Nicole Khamis

Overview

Nicole Khamis is a member of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE), a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (UM Ann Arbor).

Khamis is a leading promoter of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) on campus.

In November 2015, during a vigil held to "honor victims of violence in Israel and Palestine," Khamis “cited the Israeli occupation during the event, calling it the root cause of the violence in Israel and Palestine.”

Khamis is a senior majoring in International Affairs at UM Ann Arbor.

SAFE - Creating an Atmosphere of Intimidation on Campus

On October 5, 2016, during the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, SAFE staged an anti-Israel demonstration at UM Ann Arbor. SAFE members erected a mock checkpoint in a central campus area, as well as a wall display meant to represent Israel’s security fence, and claimed that Israel practices "apartheid."

SAFE members dressed up as Israeli security forces and “were seen yelling at passers-by near a cardboard wall.”

SAFE’s wall featured an image of international hijacker Leila Khaled.

Leila Khaled is a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and participated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 840 in 1969 and El Al Flight 219 in 1970. As of 2017, Khaled was a member of PFLP's Political Bureau. Khaled has said that the second intifada failed because it was not violent enough, advocated [00:36:07] for the use of children in terror activities and compared Zionists to Nazis.

The Michigan Review reported that “[b]ecause Rosh Hashanah calls for attending service at the synagogue, many Jewish students were not on campus to express their feelings of anguish while the event occurred. Those students who remained on campus were left to cope with the demonstration without the support of many of their peers.”

In 2013, SAFE posted mock eviction notices, in violation of UM Ann Arbor policy, on the dorm rooms of approximately 1,500 students, “in order to have students momentarily experience the feeling of receiving an eviction notice upon waking up.”

SAFE - Pushing BDS at UM Ann Arbor

In 2014, 2015 and 2016, SAFE launched BDS initiatives that politicized UM Ann Arbor’s Central Student Government Assembly (CSGA) and called upon it to divest from companies allegedly involved in human rights violations against Palestinians.

On March 18, 2014, SAFE’s BDS resolution was indefinitely tabled for failing to fall within the purview of the CSGA. In response, SAFE members held a week-long "sit in " at the CSG’s chambers, as well as campus demonstrations, to force a vote on the resolution. On March 19, 2014, SAFE tweeted: “We have taken over and will remain as long as it takes.”

SAFE’s demonstrations were marked by violent rhetoric against those who did not support the resolution, well as anti-Semitic threats directed at pro-Israel students, which led to a police investigation. Then-CSGA senior Yazan Kherallah, the divestment chair of SAFE said: “We’re going to hold every person who voted against listening to student voices accountable.”

The CSGA voted down the resolution on March 25, 2014.

In January 2014, SAFE sponsored a talk with BDS founder Omar Barghouti at the University of Michigan Law School.

SAFE - Supporting Terrorist Rasmea Odeh

SAFE has, since 2014, supported 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.

SAFE - Hosting Anti-Jewish Professor Steven Salaita

On December 22, 2014, SAFE hosted Professor Steven Salaita, the Edward Said Chair of American Studies at the American University of Beirut (AUB), at a UM Ann Arbor event.

SAFE’s former spokeswoman Mekarem Eljamal stated that the group "invited Salaita to the University because they felt his message of academic freedom was particularly relevant in light of the group’s UMDivest campaign."

In 2014, The University of Illinois withdrew an offer of employment to Salaita after becoming aware of his anti-Semitic tweets. One tweet, posted shortly after Hamas kidnapped three teenage Israeli high school students, read: "You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f**king West Bank settlers would go missing.” In 2017, Salaita posted to Facebook: “People ask if I would go back in time and change anything. I would not…I will die unapologetic.” In February 2019, Salaita stated that he had become a school bus driver in the Washington, D.C., area.

On December 22, 2014, Khamis posed for a photo with Professor Steven Salaita

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 Student 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.