Salma Shaheen
Overview
Salma Shaheen [Salma Y. Shaheen] has expressed support for terrorists, spread hatred of Israel and was reportedly a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organizer at Yale University (Yale SJP) in 2021.Shaheen is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
In 2020, Shaheen founded the anti-Israel student group Yalies4Palestine (Y4P).
As of February 2023, Shaheen was reportedly the president of the Oxford Students’ Palestine Society (OSPS) at Oxford University (Oxford) in the United Kingdom (UK).
As of July 2023, Shaheen’s LinkedIn profile said she graduated from Yale with a bachelor’s degree in economics in 2022. Her LinkedIn also said she was studying for a master’s degree in development economics and international development at Oxford, slated to graduate in 2024.
As of July 2023, Shaheen used the handle “@salmaysh” on Twitter and the handles “@salmayash” and “@salma_y_shaheen” on Instagram.
As of the same date, Shaheen’s LinkedIn said she was located in Oxford, UK.
Terror Support (PIJ, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade)
Shahan retweeted a September 6, 2021 tweet that promoted escaped Palestinian prisoner Zakaria Zubeidi.Zakaria Zubeidi was the former Jenin commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which is listed as a foreign terror organization (FTO) by the U.S. government. Zubeidi was involved in several terror attacks on Israeli civilians. On September 6, 2021, Zubeidi was one of six prisoners who escaped from Israel’s Gilboa prison. They were all recaptured by September 19, 2021.
Shaheen retweeted a November 8, 2021 tweet that read: “I am tweeting in solidarity with Palestinian hunger strikers, Kayed, Miqdad, Alaa, Hisham, Ayyad and Loay. Join me! Copy and paste this tweet, and quote retweet with the hashtags #FreeThemAll…”
In October 2021, six prisoners affiliated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)'s armed wing, the Al-Quds Brigades, chose to prolong their hunger strike in protest of their administrative detention by Israel. The six men were Kayed al-Fasfus, Miqdad al-Qawasmeh, Alaa Aaraj, Hisham Abu Hawwash, Shadi Abu-Akr and Ayyad Hureimi.
Shaheen retweeted an April 12, 2022 tweet in support of Palestinian terrorist Ahmed Manasra.
Ahmed Manasra (sometimes spelled Mansara) and his 15-year-old cousin Hassan went on a stabbing spree in Jerusalem on October 12, 2015, during the Knife Intifada. They critically wounded a 13-year-old boy and moderately wounded a 25-year-old man. The spree ended when police shot Hassan and a passing motorist hit Ahmed. Ahmed was taken to an Israeli hospital. He admitted to investigators: “I went there to stab Jews.” He was later tried and convicted on two counts of attempted murder.
Hatred of Israel
On June 10, 2022, Shaheen posted on Facebook, accusing Israel of “apartheid and occupation.”
Shaheen retweeted an April 14, 2022 tweet by anti-Israel activist Mohammed El-Kurd that read: “...Zionism is a death cult.”
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.
Shaheen retweeted a June 29, 2021 tweet by anti-Israel activist Remi Kanazi that read: “Zionism is bulldozing homes. Zionism is stealing land. Zionism is ethnically cleansing Palestinians. Zionism is torturing children. Zionism is teargassing demonstrators. Zionism is bombing Gaza. Zionism is enforcing siege. Zionism is and has always been the root of the problem.”
On May 12, 2021, Shaheen tweeted: “Israeli settlers protected by the Israeli army are destroying our businesses, attacking our hospitals, bombing our mosques, killing our kids, chanting death to arabs, and some ppl still say ‘its complicated.’ Babygirl, there is nothing complicated about settler colonialism.”
Shahan retweeted a May 12, 2021 tweet about Israel that read: “I don’t care who this offends they have completely internalized the ways of the nazis.”
Anti-Israel Activism (SJP, Y4P, BDS)
In May 2021, Shaheen helped organize a Y4P campaign accusing Israel of “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing.”The campaign featured a “Statement of Condemnation” that alleged [slide 2]: “Just as Israel’s military enforces the apartheid system against Palestinians, the US police enforces the system of white supremacy against Black Americans. The fight against Israel’s apartheid is interconnected with the fight to defund the police in the U.S.”
According to a Y4P press release, the campaign was “created in response to the events in Sheikh Jarrah” and was co-sponsored by Yale’s Middle Eastern and North African Students Association (Yale MENA) and the Arab Students Association (Yale ASA).
