Seth Uzman

Seth Uzman disrupted campus events as a member of the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) at the University of Texas (UT) Austin, in 2015. PSC is an alternative name for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

Uzman has also demonized Israel, promoted the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and expressed support for anti-Israel agitators.

In 2016 Uzman was reportedly an officer for PSC. Uzman studied Mathematics and Economics at UT Austin from 2013 to 2017.

As of April 2020, Uzman was an author for Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century, since December 2018. He has also written for SocialistWorker from 2015 to 2019.

As of January 2019, Uzman was a student at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, slated to graduate in 2021 and reportedly studying for a master’s degree in Labour, Social Movements and Development (LSMD).  

Disrupting Campus Events

On November 13, 2015, Uzman was [00:00:52] one of 12 PSC members who disrupted an event organized by Israeli Professor Ami Pedahzur of UT’s Institute for Israeli Studies, about the Israeli Defense Forces.

PSC member Mohammed Nabulsi interrupted the speaker to deliver a prepared speech and Uzman and the other PSC members began chanting [00:05:08]: “Long live the intifada!” and “We want 48, we don’t want two states!”

Campus police later arrived and detained the PSC members. 

Following the incident, PSC accused Professor Pedahzur of assault and filed a complaint with the university against him. PSC also posted on Facebook calling on students to file complaints against Pedahzur, who later reportedly received death threats.

UT’s investigation found that Pedahzur “did not violate the university’s Nondiscrimination Policy and did not engage in harassment of the student organization.” 

On September 15, 2015 Uzman participated in a PSC-hosted protest against a panel event featuring former and current Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials.

The Daily Texan, UT Austin’s campus newspaper, reported that: “Midway through the presentation, protestors stood up and exited, yelling ‘On trial, not on campus,’ at the CIA officials on stage.” 

Uzman reportedly “said that in its effort to improve national security, the CIA commits war crimes in other countries.” He was also quoted as saying: “The institutions that these men represent actively promote a global system of imperialism and racism.” 

Referring to education centers for the study of National Security and International Security and Law at UT Austin, Uzman said: “The Strauss and Clements centers present themselves as institutes of state craft when their real purpose is warcraft.”

On September 16, 2015, Uzman posted The Daily Texan’s report on the protests Facebook event page and wrote: “I said to ‘further US Imperialism and global racism’; not ‘to improve national security’ - f**k national security.”

Demonizing Israel

On November 17, 2015, Uzman published an article on the SocialistWorker.org website in support of the PSC’s disruption of the event organized by Professor Ami Pedahzur. In his article, Uzman accused Israel of the “ethnic cleansing of nearly 1 million Palestinians during the 1948 war for Palestine.” 

Uzman also claimed that: “paramilitary Zionist militias such as the Stern Gang, the Irgun and the Haganah, which maintained ties with the Nazis and in some cases carried out operations on their behalf during the Second World War.”

Uzman further accused: “representatives of liberal Zionism” of “endorsing Zionism's racist fantasy.”

On March 29, 2016, the Daily Texan reported that Uzman posted to Facebook saying an annual pro-Israel event on the UT campus, the Israel Block Party: “celebrates the culture of a settler-colonial nation-state founded upon the ruins of Palestinian society.”

Uzman reportedly wrote: “The event itself is a hieroglyph of racism and ethnic cleansing… the Israeli Block Party Protest demonstrates the power of a global and growing movement against Israeli apartheid that has clocked the survival of its settler-colonial infrastructure with an egg-timer.”

Promoting BDS

In April 2015, Uzman co-authored a divestment resolution at UT Austin.

The resolution called on the University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO) to divest itself of holdings in companies that “facilitate in the oppression of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel.” The divestment measure failed to pass.

On November 3, 2015, Uzman co-authored an article on the Socialist Worker.org website with fellow PSC member Elizabeth Dean in support of BDS.

Uzman and Dean argued against divestment becoming “an end in and of itself, rather than a tool to dismantle the state of Israel.”

Uzman and Dean also claimed: “International law and its ‘enforcement agents’ serve ... to guarantee the project of U.S. imperialism” and stated that the BDS movement’s “problematic appeal to international law” had “debilitating effects on Palestine solidarity activism.”

Instead, Uzman and Dean posited that BDS needed to move beyond the framework of International Law.
 
On February 26, 2017, Uzman was quoted in an article on MENA Solidarity Network as saying that “it is essential that we deepen the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.”

He praised activists making “serious inroads in isolating Israel, costing corporations billions of dollars and sending the Israeli state apparatus into panic.” 

Supporting Anti-Israel Agitators

On March 6, 2019, Uzman signed an open letter titled: “We Stand with Ilhan,” that claimed Congressional Representative Ilhan Omar had been “falsely accused of anti-Semitism.”

The open letter referred to a March 1, 2019 event at Busboys&Poets TownHall, where Omar suggested that supporters of Israel were disloyal to America, saying [00:00:42]: “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.”

The stated mission of AIPAC is to “strengthen, protect and promote the U.S.-Israel relationship in ways that enhance the security of the United States and Israel.”

