Reem Al-Khatib

Overview

Reem Al-Khatib has expressed support for terrorists and is an activist within the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Al-Khatib has also demonized Israel as an activist with Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE), the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (UM Ann Arbor).

Al-Khatib was a leader of SAFE’s November 2017 BDS campaign called “#UMDivest” and co-authored [00:39:00] SAFE’s anti-Israel divestment resolution. She claimed [01:24:44] that the initiative was unaffiliated with BDS, but Al-Khatib supported BDS while attending the 2017 National SJP Conference (NSJP).

NSJP 2017 was held October 27-29, 2017 at the University of Houston (UH). The conference was themed “A Reimagined World: Dismantling Walls from Palestine to the Rio Grande.” Per the 2017 National SJP Conference website, the conference aimed to strengthen “collaborative efforts within all regions to pass BDS” and envision “pathways to achieving sanctions in the future.”

As of April 2018, Al-Khatib’s Facebook page said she was a student at UM Ann Arbor since 2016. Her Facebook also said that she was an Undergraduate Research Assistant at the Michigan Alzheimer's Disease Center (MADC).

Al-Khatib formerly went by “Reem Ahmad” on Facebook. As of May 2018, she went by “Reem Alkhateeb.”

Support for Terrorists

On May 14, 2017, Al-Khatib led other SAFE activists in a videotaped “#SaltWaterChallenge” to support Palestinian prisoners hunger-striking in Israeli jails.

Al-Khatib, in the video, led [00:00:36] others in yelling “Down with apartheid!”.

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."

BDS Activism

On November 15, 2017, Al-Khatib spoke [00:38:19] before the UM Ann Arbor Central Student Government (CSG) in support of a SAFE 2017 BDS resolution.

At first, Al-Khatib said [00:39:16] the resolution was a call by Palestinian students for “institutionalized dialogue” and stressed [00:39:28] that “the resolution does not ask CSG to vote for divestment.”

Later, Al-Khatib claimed [01:24:43]: “Us, for divestment, we know what our divestment is calling for. You know what our divestment is calling for and it’s not BDS.”

In April 2017, Omar Barghouti, the founder of the BDS movement, said of divestment initiatives [00:58:53]: “If you join a campaign for justice and freedom, it doesn’t have to carry the BDS logo. It doesn’t have to say ‘boycott’ and it doesn’t have to say ‘BDS.’ There are many creative ways how to do things without labeling it as BDS.”

On November 2, 2017, Al Khatib appeared with fellow SAFE activist Arwa Gayar in an NSJP 2017 Facebook group photo supporting BDS. The NSJP 2017 schedule explicitly identified campus divestment efforts with BDS.

Per the 2017 National SJP Conference website, the conference aimed to strengthen “collaborative efforts within all regions to pass BDS” and envision “pathways to achieving sanctions in the future.”

SAFE’s BDS resolution ultimately passed [3:07:22] via secret ballot with 23 votes for, 17 against and five abstentions. SAFE and resolution authors pushed [02:52:05] for a secret ballot, that allowed CSG representatives to vote without transparency or accountability to their electorate.

Demonizing Israel

On November 15, 2017, Al-Khatib argued [00:40:51] that UM should consider divestment from three companies because of current “human right violations.”
However, she began her list of alleged violations with the “expulsion” of Palestinian Arabs during the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli War.

On November 1, 2017, Al-Khatib participated in a SAFE demonstration on campus featuring a display representing Israel’s security barrier. The barrier displayed an image of terrorist 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.
Al-Khatib spoke [00:00:03] at the demonstration and demonized Israel’s use of checkpoints.

Israeli checkpoints were built to prevent terror attacks, like suicide bombings, against Israel's civilian population.

On May 7, 2017, Al-Khatib posted a photo to Facebook of one of the SAFE barrier walls that showed a series of debunked propaganda maps.

The maps claim that lands once controlled by Britain, Egypt and Jordan as autonomous “Palestinian land” were purportedly stolen by Israel. In February 2016, publisher McGraw-Hill Education recalled copies of a college textbook containing the fraudulent maps. In October 2015, American cable news network MSNBC apologized for airing a similar series of maps and retracted them.

#UMDivest 2017 - SAFE - Pushing BDS at UM Ann Arbor

In October 2017, Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) at UM Ann Arbor launched a BDS campaign, #UMDivest, to pass a BDS resolution on campus. Similar SAFE resolutions in 2014, 2015 and 2016 all failed. As of May 2018, SAFE’s university web page said it was a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter.

SAFE’s resolution called for the UM Regents to “appoint a committee … to investigate the ethical and moral implications of our investments” in Boeing, HP and United Technologies, claiming that the companies “are involved in humans rights violations against the Palestinian people according to international law.”

On November 7, 2017, the CSG held a meeting on the resolution. The next week, the CSG held a vote on the BDS resolution, which passed.

