Noreen Saqer

Overview

Noreen Saqer has glorified an anti-Israel agitator, demonized Israel and expressed support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Saqer was an activist with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of Houston (UH) 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 April 2019, Saqer’s LinkedIn said that she was studying Psychology at UH, slated to graduate in 2020. Her LinkedIn page also said she was an Early Childhood Educator at Kumon and that she planned to transfer to Humboldt State University (Humbolt) in the fall of 2018.

As of April 14, 2019, Saqer used the name “Norain Salamah” on Facebook.

Glorifying an Anti-Israel Agitator

On July 29, 2018, Saqer tweeted, glorifying Ahed Tamimi’s release from Israeli prison: “Un-Follow Me Right Now, This Is The Only Thing I Will Talk About For The Next Weeki. I've Wanted This For 8!!!! MONTHS F**k. What The F**k.”

Ahed Tamimi has a long history of physically attacking Israeli soldiers. Tamimi is the daughter of Bassem Tamimi, who is known for exploiting young children as political props in staged confrontations with Israeli soldiers.

Demonizing Israel

On August 17, 2018, Saqer said on Twitter: “when they act like isr*el has the right to exist” and shared a photo of herself drinking an alcoholic beverage.

On June 18, 2018, Saqer reportedly said on Twitter: “once palestine is free it’s over for you israeli bi**hes.”

On July 6, 2016, Saqer wrote on Twitter accusing the Israeli Defense Forces of being a “terrorist organization.”

On that same day, Saqer also tweeted: “you can’t believe in peace if you believe in israel” and “BRO DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHY HAMMAS WAS FORMED??? BC OF ISRAEL TERROR.”

Supporting BDS

In 2018, Saqer commented on a US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) petition in support of Professor John Cheney-Lippold. In September 2018, Cheney-Lippold sparked major controversy when refused to write a recommendation letter for a student to study abroad in Israel.

Saqer said under “reasons for signing” that “Isr*el should not be celebrated but this man should be.”

SJP Activism

On October 28, 2018, Saqer tweeted: “FREE SHAWERMA????? EDUCATION ON PRIVLEGE????????? MEETING NEW PEOPLE IN SJP????????????????????? BETTER SEE YALL THERE

#Coogs4Palestine,” about the SJP UH event, titled: “2nd GBM: A Talk on Privilege.”

On October 8, 2018, Saqer attended the SJP UH co-sponsored event: “Anti-Blackness and The Palestinian Struggle.” On October 2, 2018, Saqer tweeted about the event: “i’m getting off a 24 hour bus ride and still showing up, what’s your excuse?!!! #UnityAtUH

.”

Saqer was part of an SJP UH group and represented SJP UH at the 2018 United We Dream (UWD) National Congress. Saqer spoke at the session, led by SJP activists: “Palestine Without Borders,” along with SJP UH activists Mohamed Fattouh, Yusuf Ghanam and Obi Wabara.

The session reportedly “compared Israel with Nazi Germany and equated the movement for Jewish self-determination with white supremacy and genocide.”

On May 24, 2018, Saqer reportedly posted on Facebook about a disruption of a May 22, 2018 speech by UN Ambassador Nikki Haley at UH, in which Saqer participated, with other SJP activists.

Saqer wrote: “WE PLANNED THIS AND OUR EFFORTS WERE VICTORIOUS!!!!!! Nikki Haley should have NO RIGHT to speak on College Campuses when she clearly has no moral compass when it pertains to issues non related to Israel!! More things like this are yet to come, DO NOT THINK WE WILL STOP HERE!! We won this battle and we will win this ‘war’! and by war i mean genocide 😘😘

.”

On May 23, 2018, Saqer shared a photo on her Instagram about the SJP disruption: “walking out on Nikki Haley was not even close to retribution for the Palestinian murders that she justifies.”

On May 22, 2018, Saqer and fellow agitators were filmed as security officials escorted [00:01:15] them out of Haley’s speech. Saqer also appeared in photos tweeted of the protest outside the event and in an article in UH’s school paper, the Daily Cougar.

On May 16, 2018, Saqer tweeted: “y’all my crew DID THAT, they really are somethin else

” about SJP activists who hung signs over a Houston freeway. The signs said: “FREE PALESTINE,” “Hands Off Jerusalem, Jerusalem Is Our Capital” and “Jerusalem is the Capital of Palestine #StopU.S.AidtoIsrael.”

On May 16, 2018, a Hamas senior official, Salah al-Bardawil, stated that 50 out of 62 protesters killed during the May 14 Gaza border protest were Hamas operatives. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) also claimed that three of its members were killed at the same protest.

On May 14, 2018, Saqer tweeted: “innocent people are dead, what are you going to do about it???

” and promoted an SJP UH event: “Emergency Protest,” scheduled for the following day.

The event Facebook description said: “Israel has carried out a continuing ethnic cleansing and colonization of Palestine and its people. Israel continues to murder Palestinians as the world stands by silent and in support of the genocide.”

On May 10, 2018, Saqer tweeted: “HEY!!!:)

if you’re free on Saturday from 12-2PM you are needed in joining your fellow Texans and overseas Palestinians in showing SOLIDARITY

#YallKnoWeGonFreePalestine

#ItsInevitable

” “Nakba Day 2018.” The tweet shared information for the SJP UH event.

The event’s Facebook description said: “Israel has recently escalated its racist and genocidal policies, with the increased detention and murder of children...from Haifa to Jerusalem to Gaza and all in between, will be liberated.”

In April 2018, Saqer participated in SJP UH’s “Israel Apartheid Week | 2018”. Saqer helped hand out information and held signs that said: “Ask me about Palestine,” “Make Israel Palestine Again” and “Zionism Is Racism.”

Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is presented internationally as a “series of events that seeks to raise awareness of…Israel’s settler-colonial project and apartheid system over the Palestinian people.” One of its goals is to build support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. IAW has been renamed Palestine Awareness Week.

Attending the 2018 National SJP Conference

Saqer appeared in a November 19, 2018 group photo and video taken during the National SJP 2018 Conference.

On November 20, 2018, Saqer tweeted: “i love my community and my palestinian family...now i’m proud to be one of the loudest voices

#VIVAPALESTINA.” The tweet shared the photo she appeared in from the 2018 National SJP Conference.

On November 22, 2018, Saqer shared a photo of herself and five others on Instagram at UCLA. Dunia Ghanimah is in the photo and can be seen wearing a lanyard around her neck with a tag featuring the 2018 National SJP Conference logo. Saqer wrote: “‘Palestinian Women Will Lead the Revolution’ and i think that’s beautiful.”

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.

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.