Samera Esmeir

Overview

Samera Esmeir has expressed support for terrorists on Twitter and has demonized Israel.

She is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and is affiliated with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

Esmeir is an associate professor in the Department of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley). She has an LL.M. from New York University.

Support for Terrorists

On February 20, 2016, Esmeir tweeted support for the Palestinian Hunger strike and, specifically, for one of its participants, Muhammad al-Qiq.

al-Qiq was arrested in November of 2015 for “terror activities” and his association with the terrorist organization, Hamas.

On November 14, 2014, Esmeir tweeted information about a fundraiser for convicted terrorist, 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.

Demonizing Israel

On February 26, 2013, Esmeir appeared on a panel titled “SHHHH! DON'T TALK ABOUT PALESTINE: Chuck Hagel, Judith Butler, and the Israel Lobby's Threat to Free Speech on Our Campus,” alongside anti-Israel activist Professor Hatem Bazian.

The event was hosted by UC Berkeley's SJP chapter.

On January 22, 2009, Esmeir published an article in Egypt’s Al Ahram Weekly, where she claimed “The Palestinians have two ‘choices’ in the Israeli script: obedience or annihilation” and “The obedience/annihilation duality that characterises the official Israeli psyche is delusional.”

In the same article, titled “The Horrors of Israel’s Peace,” Esmeir opined that “... the choice between the peace process and war making is not a real one, as these are not two radically different projects.”

Esmeir also alleged that Israel was “waging a war to kill life while waging a ceasefire to eradicate political subjects… to be killed or to witness death silently — to end one’s life or to kill oneself as a political and ethical human being. Both are murder.”

Supporting BDS

On November 18, 2016, Esmeir chaired a special session of the Middle East Scholars Association (MESA) 50th Anniversary Meeting, whose subject was “BDS, MESA, and the Politics of Academic Associations.”

According to the event’s program, “this panel explores BDS as a political and intellectual strategy as it relates to academic associations in general, and to MESA in particular.”

Esmeir signed a petition, published by Electronic Intifada (EI) in January of 2014, in support of an American Studies Association (ASA) resolution singling out Israel for academic boycott.

The petition accused Israel of “settler-colonialism, occupation, and apartheid” and likened BDS to the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa.

Esmeir is also a member of the California Scholars for Academic Freedom (cs4af). In August 2012, the group published an open letter, which Esmeir signed, to California Assembly Members opposing a piece of anti-BDS legislation.

In the letter, the group argued that BDS descriptions of Israel as “an apartheid state” and accusations against Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and “crimes against humanity” do not constitute anti-Semitism and should be protected on campus.

Esmeir had also signed another open letter, published on March 31, 2009, opposing the reinstitution of the University of California Education Abroad Program (EAP) in Israel.

Signatories of the petition claimed that "Israel has deprived hundreds of thousands of Palestinians of their right to education” and that “The designated site of UC’s EAP, Hebrew University (HU), has a longstanding and documented record of discriminating against Palestinian students.”

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.