#UMDivest 2017 - Bringing Anti-Semite Sabry Wazwaz to UM

At the November 7, 2017 CSG meeting, Sabry Wazwaz — a BDS activist from Minnesota who is unaffiliated with UM — spoke [2:02:43] in support of #UMDivest.

Wazwaz has a history of tweeting anti-Jewish imagery, various anti-Israel conspiracy theories and imagery that equates Israel with Nazi Germany. Less than three months before the meeting, he tweeted: “#ZionismIsNazism.” At the meeting, Wazwaz compared [2:05:40] Palestinians in Israel to Jews killed by the Nazi regime.

Wazwaz directly addressed [2:05:16] pro-Israel students and said that, as a Muslim, he condemned “oppressive” Arab governments.

He then said [2:05:30]: “Just like I say ‘condemn them,’ what’s wrong with saying we’re against the racist policies of the state of Israel? … Just like what happened to the Jewish people in the Holocaust was a tragedy, why should the Palestinians also suffer a tragedy?”

These comments drew cheering and applause from #UMDivest supporters.

#UMDivest 2017 - Demonizing Jewish Students

At the November 7, 2017 CSG meeting, former SAFE leader Devin Jones addressed attendees, saying [1:55:36]: “If you believe your Jewishness is tied to the oppression of another people, it is not the problem of being Palestinian that needs to be called into question.”

On November 14, 2017, SAFE posted a pro-BDS article on Facebook written by the UM Ann Arbor chapter of the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) organization. The post included an excerpt from the article addressed to pro-Israel Jewish students: “And as long as Israel and its supporters attempt to use our identities to deny Palestinian rights, we will continue to say: You do not speak for us."

On November 21, 2017, the CSG president Anushka Sarkar signed the resolution into effect. She wrote that she did it with “discretion and caution” and wrote: “We need to discuss why some people found it appropriate to hold up signs that say ‘Stop Silencing Me’ when a student shared a personal story of how their grandparents survived the Holocaust.”

#UMDivest 2017 - Promoting Terrorists

SAFE’s 2017 BDS resolution accused [p.4] Israel of “the unlawful execution of Palestinians” and cited to a report portraying terrorists as victims. Among them were terrorists Fadi Aloon and Mustafa Al-Khatib [p.5-6], who both died during stabbing attacks.

The report claimed [p.1] that “Israeli forces” carried out over 200 “unlawful killings” of Palestinians in Israel since 2015, but admitted that “most of these killings – more than 150 of them – came during alleged, attempted, or actual attacks by Palestinian individuals against Israeli soldiers, police and civilians.”

On November 1, 2017, SAFE posted a photo on Facebook of a mock Israeli security barrier alongside an image of terrorist Leila Khaled. SAFE wrote: “We’re back. #UMDivest.”

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.

#UMDivest 2017 - Denying That #UMDivest is BDS

Throughout its divestment campaign, #UMDivest followed a strategy outlined by leading BDS activists while denying that the campaign was part of the broader BDS movement.

In April 2017, Omar Barghouti — the BDS movement founder — said [00:58:53]: “If you join a campaign for justice and freedom, it doesn’t have to carry the BDS logo. It doesn’t have to say ‘boycott’ and it doesn’t have to say ‘BDS.’ There are many creative ways how to do things without labeling it as BDS.”

On November 14, 2017, during the CSG vote on #UMDivest, Yara Gayar, an author of SAFE’s divestment resolution, told [00:51:35] the CSG: “This is not part of the BDS movement.”

Reema Kaakarli, a SAFE activist, spent [00:53:32] nearly two minutes trying to distinguish UMDivest’s resolution from BDS and specified [00:54:28]: “We really want to distinguish ourselves from the leaders of the broader BDS movement.”

On November 7, 2017, Arwa Gayar, another SAFE activist, told [1:35:03] the CSG: “We are not BDS, we are just divestment.”

However, SAFE activists Arwa Gayar and Reem Al-Khatib, who spoke [1:40:42] at both [00:38:19] CSG hearings, posed for a photo supporting BDS at the 2017 National SJP Conference (NSJP 2017) in Texas from October 27-29.

The NSJP 2017 schedule explicitly identified campus divestment efforts with BDS, and held workshops to: “... envision pathways to achieving sanctions in the future and work towards getting our institutions to follow through on commitments to divest.”

On November 22, 2017, SAFE posted a Facebook photo of BDS activist Roger Waters celebrating the #UMDivest victory.

Upon signing the resolution, CSG president Sarkar condemned SAFE’s tactic of obfuscating the resolution’s connection to BDS. She also condemned SAFE for preventing a Jewish professor from speaking against the resolution, because the group had argued that the debate should remain a “student-to-student” issue.

However, SAFE activist and CSG representative Hafsa Tout invited BDS activist Kristian Davis Bailey and former SAFE leader Farah Erzouki to speak for #UMDivest, neither of whom were students.

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.

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.

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.