Rola Haddad

Overview

Rola Haddad has incited hatred against Israeli Jews and brought a propagandist with a history of terror support to the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD).

Haddad is a member of the multiple anti-Israel Facebook groups including “PALESTINE OUR 911 IS THEIR 24/7 - Zionism the root of the problem” and “Israel LIES AND DECEITS,” which functions as a repository for anti-Semitic content, including Holocaust denial.

Haddad was an activist with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at UMD (SJP UMD) in 2015. Haddad was also a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and a member of the Facebook page for the Muslim Students Association (MSA) at UMD (UMD MSA).

Haddad is a 2015 graduate of UMD, where she received a bachelor’s degree in Communications. She also studied at Montgomery College, a community college in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Haddad’s LinkedIn page says she was the HR Recruitment Administrator for the Ritz-Carleton Hotel Company in Bahrain from February to November 2016. She also claims on LinkedIn to be located in Washington, D.C.

Inciting Hatred Against Israeli Jews

On April 15, 2015, Haddad shared a video to Facebook that referred to Jews as being of the “correct ethno-religious category” in Israel and framed Israeli policy as a long history of “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinian Arabs.

The video misrepresented the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and framed the Arab-Israeli conflict as a racial, or “ethno-religious” one, initiated by Israel. The video claimed that Israel practices “apartheid” and employed of debunked map.

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.

On April 26, 2015, Haddad posted anti-Israel propaganda from the anti-Semitic organization If Americans Knew (IAK). The link she shared was also on the Facebook event page for Hamideh’s talk. The text Haddad posted to Facebook was directly from IAK and misrepresented the excruciating meetings Zionist leaders held with Nazis to save Jews from extermination as one of the “Strategies Zionists used to take over Palestine.”

On January 7, 2016, Haddad retweeted a tweet from the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) that linked to an article by BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti. The article originally appeared on the anti-Israel website Mondoweiss.

The article accused Israel of “unveiled, in your face repression, xenophobia, apartheid, fanatic Jewish fundamentalism and ugly colonialism.” The article was accompanied by a picture of a BDS rally, with a French language placard that accused Israel of “genocide.”

Hosting an Anti-Semitic Propagandist

On April 28, 2015, Haddad was the primary co-organizer for an event SJP UMD hosted featuring anti-Israel propagandist Abbas Hamideh.

Abbas Hamideh is the co-founder of Al-Awda, The Palestinian Right to Return Coalition, which calls for the destruction of Israel and advocates for BDS. Hamideh has compared Israel to Nazi Germany and promoted jihad.

Demonizing Birthright

On September 25, 2016, Haddad posted a petition by SJP activist Aiyah Sibay titled, “END BIRTHRIGHT CAMPAIGNS.” The petition was addressed to Hillel at UMD (Maryland Hillel)andtargeted Birthright Israel.

Birthright Israel is a heritage trip to Israel for Jewish young adults from across the world.

SJP UMD - Supporting Terrorists

As of August 1, 2016, an image in support of Rasmea Odeh was the group’s Facebook cover photo.

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 3, 2014, SJP UMD tweeted an article in support of 21-year-old Musab Moussa al-Zaaneen who was killed in an Israeli airstrike. The article stated that al-Zaneen and others were “preparing to launch rockets” at Israel.

SJP UMD’s said in the tweet: “RT @allissonCD ‘An hour ago the Israeli air force dropped two bombs on #Gaza. A 21 year old was killed. http://tinyurl.com/mlqhahb ’ #AIPAC14.”

On November 15, 2013, SJP UMD shared an article from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) praising Yasser Arafat’s 1988 declaration of Palestinian independence. The story showed photos of ISM agitators joining Palestinian militants to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Arafat’s declaration — by breaching Israel’s security fence, using sledgehammers and bolt cutters.

Yasser Arafat was the former leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and is known by some as the “father of modern terrorism.” Under Arafat, the goal of the PLO was the violent destruction of Israel.

The post also slandered Israel with unsupported allegations that Israeli forces used Palestinian civilians as human shields in its three-week Operation Cast Lead (OCL) against Hamas in 2008-2009. To support its claim, SJP UMD cited unsubstantiated and anonymous testimonies from the discredited anti-Israel organization, Breaking the Silence.

SJP UMD - Celebrating the Disruption of Israeli Officials

On April 19, 2016, SJP UMD held a “die-in” disrupting the annual Israel Fest celebration — a non-political event held at UMD to celebrate Israeli culture.

During the die-in, students lay on the ground near the Israel Fest participants and blocked student walkways. Several SJP UMD activists refused police requests to get off the ground and clear the area. Many demonstrators continued to occupy the space, in defiance of university rules and engaged in heated confrontations with campus police.

The demonstration began with a rally outside McKeldin Library where leading SJP UMD activist Mohammad Sajjad Soltanmohammadi — a supporter of both Hezbollah and Hamas — led chants of “when people are occupied, resistance is justified.”

SJP UMD co-president Shane James led the chant: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” The chant, a standard feature at SJP rallies, calls for the dismantling of Israel as a Jewish state.

When some onlookers challenged SJP UMD for spreading propaganda, one SJP activist conjured the conspiracy theory: “When the textbooks are written and taught by the Jewish or the Israeli faculty? Of course they’re biased!” Another SJP UMD activist accused Israel of “genocide.”

Soltanmohammadi led the chant: “Netanyahu what do you say, how many kids did you kill today?” The demonstrators called for shutting down Israel’s “border wall” and accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and having “racist policies.” Some demonstrators held signs painted with simulated blood stains, reading: “Zionism Kills.”

Following the rally, Soltanmohammadi led the protestors in a march on Israel Fest, where — against campus rules — they laid down on an adjacent walkway for the die-in. During the march toward Israel Fest, they chanted: “Israel is an apartheid state. Israel is a terror state. Israel is a racist state.”

SJP UMD - Supporting Steven Salaita's Hate Speech

On October 8, 2014, SJP UMD tweeted its support for Steven Salaita, the Said Chair of American Studies at the American University of Beirut (AUB).

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 UMD’s tweet claimed that Salaita was “unfairly targeted on the job” due to “his support for Palestine.”

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.

MSA

The MSA was established by members of the Muslim Brotherhood in January 1963 at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, with the goal of "spreading Islam as students in North America." A 2004 FBI investigation uncovered an internal Muslim Brotherhood document in which a brotherhood leader identified the MSA as "one of our organizations."

The MSA reportedly has “nearly 600 chapters” located in the United States and Canada, and is “the most visible and influential Islamic student organization in North America,” boasting conferences, special events, publications, websites and other activities.

The organization includes a number of previous chapter presidents with explicit links to terrorist groups. Included are al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki (Colorado State University), Somali al-Shabaab militant leader Omar Shafik Hammami (University of South Alabama) and Pakistani Taliban recruiter Ramy Zamzam of the MSA's Washington, D.C. council.