Omar Mansour

Overview

Omar Mansour [Omar C. Mansour] has demonized Israel and promoted anti-Israel agitators as a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) (SJP at UCLA). Mansour was an SJP at UCLA board member from 2016-2017.

Mansour attended 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.”

Mansour was a co-organizer of the 2017 National SJP Conference and attended the 2016 National SJP Conference.

As of March 2019, Mansour’s Facebook profile photo included a banner from the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement that said: “#RightToBoycott.”

As of March 2019, Mansour’s LinkedIn page said he was pursuing a master’s degree at UCSB in International/Global Studies, slated to graduate in 2020.

As of March 2019, Mansour’s LinkedIn profile said he graduated from UCLA with a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and Arabic, in 2017.

Mansour has been listed as a member of Al-Awda Los Angeles on its website since September 2017.

Demonizing Israel

On November 28, 2016, Mansour wrote an opinion piece in the UCLA student newspaper, The Daily Bruin, to promote an SJP at UCLA screening of the anti-Israel film “The Occupation of the American Mind.” The event also featured the film’s anti-Israel executive producer, Professor Sut Jhally.

In his piece, Mansour accused Israel of manipulating American public opinion through propaganda efforts and downplayed the threat of Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.

Mansour also referred to Israel’s three operations against Hamas from 2008-2014 as “horrific bombing campaigns.” Israel commenced Operations Cast Lead (OCL), Pillar of Defense (OPD) and Protective Edge (OPE) in 2008-09, 2012 and 2014, respectively, in order to stop Hamas rocket fire from Gaza targeting Israeli civilians.

On December 10, 2015, Mansour shared a link on Facebook from the anti-Israel Addameer organization, promoting BDS and supporting “Palestinian political prisoners” and “Palestinian popular resistance.”

Addameer is an NGO that advocates on behalf of prisoners held in Israeli jail, including many terrorists such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) recruiters Mohammad Allan and Khader Adnan. Addameer’s senior leadership includes [pp. 29-35] senior Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorists like Khalida Jarrar, whom Addameer also advocates for. In 2021, Israel officially designated Addameer as a terror organization.

Promoting Anti-Israel Agitators

On December 4, 2016, Mansour was featured in a Facebook photo with Roger Waters at the UCLA SJP screening of the anti-Israel film “Occupation of the American Mind,” which was narrated by Waters.

Roger Waters is a world-famous musician and BDS activist who has compared Israel to Nazi Germany. He has also been accused of spreading anti-Semitism at his concerts.
Roger Waters.
On February 1, 2017, Mansour shared an image on Facebook promoting an SJP at UCLA event that featured Ahmed Hamad and Remi Kanazi.

Ahmed Hamad is a popular anti-Israel speaker and entertainer who led a rally in support of [00:00:01] “intifada” violence against Israel in 2015 and reportedly threatened to kill a pro-Israel Palestinian speaker in 2016.

Poet Remi Kanazi is known for his aggressively anti-Israel spoken-word performances. He has supported terrorism and has compared Israel to both ISIS and the Ku Klux Klan.

Attending the 2018 National SJP Conference

On November 22, 2018, Mansour was featured in a photo of 2018 National SJP Conference Steering Committee members.

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 at UCLA - Support for Terrorists

On May 15, 2017, SJP at UCLA participated in a “Saltwater Challenge.”

The “Saltwater Challenge” was held in solidarity with hunger-striking Palestinian prison inmates convicted of terrorism. The strike was initiated by Marwan Barghouti, who was serving five consecutive life sentences for his role in suicide bombings that killed five Israelis during the second intifada. Aarab Barghouti, the son of Marwan Barghouti, launched the "Saltwater Challenge."

In October 2015, there was an upsurge in violence across Israel incited by Palestinian political and religious leaders. The wave of stabbings, known as the “Knife Intifada,” was characterized by young Palestinians throughout the country stabbing and attempting to stab Israeli civilians.

