Moutasem Mansi
Overview
Moutasem Mansi has expressed support for the violent “March of Return,” demonized Israel, denounced supporters of Israel and promoted anti-Israel agitators. Mansi has also expressed support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.Mansi is affiliated with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and indicated on Facebook that he “went” to the 2018 National SJP Conference.
The 2018 National SJP conference was held on November 16-18, 2018 at 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 February 2019, Mansi’s LinkedIn page said he was a Chemical and Biological Engineering student at UCLA, slated to graduate in 2019. Mansi’s LinkedIn also said he was Director of Public Relations and Corporate Outreach at UCLA since December 2018.
It also said he was an Educational Undergraduate Laboratory Coordinator at the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA and a Peer Mentor at SEAS (School of Engineering and Applied Sciences) at UCLA.
Supporting the Violent March of Return
The anti-Semitic organization If Americans Knew (IAK) was founded by anti-Israel agitator Alison Weir. IAK has been condemned for anti-Semitism by both the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the anti-Israel U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR).
Thornberry also accused [00:00:42] Israel of “six weeks of calculated and deliberate policy to kill and maim unarmed protesters who pose no threat to the forces on the Gaza border.”
On May 16, 2018, Mansi shared to Facebook a video of an interview with anti-Israel activist Noura Erakat. Erekat portrayed the violent riots as the “largest civil protest” in the world. Erakat also accused [00:01:17] Israel of executing “children who are protesting.”
On May 18, 2018, Mansi shared a video to Facebook of news personality Hasan Piker, who claimed [00:00:18] that the March of Return demonstrations were “peaceful attempts at protesting” U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to move the American embassy to Jerusalem and that “Israel has brutally attacked these peaceful protestors.”
On May 20, 2018, Mansi shared to Facebook a video titled: “These are the names and faces of the 62 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces this week.”
Demonizing Israel
The piece accused Israel of adopting “practices reminiscent of apartheid in South Africa and Jim Crow segregation in the United States” and promoted BDS.
On November 13, 2018, Mansi shared to Facebooka cartoon of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dropping bombs on screaming civilians in a firey Gaza strip. The cartoon also featured a likeness of a smiling Uncle Sam handing more bombs to Netanyahu while a bloody hand extended out from Gaza seeking help.
On July 22, 2018, Mansi shared to Facebook a video of the Irish Senate Parliament members accused [00:00:41] Israel of being “an apartheid state” and [00:00:37] “taking of the very ground from under” the Palestinians.
On May 20, 2018, Mansi shared to Facebook a video of anti-Israel musician Roger Waters demonizing Israel. Waters accused [00:02:42] Israel of “appalling colonialist policies and its racism and apartheid.”
On May 19, 2018, Mansi shared to Facebook a video of Neturei Karta members demonstrating against Israel. The video was captioned: “Jews want Zionist ‘seize to exist.’” In the video, one Neturei Karta member said [00:01:41] “Zionists are using the Holocaust” to “do war crimes against Palestinians.”
Neturei Karta is an anti-Israel Jewish fringe group whose leader, Yisroel Dovid Weiss, was excommunicated from many Ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups for participating in a 2006 Holocaust denial conference in Iran. The group opposes Zionism on religious grounds and has called to dismantle Israel.
The Mavi Marmara was the lead ship in the “Freedom Flotilla” that attempted to sail to Gaza in May 2010. Activists aboard the ship agitated for violent confrontation and chanted a slogan glorifying the killing of Jews. When Israeli security forces boarded the Marmara, protesters attacked them with iron bars, metal chairs, knives, stun grenades and firearms, rocks and bottles. A United Nations report found that the flotilla agitators initiated an organized, violent confrontation with Israeli forces, and that the Marmara was carrying no humanitarian aid, only weaponry.
Denouncing Supporters of Israel
On November 15, 2018, Mansi shared to Facebook a video that mocked actor Gerard Butler after his home was damaged in the California forest fires that month because the actor made an appearance at the 2018 FIDF Western Region Gala.
Defending Anti-Israel Agitators
On January 12, 2018, Mansi shared a video to Facebook from the anti-Israel Institute for Middle East Understanding, defending Ahed Tamimi.
On December 30, 2017, Mansi shared to Facebook a Newsweek article that defended Ahed and Nariman Tamimi. The piece was written by Mariam Barghouti an activist with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) who has whitewashed terrorism.
During the meeting, Hill reportedly whitewashed Palestinian violence and accused Israel of “state violence and ethnic cleansing.” He also called for a “free Palestine from the river to the sea.”
In September 2018, during a U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) conference, Hill insinuated [00:31:01] that Israel poisons Palestinian water and seemingly approved [00:30:34] of violence against Israelis.
Expressing Support for BDS
On June 12, 2018, Mansi wrote: “👏👏👏👏” and shared a video to Facebook of anti-Israel activists promoting the BDS movement. The video was the captioned: “شاهد: نشطاء أجانب يدعون لمقاطعة المنتجات الإسرائيلية في فيديو قمة في الإبداع [“Witness: foreign activists call to boycott Israeli products in a video, super creative]”
On May 25, 2018, Mansi shared a Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) video to Facebook that called on pop star Shakira to cancel her scheduled performance in Israel. The video was captioned: “Shakira - If you perform in Tel Aviv...you endorse continuous violations of Palestinian human rights, a brutal military occupation that imprisons children, and an apartheid state. Please, cancel Tel Aviv.”
Attending the 2018 National SJP Conference
On November 12, 2018, Mansi fundraised on Facebook for the 2018 National SJP Conference.
2018 National SJP - Celebrating Violence
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.”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.
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.
Social Media and Weblinks
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/100000562478208LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/moutasem-mansi/
