Saima Bachani
Overview
Saima Bachani has spread hatred of Israel and is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. She was an activist with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of Minnesota (UMN) from 2011 through 2015.Bachani supported the UMN Divest campaign at the UMN, launched by SJP UMNin 2016.
As of March 2020, Bachani’s LinkedIn page said she was a Web Analyst at HelpSystems, in Eden Prairie Minnesota from “Jan 2020 - Present,” as well a Digital Marketing Specialist and the Marketing Manager at Henna Art by Saima since January 2008.
Bachani’s LinkedIn page said she received her bachelor’s degree fromUMN, in 2017” and that she served as the Public Relations Officer on the UMN Student Board, from “Sep 2014 -May 2016.”
Bachani’s LinkedIn page also said she was a Digital Media intern at the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) in CA, from “Feb 2017 - Jun 2017.”
Spreading Hatred of Israel
On May 26, 2015, Bachani tweeted: “people hear the word terrorist and think of 'isis' or 'al-qaeda' when really the first thing that should come to your mind is Israel.”On July 24, 2014, during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE), Bachani wrote on Facebook: “I dont support my tax money in U.S going to kill innocent people. I dont support stealing other people's land. I will never support these biased media sources that dont share the truth, but I do support Palestine and I #SupportGaza.”
Israel commenced OPE in July 2014 to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.
On the same day, Bachani shared to Facebook a series of maps that portrayed Israel as gobbling up the United States. The maps were captioned “How would you feel?”
On July 17, 2014, Bachani wrote on Facebook: “So this Malaysian airplane gets shot down by an unknown terrorist the same day Israel begins its ground invasion #ButThatsNoneOfMyBusiness.”
On July 14, 2014 Bachani posted a video on Facebook, titled, “Israel and Palestine, an Animated Introduction.”
On April 13, 2014, Bachani posted to Facebook: a Youtube video of an SJP UMN Die-In, held during Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) in April 2014.
On February 15, 2016, SJP UMN launched UMN Divest, a campaign suggesting [00:01:53] Israel was like Apartheid South Africa and demanding [00:01:10] that the Minnesota Student Association (MSA) and UMNdivest from all companies “complicit in the Israeli occupation of Palestine.”.
On February 16th, SJP UMN issued a press releaseclaiming UMN’s divestment from four companies explicitly targeted by the campaign “would neutralize the University of Minnesota in this conflict [sic] …” and that “The call to divest is a response to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.”
UMN’s Chief Investment Officer reportedly told The Minnesota Republic, a student-run newspaper at UMN, that the university had “no direct exposure” to the four companies highlighted by the UMN Divest campaign.
On March 8, 2016, the MSA voted [00:26:24] to strike the divestment resolution from the MSA agenda.
In April 2016, the MSA passed a heavily amended resolution that removed all references to Israel and any specific corporations. The amended resolution endorsed divestment generally from “corporations involved in human rights violations,” and from “companies profiting from human rights abuses and violations of international law.”
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.
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/saima-bachani-712972112
Twitter:https://twitter.com/SaiMaName_[Private]
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/imasaima/[Deleted]
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/saimashennaart/
YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2bU2eMxH51qEmLo9m7SPcQ
On July 17, 2014, Bachani wrote on Facebook: “So this Malaysian airplane gets shot down by an unknown terrorist the same day Israel begins its ground invasion #ButThatsNoneOfMyBusiness.”
On July 14, 2014 Bachani posted a video on Facebook, titled, “Israel and Palestine, an Animated Introduction.”
The video was produced by the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). It accused Israel of “institutionalized discrimination” against non-Jews and represented Israeli security policies as unjust. The video portrayed Israel as an oppressive force and described peace talks as “theater to cover a land grab.”
On April 13, 2014, Bachani posted to Facebook: a Youtube video of an SJP UMN Die-In, held during Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) in April 2014.
Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is presented internationally as a “series of events that seeks to raise awareness of…Israel’s settler-colonial project and apartheid system over the Palestinian people.” One of its goals is to build support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. IAW has been renamed Palestine Awareness Week.
Promoting BDS on Campus
On February 15, 2016, Bachani tweeted: “#UMNDivest.”On February 15, 2016, SJP UMN launched UMN Divest, a campaign suggesting [00:01:53] Israel was like Apartheid South Africa and demanding [00:01:10] that the Minnesota Student Association (MSA) and UMNdivest from all companies “complicit in the Israeli occupation of Palestine.”.
