Reem Assil

Overview

Reem Assil has glorified terrorists and helped lead disruptive, anti-Israel Israel activities of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in the United States.

Assil has also helped the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) demonize Israeli leaders. As of June 2017, Assil’s LinkedIn profile said she acted as a consultant for AROC, providing assistance with organizational development, program planning, staff/member training and development.

Assil is a member of the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) - San Francisco Bay Area Facebook group and a member of PYM - حركة الشباب الفلسطيني Facebook group.

Assil is also a member of the closed Facebook group Al-Awda News.

Assil is the manager and owner of Reem’s bakery in the San Francisco, Bay area.

Assil is a 2005 graduate of Tufts University, where she majored in International Relations and Economics.

Pro-Terror Bakery

In May of 2017, Assil opened a bakery in Fruitvale, California, after raising over $50,000 from the public through a Kickstarter campaign for her business. Assil emblazoned one wall of her bakery with a mural idolizing Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh.

In a May 17, 2017, Berkleyside interview Assil reportedly said: “[Odeh] embodies the resilience of Arab women fighting for justice in this country. She is an elder to a lot of us younger women...”

The mural immediately made the bakery a source of division in the community.

In a Berkeleyside article, titled “Where activism and culture come together,” Assil claimed Odeh was a “political prisoner.” and that she was sexually tortured into a confession. Assil also claimed “[Odeh] is divisive because she’s an advocate for Palestinian self-determination and anti-Israeli government occupation. Any time you put up a Palestinian figure it’s going to be divisive.”

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.

On March 31, 2017, following widespread condemnation of the mural on Facebook, Twitter, Google and Yelp, Assil wrote on Facebook: “The zionists are trying me right now… Masquerading with their low life ways trying to defame me on yelp, Facebook, and other publications I’ve been written up in… This is just another effort by the powers that be to silence Arab muslim communities for standing up for who they are and fighting for their self-determination.”

On June 15, 2017, the Reem’s Facebook page posted a video with Assil of a talk with “Real Food Real Stories.” In the talk, Assil further derided claims that the mural made Reem’s non-inclusive and showed support for a terrorist. Assil said such protests were “emblematic” of “the attacks on Arabs and Muslims and “xenophobia and racism.”

On July 8, 2017, demonstrators, held a vigil outside Reems honoring Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner — the students whom Odeh murdered in her 1969 supermarket bombing.

The demonstrators displayed posters that informed passersby about Joffe and Kanner, and read: “Oakland Says No to Hate,” and to “Remember the victims.” However, the vigil was reportedly attacked by supporters called in by Assil. It was reported that a woman in a wheelchair was assaulted by Assil's supporters. An elderly woman had a sign ripped out of her hand. Two members from the Oakland community filmed the events and provided the footage to the police.

It was alleged that the attackers included anti-Israel activist Lara Kiswani, Executive Director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), Sara Kershnar of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, and members of Jewish Voice for Peace.

Further Support for Terror

Assil has promoted at least one more PFLP terrorist from her bakery.

On August 15, 2016, the Reem’s Twitter account tweeted a photo of AROC activist Sharif Zakout in Assil’s bakery, holding a photo of PFLP leader Ghassan Kanafani. The tweet said: “Come hungry for food and knowledge! ”

Kanafani was a leading member and spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) during the terrorist organization’s early years. Kanafani announced the PFLP’s responsibility for the Lod Airport Massacre of May 1972 and was linked to the airport attackers. The attack killed 26 people and wounded 80 others.

Boycotting Israeli Business

In 2014, Assil led a campaign with AROC, along with a coalition of anti-Israel organizations, to prevent a Zim container ship from unloading its cargo of Israeli trade items at the Port of Oakland.

On August 16, 2014, Assil shared a post on Facebook that read: “More great coverage of our action! Please share!” The post linked to an article about a protest titled “Block the Boat.”

In the article, Assil stated. “This time, we want to make sure there’s a disruption to Israel commerce all over the West Coast,”

Assil also said the protest was “just the beginning of a long-term plan..of permanently boycotting Israeli goods in the future.”

Assil then attempted to draw a connection between Israel and “the police shootings of unarmed black civilians here in the U.S.” Assil said: “The police forces here in the U.S. are actually being trained by the Israel Defense Forces.”

Demonizing Israel

On March 3, 2015, Assil was listed on Facebook as having attended a demonstration, co-sponsored by AROC, to demonize Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address of a Joint Session of Congress.

The protest was organized by the answercoalition.org, which has claimed that “even if throwing all the Jewish people out were the position of Palestinian resistance, the safety of Israeli Jews would not be a serious concern.”

The Facebook event page called Netanyahu “rabidly anti-Iranian” and a “War Criminal...Wanted for War Crimes.” The event description went on to claim: “Netanyahu has presided over many massacres of Palestinians...”

The event organizers defended Iran and the Shi’ite terror group Hezbullah, claiming “Iran has played a key role in supporting the resistance in Lebanon -- which liberated Lebanon from a brutal Israeli occupation.” The event called to “End U.S. Aid to Israel!
and “Justice 4 Rasmea.”

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.