The letter also applauded Omar for her “courageous support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign,” concluding: “We thank Ilhan Omar for having the bravery to shake up the congressional taboo against criticizing Israel. As Jews with a long tradition of social justice and anti-racism, AIPAC does not represent us. #WeStandWithIlhan.”

Following Omar’s March 1, 2019 presentation, then-Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressman Elliot Engel, issued an online statement describing Omar’s comments [00:04:08] as a “vile anti-Semitic slur” as well as “unacceptable and deeply offensive.”

In February 2019, top Congressional leaders had also denounced Omar for tweeting anti-Semitic remarks about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its role in American politics. 

On January 31, 2018, Uzman signed a CODEPINK online card to “SEND AHED TAMIMI LOVE AND SOLIDARITY ON HER BIRTHDAY!” 


Uzman “signed” the card: “Happy Birthday, Ahed! Solidarity to you! The world and world history stands with you! From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free!”

“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.

In October 2016, Uzman signed a National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) statement extending “unconditional solidarity” to Rabab Abdulhadi, director of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora (AMED) program at San Francisco State University (SFSU) and faculty mentor for the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) at SFSU. 

Professor Rabab Abdulhadi has, since 2014, sought to cultivate alliances between SFSU and two Palestinian universities, An-Najah and the Hamas-dominated Birzeit. 

Abdulhadi reportedly invited SFSU students to join a “political solidarity” trip that met with individuals including Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) leader Leila Khaled and Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, a group banned by the Israeli government for its ties with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). 

Abdulhadi also glorified terrorists including Leila Khaled.

The National SJP statement Uzman signed claimed that pro-Israel groups had “waged a coordinated smear campaign—employing Islamophobia, anti-Arab racism, outright lies and innuendo, and defamation against Professor Abdulhadi—in an attempt to pressure SFSU to sever its ties with An-Najah University.” 

The statement called Al-Najah “one of the premier universities in Palestine.”

Al-Najah (alternatively, An Najah) University is the largest Palestinian university in the West Bank and is notorious for its triumphal exhibit lauding the August 9, 2001 Sbarro cafe suicide bombing. The blast killed 15 civilians, including 7 children and a pregnant woman and wounded 130.

Al-Najah’s exhibit featured a mock-up of Sbarro’s, including gnawed pizza crusts and bloody plastic body parts suspended from the ceiling, as though blasting through the air.

The 2013 An Najah graduating class was named for terrorist Abu Jihad at an appreciation ceremony for the class’s outstanding students. Abu Jihad (Khalil Al-Wazir) planned the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre that killed 37 civilians, 12 of them children, and wounded 71 others.


The NSJP statement that Uzman signed also concluded “In Solidarity and Until Liberation!”

PSC Austin - Disrupting Campus Events 2015

PSC Austin created a Facebook event titled: “McRaven Address Walkout.” The event was to initiate a walkout during a November 20, 2015 address by U.S. Navy veteran Admiral William McRaven at UT Austin. 

McRaven is a UT Austin graduate and led the raid to kill Osama bin Laden. In its Facebook event description, PSC accused UT Austin of hosting “a swarm of US intelligence and military officials on campus,” who would “recruit students to a life of crime.”

On November 13, 2015, twelve PSC members disrupted an event organized by Professor Ami Pedahzur of UT Austin’s Institute for Israeli Studies. The event was titled: “The Origin of a Species: The Birth of the Israeli Defense Forces’ Military Culture.”

PSC Austin - Disrupting A Campus Event 2014  

On October 14, 2014, members of several student organizations, including PSC, disrupted [00:00:18] a talk about ISIS given by Israeli Major General Meir Dagan, former head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service.

PSC Austin - Glorifying Intifada 2015  

In November 2015, PSC Austin, together with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Houston, scheduled an event titled: “Solidarity with the Palestinian Uprising: Call to Action!” 

The event’s Facebook description claimed: “The Zionist state occupation forces” were “killing dozens of unarmed Palestinians…with the participation of racist Zionist settlers.” 

The event took place during a wave of stabbing attacks carried out by Palestinians against Israeli civilians, termed the “Knife Intifada.” Palestinians shared graphics and video tutorials across social media explaining how to most effectively stab Jews. One widely shared video showed a young girl from Gaza brandishing a knife while calling on West Bank Palestinians to stab Israelis.

The event’s Facebook description also said: “Palestinians across historic Palestine—including 1948 Palestine—have taken it upon themselves to launch a popular resistance…to fight the genocidal Zionist project. The Palestinian youth…have in particular taken the lead in this uprising. They are sacrificing themselves so that Palestine may have a future. The least we can do is show our support for them.”

The event’s Facebook description concluded: “Long Live the Resistance! Long Live the Intifada!”

Since the early 2000s, the term “intifada,” which translates from Arabic as “uprising” or “insurrection,” has carried the connotation of violence.  

PSC Austin - Promoting BDS 2015

In 2015, PSC Austin spearheaded the #UTDivest campaign to introduce a divestment resolution to the Student Government Assembly (SGA). The campaign’s goal was to have [00:01:45] UT Austin join the BDS movement.

The divestment resolution called on the University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO) to divest itself of holdings in companies that “facilitate…the oppression of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel.” 

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/100000007408404

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RedForecast [Deleted]

https://twitter.com/sethuzman