On February 16th, SJP UMN issued a press releaseclaiming UMN’s divestment from four companies explicitly targeted by the campaign “would neutralize the University of Minnesota in this conflict [sic] …” and that “The call to divest is a response to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.”
UMN’s Chief Investment Officer reportedly told The Minnesota Republic, a student-run newspaper at UMN, that the university had “no direct exposure” to the four companies highlighted by the UMN Divest campaign.
On March 8, 2016, the MSA voted [00:26:24] to strike the divestment resolution from the MSA agenda.
In April 2016, the MSA passed a heavily amended resolution that removed all references to Israel and any specific corporations. The amended resolution endorsed divestment generally from “corporations involved in human rights violations,” and from “companies profiting from human rights abuses and violations of international law.”
SJP UMN Activism
On November 15, 2015, Bachani featured in an SJP UMN Instagram photo, performing on stage at “Solidarity night” during the group’s Palestine Awareness Week.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.
On September 18, 2015, Bachani featured in photos shared on Facebook by SJP UMN, giving people henna tattoos at that year’s SJP UMN Kickoff event.
On May 8 and 9, 2015, Bachani featured in photos posted on Facebook by SJP UMN speaking on stage to the attendees of SJP 2015 Annual Banquet. A photo posted of a leaflet of the evening’s schedule said Bachani was slated to present a poem.
On November 15, 2014, Bachani featured in a photo shared on Facebook by SJP UMN, taken at a “Letters and Pictures for Palestine Event!”
On April 9, 2011, Bachani featured in a photo shared on Facebook by SJP UMN, which showed her speaking at an event organized for Palestine Awareness week.
On October 14, 2015, SJP UMN held a “die-in” in support of Palestinians who were conducting a wave of stabbing attacks on Israelis, known as the “Knife Intifada.”
During the die-in, SJP UMN activists lay on the ground, while SJP UMN activist Motaz Nashawaty, spoke accusing [00:00:05] Israel of an escalation in “state violence” and [00:00:32] of “extrajudicial murders.”
Nashawaty continued: [00:00:41] “We will pay respects to the Palestinian martyrs executed by Israeli forces” and recited [00:01:57] the names of Palestinian terrorists, such as Fadi Aloonand [00:02:03] Muhannad Halabi, who he described [00:02:07] as “young Palestinians whose lives were unjustly taken away from them by Israeli security forces.”
Aloon stabbed a 15-year-old Israeli boy after posting “Either martyrdom or victory” on his Facebook page, and Halabimurdered two Israelis and injured two others, including a 2-year-old, during a stabbing spree. Halabi posted on his Facebook page “[t]he third Intifada is here…Let the revolution erupt.”
Nashawaty continued [00:02:43] “our people are dying in streets now in Palestine, but they are not helpless - they are resisting.”
On October 14, 2015, SJP UMN posted to Facebook photos from a rally in support of Rasmea Odeh and wrote: “Thank you to our friends for keeping us updated with some pictures from Rasmea's appeal today.” Participants in the rally held signs that read:“I support RASMEA” and “Minnesota stands with Rasmea Odeh.”
Odeh was a key military operative 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.
One of the photos of Odeh that SJP UMN shared on Facebook was captioned: “This is what you call a #Warrior.”
On October 12, 2015, SJP UMN shared on their Facebook page a video that claimed Ahmed Manasra (sometimes spelled Mansara), purportedly “bled to death” and suffered abuse by Israeli soldiers.
Mansara was wounded while he engaged in a stabbing spree in Jerusalem, critically wounding a 13-year-old Israeli boy and moderately wounding a 25-year-old man.
Manasra was successfully treated at the same Israeli hospital as his victims and later convicted of attempted murder.
SJP UMN wrote in their Facebook post: “We cannot ignore these constant, heinous crimes, acts of racism, hatred, and inhumanity Palestinians are subjected to by Israeli settlers.”
The allegation that Jews will destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, has been applied to Jews as a pretext for attacks by Arabs, even before the existence of Israel.
Such propaganda was the excuse for an upsurge in Palestinian violence in the fall of 2015, with Palestinian leaders fueling violence by promoting the libel that Israel intends to desecrate the Al Aqsa Mosque.
Hamas called on Palestinians to “take up arms” to defend Al Aqsa and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas praised those willing to martyr themselves. He also declared Jews would not be allowed to “desecrate” Al Aqsa with their “filthy feet.”
In October 2015, SJP UMN posted a photo on Instagram of their section on the Washington Avenue Bridge. One of their panels featured a map that erased Israel, portraying the whole country with no internal borders and entirely covered by a keffiyeh.