On October 29, 2015, SJP at UCLA shared on their website an October 23, 2015 submission published six days prior in the Daily Bruin, titled “Palestinians are dying too.”

The submission, written by Shawndeez Davari Jadalizadeh, accused another article in the Daily Bruin of taking part in an attempt “to erase Palestinian life” by failing to mention the names of Palestinians killed during the Knife Intifada.

The submission then listed a number of “Palestinians killed by Israelis... since Oct. 1, the beginning of the third intifada,” such as: Mohannad Halabi, Fadi Alloun, Amjad Hatem al-Jundi, Bassem Bassam Sidr, Hassan Khalid Manasra, Fadel al-Qawasmi and Mohamed Nathmie Shamassnah.

In October 2015, Halabi murdered two Israelis and injured two others, including a 2-year-old, during a stabbing spree. One day earlier, Halabi posted on his Facebook page that "the [t]he third Intifada is here" and wrote "[w]ake up from your slumber and save al-Aqsa. Let the revolution erupt."

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.

Amjad Al-Jundi stabbed an Israeli soldier on October 7, 2015. He then took the soldier’s rifle and ran to a nearby apartment building where he tried to shoot and stab a local woman in her home. Police responded and killed Al-Jundi during a shootout that transpired.

Basel Bessam Sidr was shot while attempting to stab Israeli police officers in Jerusalem. Fadil Qawasmi was shot after attempting to staban Israeli policeman and a civilian in Hebron.

Hassan Manasra was shot on October 12, 2015, while he and his 13-year-old cousin Ahmed were engaged in a stabbing spree in Jerusalem, critically wounding a 13-year-old Israeli boy and moderately wounding a 25-year-old man.

On October 17, 2015, during the “Knife Intifada,” Fadil Qawasmi was shot after attempting to staban Israeli policeman and a civilian in Hebron.

Mohammad Nathmie Shamasna was shot after he stabbed a 19-year-old Israeli soldier and unsuccessfully tried to grab his gun.

During an interview with the Lebanese Al-Quds TV channel following the attack,

Shamasna’s mother said the family was proud of her son, who was “martyred for the sake of Al-Aqsa,” and then pulled out a knife concealed beneath her clothes and said, while making stabbing motions: “Watch out, Israel! Watch out!”

SJP at UCLA - Anti-Semitism

In February 2015, four SJP at UCLA activists and council senators with the Undergraduate Students Association (USA) were involved in a widely publicized anti-Semitic incident.

Sofia Moreno Haq, Negeen Sadeghi-Movahed, Manjot Singh and Fabienne Roth were responsible for preventing Rachel Beyda from joining the Undergraduate Students Association Council (USAC) judicial board, because she belonged to Jewish organizations.

Beyda’s position on the Judicial Board was later confirmed at a re-vote and the four objecting counselors submitted a formal apology to Beyda and the Jewish community.

SJP at UCLA - Intimidation

In 2016, SJP at UCLA reportedly harassed and intimidated Milan Chaterjee, the former president of UCLA’s Graduate Student Association (GSA), to such an extent that he stepped down from his student government position and left UCLA.

In November 2015, Chaterjee attempted to block an effort by SJP at UCLA to use school funds to promote the BDS movement during a diversity caucus Town hall event, in accordance with a policy requiring viewpoint neutrality.

Chaterjee said that, as a result, he was "relentlessly attacked, bullied, and harassed by BDS-affiliated organizations and students" for months.

In April 2014, SJP at UCLA members submitted a petition to USAC’s judicial board against two former undergraduate student government council members who participated in trips to Israel that were sponsored by pro-Israel Jewish organizations.

SJP at UCLA alleged that the council members committed “conflict of interest violations” by participating in the sponsored trips and should have abstained from voting on a February 2014 BDS resolution. SJP at UCLA also argued the council members’ votes on the divestment resolution should have been disqualified.

Although the ballot on the divestment resolution was secret, it was assumed that the two voted against the resolution because they both spoke against the resolution during discussions prior to the vote.