In May 2021, calls to “save” Sheikh Jarrah, a Jerusalem neighborhood at the center of a property dispute, led to violence against Israelis and were one of the leading factors in Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists firing over 4,300 rockets from Gaza into Israel that month. Israel responded by launching Operation Guardian of the Walls (OGW), carrying out targeted military strikes against the terrorists and their infrastructure in Gaza.
The statement also alleged [slide 1]: “Israeli forces have attacked Palestinian worshippers at Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
Incitement surrounding Al-Aqsa and Sheikh Jarrah were leading factors in Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists firing over 4,300 rockets from Gaza at Israeli population centers from May 10 to 21, 2021. In response to rocket attacks from Gaza, Israel launched “Operation Guardian of the Walls (OGW),” striking military targets in the terrorist-controlled enclave.
The allegation that Jews “threaten” to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque has been a pretext for Arab attacks on Jews long before the existence of the modern Jewish state. Such propaganda has led to multiple periods of violence against Israeli civilians.
On June 27, 2021, the Yale College Council (YCC) voted to endorse Y4P’s statement. That day, Shaheen wrote on Facebook: “Today, Yalies finally had the chance to hear the Palestinian narrative and connect it to the global struggles against white supremacy.”
On June 10, 2022, Shaheen wrote on Facebook: “In my engagements with Students for Justice in Palestine and later Yalies4Palestine, I tried with my friends to shed light on Israel’s ethnic cleansing and apartheid and create a Palestinian narrative at Yale.”
Shaheen retweeted a December 6, 2022 tweet by Y4P organizer Ruqaiyah Damrah that read: “So excited to co-launch Yale’s first @BDSmovement campaign! Yale needs to be held accountable for its ties to human rights violations in Palestine and around the world.”
In December 2022, Y4P launched a BDS campaign and petition calling on Yale to cancel its contracts with G4S, a British security company that provides technology for the campus police department and surveillance and scanning systems.
The petition stated: “Yale now uses the same technologies used by private prisons, migrant detention centers, and the apartheid regime in Israel.”
The petition also stated: “The principal method for pressuring universities to dissociate from the Israeli occupation is the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.” The petition also said: “We aim to build on this movement by pressuring Yale to end its complicity in funding apartheid in Israel. We demand that our administrators cancel Yale’s security contract with G4S.”
On February 22, 2023, Shaheen reportedly helped organize an event titled: “Oxford for Palestine // No to Tzipi Hotovely.” The event was co-hosted by the OSPS, the Oxford Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and the Oxford Union Arab Society (OUAS) to protest a speaking event by the Israeli ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely.
The Facebook event description said the protest was organized “to stand against the international normalisation of the apartheid regime and stand in solidarity with Palestinian liberation.”
Proponents of the “anti-normalization” policy seek to police all interactions between Israelis and Palestinians and shut down all conversations and interactions perceived as being ideologically unaligned with their own agenda.
Also on February 22, 2023, the same day as an Israeli counterterrorism operation in Nablus, Shaheen tweeted: “@OxfordUnionHow dare you invite the ambassador of blood, terrorismm, and apartheid while Israel just massacred 10 Palestinians in Nablus and bombed residential neighbourhoods in Syria and the Damascus castle? is supporting terrorism free speech now?”
Protesters reportedly gathered outside the event and chanted: “Brick by brick, wall by wall, Israeli apartheid has got to fall!” They also chanted: “Oxford Union shame on you.”
During the event, protesters staged a walk-out, chanting [00:00:05]: “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free!” One protester shouted [00:00:19]: “Intifada!”
“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” is a chant calling to dismantle the State of Israel. It has also been employed by Hamas leader Khaled Mashal to call for the replacement of Israel with an Islamic state.
The term “intifada,” which translates from Arabic as “uprising” or “insurrection,” carries the connotation of violence. Palestinian intifadas waged against Israel have been marked since 1987 by hundreds of hijackings, shootings, stabbings, bombings and suicide missions.
Shaheen retweeted a February 23, 2023 tweet that read: “the isr*eli ambassador’s inflammatory comments calling pal*stinians terror*sts provoked us to walk out. we got escorted out by security + were then handed over to the police …”
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/salma.shaheen.39Twitter:https://twitter.com/salmaysh
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/salmayash [Private]
Instagram 2:https://www.instagram.com/salma_y_shaheen [Private]
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/salma-shaheen-169582148