The campaign condemned Birthright for presenting “a depoliticized image of Israel” and programming a trip that is “overall tailored to be pleasant experience devoid of conflict.” The campaign claimed that the program “would not discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” and that “topics such as illegal settlements in the West Bank and restrictions on Gaza will not be covered.”.
SJP UMN encouraged Birthright participants to extend their trip and join tours with political groups such as Breaking the Silence (BTS) and The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), whose director Jeff Halper has called for the end of Israel.
Breaking the Silence was discredited by Israeli investigative TV show, HaMakor, in July 2016, in a report revealing that a substantial number of BTS testimonies are untrue or distorted.
The event was a talk on ethics and the law of war by Israeli law professor, Moshe Halbertal. The disruption was organized by the Anti-War Committee (AWC), whose campaigns mainly to end US aid to Israel.
Protesters reportedly sat in the audience and then stood and shouted chants, preventing Halbertal from speaking and accusing him of being a “war crimes apologist.” FightBack News said: “The lecture was scheduled for one hour, but most of that time was taken up by interruptions.”
The article also said that after protesters were removed from the hall by university police, they continued disrupting the event by shouting [00:00:01] chants including “free, free Palestine” and [00:01:55] “Israel is an apartheid state” in the hallway, which were audible from inside the lecture hall. Anti-Israel propagandist Sabry Wazwaz, who has called for the destruction of Israel and the U.S., spread anti-Semitism, compared Zionists to Nazis and expressed support for a terrorist, led the chants.
IAW is a series of events on university campuses that promote Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel and claim to “raise awareness of Israel’s settler-colonial project and apartheid system.”
On April 22 2015, SJP UMN wrote on Facebook that “Israel’s ‘birthday’ is established on the occupation and exile of an entire people,” in a post which also denied SJP involvement in the vandalism of a pro-Israel group’s display celebrating Israeli independence.
The next day, Rula Rashid, SJP UMN treasurer, reportedly approached a table set up by a pro-Israel campus group to educate students about Israel’s independence and said “you stole our land.”
On April 9, 2015, SJP UMN tweeted: “‘If it's centered around Judaism, why are only white Jews allowed to live in Israel? It's not a case about religion and Judaism.’ @MnarMuh.”
On March 4, 2015, SJP UMN hosted an event with Dan Cohen, a journalist with the anti-Israel Mondoweiss, speaking about his experiences reporting from Gaza during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE). OPE was launched by Israel to stop Hamas rocket attacks and destroy Hamas attack tunnels.
During his talk, Cohen reportedly said the war was “not an attack on Hamas....it was an attack on Palestinian society.” He also claimed that “Israeli soldiers were allowed to take revenge” and that they intentionally shot civilians.
The policy of “anti-normalization” aims to ensure that all interactions between Israelis and Palestinians align only their agenda, including ending the occupation and a full right of return for Palestinians, which is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel. The policies are shared with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Wazwaz has spread religious incitement, promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and called for intifada.
On April 20, 2015, SJP UMN co-sponsored an event featuring disgraced anti-Israel professor Steven Salaita on “how critique of American and Israeli colonization might be productively undertaken.” In 2014, Salaita had an offer employment retracted by the University of Illinois, after a series of anti-Semitic tweets he had posted were uncovered.
SJP UMN’s statement announcing the campaign said UMN’s investment in the companies targeted by the campaign showed “implicit support for…the killing of civilians, and violations of their basic human rights.”
UMN’s Chief Investment Officer reportedly told The Minnesota Republic, a student-run newspaper at UMN, that the university had “no direct exposure” to the four companies targeted by the campaign.
On March 8, 2016, the MSA voted [00:26:24] to strike down the divestment resolution from the MSA agenda.
On May 8 and 9, 2015, Bachani featured in photos posted on Facebook by SJP UMN speaking on stage to the attendees of SJP 2015 Annual Banquet. A photo posted of a leaflet of the evening’s schedule said Bachani was slated to present a poem.
On November 15, 2014, Bachani featured in a photo shared on Facebook by SJP UMN, taken at a “Letters and Pictures for Palestine Event!”
On April 9, 2011, Bachani featured in a photo shared on Facebook by SJP UMN, which showed her speaking at an event organized for Palestine Awareness week.
SJP UMN Honoring Terrorists: 2015 - 2016
On January 27, 2016, SJP UMN posted on Facebook support for Muhammad Al-Qiq. Al-Qiq was detained by Israel for his involvement in Hamas terror activity.On October 14, 2015, SJP UMN held a “die-in” in support of Palestinians who were conducting a wave of stabbing attacks on Israelis, known as the “Knife Intifada.”
