Ramah Awad

Overview

Ramah Awad expressed support for Hamas terrorism during an anti-Israel rally in San Diego, California, in October 2023. She has spread hatred of Israel and is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

In October 2023, Awad was reportedly a volunteer with the pro-terror activist group Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) and served [00:01:40] on the group’s executive board in 2020-2021.

Awad’s activism took place during Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists. Israel launched the war, called called “Swords of Iron,” after a series of Hamas terror attacks and war crimes against Israeli civilians, including mass murder, torture, rape, beheadings and kidnappings. The atrocities were executed on October 7, 2023, and left approximately 1,200 Israelis dead, hundreds kidnapped and thousands wounded.

In 2015, Awad authored [p. 5] a pro-BDS resolution while she was a member of Stanford Out of Occupied Palestine (SOOP), an anti-Israel coalition of students and organizations at Stanford University (Stanford). In April 2015, Awad reportedly served as SOOP’s leader.

In 2018, Awad’s LinkedIn profile said she served as the “President (2014-15), General Member, Regional Representative on National Coordinating Committee” of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Stanford. In October 2014, Awad attended SJP’s national conference at Tufts University (Tufts) in Boston, Massachusetts.

As of July 2024, Awad’s LinkedIn said she had worked as an “Advocacy Intern” at Addameer in Ramallah in 2014.

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.

As of June 2024, Awad was reportedly the “Inaugural Palestinian Community Leader in Residence” at the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego).

As of the same date, Awad was reportedly a “community organizer.”

As of July 2024, Awad’s LinkedIn said she had been the executive director at Majdal: Arab Community Center of San Diego since April 2020.

Also as of July 2024, Awad’s LinkedIn said that she graduated from Stanford with a bachelor’s degree in history and anthropology in 2017.

As of the same date, Awad’s LinkedIn said she was located in San Diego, California.

Support for Hamas Terrorism

On October 15, 2023, days after Hamas terrorists murdered approximately 1,200 Israelis, Awad reportedly helped [00:01:11] organize an anti-Israel rally in San Diego, California.

In an interview with ABC 10 News, Awad said [00:01:59], referring to the terror attacks of October 7: “I think it’s so important to look at this week in the context of the past 75+ years.”

The modern State of Israel was founded 76 years earlier, in 1948.

During the protest, anti-Israel activists held signs that said [00:01:10]: “Resistance until return” and [00:01:50]: “Resistance against occupation is a human right!”

Anti-Israel activists use the term “resistance” to refer to violence and terror perpetrated against Israeli civilians and their allies. It is used to glorify anti-Israel and anti-Semitic violence. Anti-Israel activists chant slogans such as: “Resistance by any means necessary!” and “Resistance is justified when people are occupied!” in response to terror attacks.

On Saturday, October 7, 2023, approximately 2,900 heavily armed Hamas terrorists breached Israel’s border with Gaza. They executed numerous war crimes on civilians, including mass murder, beheadings of children, rape of men and women, torture, kidnappings and mutilation. Hamas broadcast videos of their butchery on social media, often to victims’ accounts for families to see. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.” As of November 10, 2023, approximately 1,200 Israelis, the vast majority of them civilians, were murdered during the attacks. Hamas kidnapped 242 Israelis, including at least 30 children. At least 3,500 people were wounded, many severely.

A terrorist detained by Israel admitted he raped an Israeli woman when he broke into a kibbutz house during the October 7, 2023 attack. In March 2024, a former hostage of Hamas publicly stated she was sexually abused and tortured while in captivity.

For more information on the October 7, 2023 terror attacks, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.

Hatred of Israel

On November 5, 2020, Awad published an article in Sage Journals titled: “BDS as the baseline of solidarity: toward a model of co-struggling with Palestinians in their movement for justice and liberation.”

In the article, Awad defended a policy known as the “right of return.”

The “right of return” is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel. International law mandates no absolute right of return and UN Resolution 194, which defined principles for “refugees wishing to return to their homes,” was unanimously rejected by Arab nations following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

In the same article, Awad defended the idea that “solidarity activists can further strengthen the Palestinian liberation movement by…confronting Zionism.”

Zionism is the belief that Jews have the right to self-determination in their own national home, and the right to develop their national culture.

On June 2, 2021, in an interview with the Muslim Network TV posted on Facebook, Awad said [00:05:40]: “I think the most accurate way to talk about what is happening in Palestine is a settler-colonial project. You can see the ways that the Israeli state is doing everything that it can to ensure that they are minimal Palestinians on minimum land.”

On June 26, 2024, during Israel’s war against Hamas, Awad gave an interview for the KPBS radio show, in which she accused [00:14:38] Israel of committing “genocide in Gaza.”

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.

PYM

In 2012, the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM USA) released a statement saying: “Our liberation...will be gained with the path that was written with the blood of our martyrs. We reaffirm that the only path that we are concerned with is the path that explicitly heads towards the liberation of our land and the return of our people to Palestine.”

PYM organized rallies demonizing Israel where it displays propaganda posters supporting the terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and compared Israel to Nazi Germany.

On October 25, 2015, PYM called to support “intifada” during a period when Palestinian radicals across Israel stabbed and hacked to death scores of Israeli civilians. PYM alleged that “Al-Aqsa Mosque has been the target of particularly brutal assaults” and that “... arbitrary killings are committed daily by the Zionist military and settlers.”

On November 10, 2015, the PYM Facebook page displayed a photo of masked Palestinian radicals throwing rocks and firing rocks from slingshots. That photo was used to promote at least 25 anti-Israel rallies across the globe on or around November 29, 2015 under the banner of “Transnational mobilization for Palestinian resistance.”

On November 30, 2015, PYM displayed a photo on Facebook from one of the rallies showing a sign in support of PFLP member Khalida Jarrar, who confessed to inciting violence and calling for terrorists to abduct Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers.

Another sign showed support for PFLP Secretary-General Ahmad Sadat, who was convicted for the 2001 assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi.