased action in the face of President U.S. Donald Trump, and referred [00:48:41] to Jared Kushner, Trump’s Jewish son-in-law and senior advisor, as “that pig son-in-law of his.”
2018 National SJP - Excluding Students
The 2018 National SJP Conference welcomed only students who were verified and vouched for by an SJP (or otherwise named campus Palestine solidarity group). Media requests needed to be “approved by the NSJP press team” prior to the conference.A November 7, 2018 Columbus Jewish News article reported that the Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed a resolution calling on UCLA to cancel the 2018 NSJP conference, stating that a “public university should not allow any group to implement a litmus test for event participation on their campus.”
On November 12, 2018, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block published an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times that criticized National SJP’s exclusion of members of pro-Israel student groups.
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:www.facebook.com/100001353576584LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/msantanamelendez/
YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7gEzjj1oHl2ZVJLZnsLG_A [Deleted]
- Status:
- Student
- University:
- South-Florida
- Organizations:
- SJP
- Related Profiles:
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
Videos
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Photos & Screenshots
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