During the die-in, SJP UMN activists lay on the ground, while SJP UMN activist Motaz Nashawaty, spoke accusing [00:00:05] Israel of an escalation in “state violence” and [00:00:32] of “extrajudicial murders.”
Nashawaty continued: [00:00:41] “We will pay respects to the Palestinian martyrs executed by Israeli forces” and recited [00:01:57] the names of Palestinian terrorists, such as Fadi Aloonand [00:02:03] Muhannad Halabi, who he described [00:02:07] as “young Palestinians whose lives were unjustly taken away from them by Israeli security forces.”
Aloon stabbed a 15-year-old Israeli boy after posting “Either martyrdom or victory” on his Facebook page, and Halabimurdered two Israelis and injured two others, including a 2-year-old, during a stabbing spree. Halabi posted on his Facebook page “[t]he third Intifada is here…Let the revolution erupt.”
Nashawaty continued [00:02:43] “our people are dying in streets now in Palestine, but they are not helpless - they are resisting.”
On October 14, 2015, SJP UMN posted to Facebook photos from a rally in support of Rasmea Odeh and wrote: “Thank you to our friends for keeping us updated with some pictures from Rasmea's appeal today.” Participants in the rally held signs that read:“I support RASMEA” and “Minnesota stands with Rasmea Odeh.”
Odeh was a key military operative 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.
One of the photos of Odeh that SJP UMN shared on Facebook was captioned: “This is what you call a #Warrior.”
On October 12, 2015, SJP UMN shared on their Facebook page a video that claimed Ahmed Manasra (sometimes spelled Mansara), purportedly “bled to death” and suffered abuse by Israeli soldiers.
Mansara was wounded while he engaged in a stabbing spree in Jerusalem, critically wounding a 13-year-old Israeli boy and moderately wounding a 25-year-old man.
Manasra was successfully treated at the same Israeli hospital as his victims and later convicted of attempted murder.
SJP UMN wrote in their Facebook post: “We cannot ignore these constant, heinous crimes, acts of racism, hatred, and inhumanity Palestinians are subjected to by Israeli settlers.”
SJP UMN Spreading Incitement: 2015
On November 1, 2015, SJP UMN tweeted: “Israel is a colonial bully, trying to take Al Aqsa under the guise of ‘sharing.’”The allegation that Jews will destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, has been applied to Jews as a pretext for attacks by Arabs, even before the existence of Israel.
Such propaganda was the excuse for an upsurge in Palestinian violence in the fall of 2015, with Palestinian leaders fueling violence by promoting the libel that Israel intends to desecrate the Al Aqsa Mosque.
Hamas called on Palestinians to “take up arms” to defend Al Aqsa and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas praised those willing to martyr themselves. He also declared Jews would not be allowed to “desecrate” Al Aqsa with their “filthy feet.”
In October 2015, SJP UMN posted a photo on Instagram of their section on the Washington Avenue Bridge. One of their panels featured a map that erased Israel, portraying the whole country with no internal borders and entirely covered by a keffiyeh.
SJP UMN Campaigning Against a Jewish Heritage Trip: 2015
In February 2015, SJP UMN launched a campaign against the Jewish heritage trip to Israel, Birthright. Campaign flyers said: “FREE TRIP TO ISRAEL BUT WHO PAYS THE PRICE?”The campaign condemned Birthright for presenting “a depoliticized image of Israel” and programming a trip that is “overall tailored to be pleasant experience devoid of conflict.” The campaign claimed that the program “would not discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” and that “topics such as illegal settlements in the West Bank and restrictions on Gaza will not be covered.”.
SJP UMN encouraged Birthright participants to extend their trip and join tours with political groups such as Breaking the Silence (BTS) and The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), whose director Jeff Halper has called for the end of Israel.
Breaking the Silence was discredited by Israeli investigative TV show, HaMakor, in July 2016, in a report revealing that a substantial number of BTS testimonies are untrue or distorted.
SJP UMN Disrupting an Israeli Speaker: 2015
On November 3, 2015, SJP UMN endorsed the disruption of an event where three activists were reportedly arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and trespassing.The event was a talk on ethics and the law of war by Israeli law professor, Moshe Halbertal. The disruption was organized by the Anti-War Committee (AWC), whose campaigns mainly to end US aid to Israel.
Protesters reportedly sat in the audience and then stood and shouted chants, preventing Halbertal from speaking and accusing him of being a “war crimes apologist.” FightBack News said: “The lecture was scheduled for one hour, but most of that time was taken up by interruptions.”