The student judicial board later ruled that the trips taken by the council members did not constitute a conflict of interest.

SJP at UCLA - BDS Activism

In December 2013, SJP at UCLA launched its first divestment campaign, drafting a resolution calling on the UC Regents to pull funding from five companies doing business with Israel, including Caterpillar, Cemex, Cement Roadstone Holdings (CRH), General Electric (GE), and Hewlett-Packard (HP).

The February 2014 debate lasted over ten hours and went until six in the morning the following day. The resolution was ultimately voted down.

In November 2014, SJP at UCLA again pushed a divestment resolution “calling on the Regents to divest from companies that enable and profit from violations of Palestinian rights.”

The resolution claimed that the same five companies “provided weapons used” by Israel “in attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip,” and that investment in these companies “shows implicit support” for “the killings of civilians.”

On November 18, 2014, the undergraduate student government adopted the divestment resolution with a vote of 8-2-2.

In February 2015, SJP at UCLA pushed BDS beyond the UCLA campus by promoting a divestment resolution to the UC Student Association (UCSA). The resolution also called on the UC Regents to divest from American-based corporations that “violate Palestinian human rights.”.

The UCSA Board of Directors passed the resolution by a 9-1-5 vote.

SJP at UCLA also used their 2014 Palestine Awareness Week (PAW) to promote divestment, erecting a “mock apartheid wall” and hosting a screening and discussion of the film “Roadmap to Apartheid,” a film that compared Israel to apartheid in South Africa.

Palestine Awareness Week (PAW) is a re-branding for American audiences of Israel Apartheid Week (IAW), originally presented as “an international series of events that seek to raise awareness of Israel’s settler-colonial project and apartheid system over the Palestinian people” and build support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

SJP at UCLA - Glorifying Rasmea Odeh

On February 14, 2017, SJP at UCLA glorified Rasmea Odeh on their Facebook page in honor of Palestine Awareness Week (PAW), calling her an “icon of the Palestine liberation movement,” and “an example for the millions of Palestinians who have not given up organizing for their rights.”

The post concluded: “#Justice4Rasmea #FreePalestine #PAW2017.”

Odeh was a military operative with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization. In 1969, she masterminded a bombing that killed two university 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 her 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. In 2017, Odeh was deported to Jordan and stripped of U.S. citizenship, after admitting to immigration fraud.

SJP at UCLA - Hosting Israel Haters

On November 15, 2017, SJP at UCLA hosted anti-Israel journalist David Sheen. The event description said Sheen would “speak about racism and ethnic cleansing within the Israeli community.” Sheen is an anti-Israel propagandist.

On November 30, 2016, SJP at UCLA screened the anti-Israel film “The Occupation of the American Mind.” The event also featured the film’s anti-Israel executive producer, Professor Sut Jhally, and anti-Israel activist and musician Roger Waters.

In his films, Jhally claims that the “Israel lobby” has waged “the most successful PR campaign ever,” the result of which is a strong pro-Israel bias in American public media.
On January 27, 2016, SJP at UCLA hosted anti-Israel activists Max Blumenthal and Miko Peled.

In January 2017 Peled said [00:00:06] that the Israeli army was one of the “best trained, best equipped, best fed, terrorist organizations in the world,” and claimed [00:00:16] that “their entire purpose is terrorism.”

Blumenthal’s book “Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel” has been dubbed “The Israel Hater’s Handbook” by Eric Alterman of progressive magazine The Nation.

On January 28, 2016, SJP at UCLA hosted anti-Israel Professors Ahlam Muthaseb and Sa'ed Atshan.

Muhtaseb regularly uses her Facebook and Twitter to demonize Israel, whitewash Palestinian terrorism and collaborate with fellow anti-Israel activists. Atshan has praised inciters of violence as well as Sheikh Omar Suleiman who, in 2014, called on Twitter for a “Third Intifada” to destroy Israel.

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.