Najla Faddoul

Spreading Hatred of Israel

Israel commenced Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in July 2014, to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.  

SJP UF - Supporting Terrorists

On March 21, 2013, SJP UF members held a protest and a “24-hour solidarity hunger strike” at UF to support Samer Issawi, who received a 26 year prison sentence in 2002.

Samer Issawi is a member of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) who received a 26-year prison sentence in 2002. During the second intifada, Issawi manufactured and distributed pipe bombs and fired indiscriminately on Israeli civilian vehicles. In December 2013, Issawi called for the kidnapping of Israelis, saying: “The [Palestinian] prisoners' release will be brought about by kidnapping and [prisoner] exchanges. Nothing will happen without that.”

In November 2014, SJP UF took part in a national day of action for terrorist Rasmea Odeh. 

Odeh was a key military operative [00:02:08]with the terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In 1969, Odeh masterminded a PFLP bombing that killed two college students in a Jerusalem supermarket. Odeh also attempted to bomb the British consulate. 

Odeh confessed, in a highly detailed account, the day following her arrest. In a 2004 documentary, one of Odeh’s co-conspirators directly implicated [00:10:53] Odeh as the mastermind. 

In 1970, an Israeli court tried and convicted Odeh for her involvement in both bombings and sentenced her to life imprisonment. However, Odeh was released 10 years later, in a prisoner swap and emigrated to the United States.

On November 10, 2014, a Michigan federal jury convicted Odeh for immigration fraud because she failed to disclose her prior conviction and life sentence on her immigration application. On March 12, 2015, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison. 

In 2017, after an appeal and a lengthy court battle, Odeh admitted to immigration fraud, was stripped of her U.S. citizenship, deported to Jordan and banned from re-entering the U.S.

SJP UF - Villifying Israel

As of September 2016, SJP UF’s group description page, which is hosted on UF’s server, states that "[w]e are against the racist ideology of Zionism, which is the impetus for Israeli colonialism, because it inherently discriminates against those who are not Jewish."

On March 30, 2016, SJP UF propagated the claim that Israelis committed an "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians, and claimed that Israel practices “apartheid” policies. SJP UF also called for the end of the Jewish state, commenting “just like South Africa's apartheid, its [Israel’s] days are numbered."

On March 25, 2016, SJP UF shared an AJ+ video on Facebook featuring a monologue by Dr. Mads Gilbert, who was banned from entering Gaza through Israel as a result of his connections to the Hamas leadership.

In the video, Gilbert highlighted his work at Gaza’s Shifa Hospital during conflict in Gaza During Operation Protective Edge, Hamas fired rockets repeatedly from Shifa at Israeli population centers. Hamas also misfired rockets which struck Shifa and the nearby al-Shati refugee camp. Hamas cleanup crews rushed to conceal the evidence. This was confirmed by Amnesty International and an independent Italian journalist.

In 2001, following al Qaeda's September 11 attacks, Gilbert had also expressed support for them as a "legitimate response."

On October 22, 2015, SJP UF posted on Facebook an article titled “IDF Kills Hebron Peace Activist, Hashem Azzeh,” after Azzeh died from a heart attack following a long history of cardiac illness. The article posted by SJP UF claimed that Israeli “soldiers killed Hashem Azzeh.” A report on Azzeh’s death belied that claim, reporting that Azzeh experienced chest pains before his death. A second report confirmed that Azzeh was weakened by a previous heart attack and underwent surgery.

SJP UF - Creating a Hostile Campus Environment

Since 2013, SJP UF has promoted BDS at UF and in April 2016, commenced a BDS campaign at UF to boycott Sabra Hummus, because it is partially owned by an Israeli company.

On September 16, 2014, during a debate between former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren and Palestinian Journalist Rula Jebreal, SJP UF members staged a protest outside the venue. SJP UF was originally asked to co-sponsor the event, but refused on the grounds that it "normalizes the occupation of Palestine as well as Israeli Apartheid policies/laws" and that "any project with Israelis that is not based on a resistance framework serves to normalize relations."

In February 2015, two IDF soldiers were invited to the UF campus to share their personal stories with students. In the middle of their talk, SJP UF members stood up in protest wearing shirts that read, “You’re the real terrorist.” They then staged a walk-out.

On November 11, 2015, SJP UF hosted New York-based poet Remi Kanazi. Kanazi is notorious for his aggressively anti-Israel poetry and spoken-word performances. In a November 15, 2012 Facebook post, Kanazi wrote, “Dear Zionists: You have never ‘defended yourselves.’ You came in, stole land that wasn’t yours & maintained a racist state through massacres and brute force.”

SJP UF - 'Knife Intifada' Posts

On October 13, 2015, SJP UF posted an article titled, “Death-chanting Israeli mob rejoices as Palestinian teen is executed.” The article — from the Electronic Intifada (EI) site — linked to an EI video titled, “Israeli police kill Fadi Alloun in cold blood.”

Fadi Aloon was shot by Israeli security forces after he stabbed a 15-year-old Israeli boy. Several hours before the attack, Aloon posted “Either martyrdom or victory” on his Facebook page. 

October 2015 saw an upsurge in violence across Israel incited by Palestiian political and religious leaders. The wave of stabbings, known either as the "Knife Intifada" or the “Stabbing Intifada,” saw young Palestinians across Israel stabbing and attempting to stab scores of Israeli civilians.

On October 18, 2015, SJP UF posted on Facebook an image with the misleading caption "Israeli settler, shoots, kills teenage Palestinian boy in Hebron" and linked to an article obscuring the fact that 18-year-old Fadil Qawasmi had been shot while trying to stab an Israeli citizen on the Jewish Sabbath.

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.

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