The article also said that after protesters were removed from the hall by university police, they continued disrupting the event by shouting [00:00:01] chants including “free, free Palestine” and [00:01:55] “Israel is an apartheid state” in the hallway, which were audible from inside the lecture hall. Anti-Israel propagandist Sabry Wazwaz, who has called for the destruction of Israel and the U.S., spread anti-Semitism, compared Zionists to Nazis and expressed support for a terrorist, led the chants.
SJP UMN Demonizing Israel: 2015-2016
In April 2016, SJP UMN built a “mock apartheid wall” for its “Divest Week 2016,” which the group called a “divestment special edition of our annual Israeli Apartheid Week,” promoting the 2016 UMN Divest BDS campaign.IAW is a series of events on university campuses that promote Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel and claim to “raise awareness of Israel’s settler-colonial project and apartheid system.”
On April 22 2015, SJP UMN wrote on Facebook that “Israel’s ‘birthday’ is established on the occupation and exile of an entire people,” in a post which also denied SJP involvement in the vandalism of a pro-Israel group’s display celebrating Israeli independence.
The next day, Rula Rashid, SJP UMN treasurer, reportedly approached a table set up by a pro-Israel campus group to educate students about Israel’s independence and said “you stole our land.”
On April 9, 2015, SJP UMN tweeted: “‘If it's centered around Judaism, why are only white Jews allowed to live in Israel? It's not a case about religion and Judaism.’ @MnarMuh.”
On March 4, 2015, SJP UMN hosted an event with Dan Cohen, a journalist with the anti-Israel Mondoweiss, speaking about his experiences reporting from Gaza during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE). OPE was launched by Israel to stop Hamas rocket attacks and destroy Hamas attack tunnels.
During his talk, Cohen reportedly said the war was “not an attack on Hamas....it was an attack on Palestinian society.” He also claimed that “Israeli soldiers were allowed to take revenge” and that they intentionally shot civilians.
SJP UMN Opposing Normalization: 2015
On April 23, 2015, SJP UMN posted on Facebook a “definition of normalization.” The definition said that normalization was “gathering (either directly or indirectly) Palestinians (and/or Arabs) and Israelis, whether individuals or institutions; that does not explicitly aim to expose and resist the occupation and all forms of discrimination and oppression against the Palestinian people.”The policy of “anti-normalization” aims to ensure that all interactions between Israelis and Palestinians align only their agenda, including ending the occupation and a full right of return for Palestinians, which is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel. The policies are shared with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
SJP UMN Hosting Anti-Israel Propagandists: 2015
On October 15, 2015, during the “Knife Intifada,” SJP UMN hosted anti-Israel propagandist Sabry Wazwaz at a vigil for “the Palestinian lives lost in the recent attacks.” The “Knife Intifada,” was an upsurge in violence across Israel incited by Palestinian political and religious leaders.Wazwaz has spread religious incitement, promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and called for intifada.
On April 20, 2015, SJP UMN co-sponsored an event featuring disgraced anti-Israel professor Steven Salaita on “how critique of American and Israeli colonization might be productively undertaken.” In 2014, Salaita had an offer employment retracted by the University of Illinois, after a series of anti-Semitic tweets he had posted were uncovered.
SJP UMN Promoting BDS: 2016
On February 15, 2016, SJP UMN launched a divestment campaign, calling for the Minnesota Student Association (MSA) and UMN to support divestment from companies that SJP UMN claimed “profit from human rights violations in Palestine/Israel.”SJP UMN’s statement announcing the campaign said UMN’s investment in the companies targeted by the campaign showed “implicit support for…the killing of civilians, and violations of their basic human rights.”
UMN’s Chief Investment Officer reportedly told The Minnesota Republic, a student-run newspaper at UMN, that the university had “no direct exposure” to the four companies targeted by the campaign.
On March 8, 2016, the MSA voted [00:26:24] to strike down the divestment resolution from the MSA agenda.
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.
Social Media and Weblinks
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/1394376505LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/saima-bachani-712972112
Twitter:https://twitter.com/SaiMaName_[Private]
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/imasaima/[Deleted]
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/saimashennaart/
YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2bU2eMxH51qEmLo9m7SPcQ
- Status:
- Professional
- University:
- Minnesota
- Organizations:
- BDS,
- CAIR,
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- Related Profiles:
- Ahmed-Ahmed Ali,
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
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Infamous Quotes
“people hear the word terrorist and think of 'isis' or 'al-qaeda' when really the first thing that should come to your mind is Israel”
