Shahd Khawaja

Overview

Shahd Khawaja was the president of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Purdue University (Purdue). She is also a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

On December 28, 2015, Khawaja asked her Facebook followers to boycott Sabra, an Israeli-owned hummus brand. She wrote: "please try to imagine how insulting it is that they sell hummus...to kill Arabs" and added “[Israelis] don't have their own culture I guess we can’t blame then then, can we.”

Khawaja created an SJP Purdue promotional video and on December 10, 2014, posted it on her Facebook. The video fraudulently accused Israel of "genocide" and misleadingly cited the terrorist group Hamas’ propaganda figures concerning the number of Gazan children killed during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE). Israel launched OPE to destroy Hamas attack tunnels and stop missile attacks on Israeli civilians.

On November 16, 2012, Khawaja co-organized an SJP Purdue anti-Israel demonstration and teach-in. SJP Purdue’s event announcement on Facebook insinuated that the United States signed a "blank check to Israel to murder Palestinians." SJP members Michael Mrozinksi, Lamise Shawahin, and Purdue professor Tithi Bhattacharya also organized the event.

Khawaja graduated from (Purdue) in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications and Political Science. She worked for L'Oréal’s Digital Marketing Team in Dubai.

SJP Purdue

SJP Purdue was formed in 2009. The group is part of Indiana Palestine Solidarity (IPS), an organization created by Sireen Zayed to "bring together activists and SJP chapters from all over the state of Indiana."

Lying to Students to Demonize Israel

On April 28, 2013, SJP Purdue’s campus display featured a deliberately misleading map of Palestine, with the headline “Palestinian loss of land.” The widely debunked map — dubbed “The Map That Lies” — fraudulently presented lands once controlled by Britain, Egypt, and Jordan as autonomous “Palestinian land,” purportedly stolen by Israel.

SJP Purdue’s display also falsely implied that Israel practices “apartheid” and that Israel practices “ethnic cleansing” — although it has been widely reported that the populations of Gaza and the West Bank are among the fastest growing populations in the world in recent decades.

Promoting Anti-Semitism Under The Guise of Human Rights

SJP Purdue enthusiastically promotes the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement on its Facebook page.

In March of 2016, SJP Purdue signed a petition endorsing BDS and disingenuously denying that BDS is rife with anti-Semitism.

The petition was headlined "BDS Opposes all Racism--Including Anti-Semitism." The petition, however, showcased BDS’ anti-Semitism. The petition quoted Omar Barghouti calling Zionism — the belief that Jews have the right to self-determination in their own national home, and the right to develop their national culture — a form of racism and bigotry:

"The struggle for our inalienable rights is one opposed to all forms of racism and bigotry, including, but not limited to, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Zionism, and other forms of bigotry directed at anyone, and in particular people of color and indigenous peoples everywhere."

The petition also stated that "[a]n end to racism in all its forms depends on an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine."

On February 25, 2016, SJP Purdue shared an IPS post on Facebook claiming that Indiana’s Senate anti-BDS bill HB-1378 “is wrong, unconstitutional and a waste of Indiana's time and resources." #BDS.” The bill was signed into law on January 19, 2016, by a unanimous vote of Indiana’s General Assembly.

Defending Hamas War Crimes

In the first year if its existence — on August 27, 2009 — SJP Purdue published a paper titled "The Mythology of Occupation." In addition to a series of other falsehoods, distortions, and misrepresentations, SJP Purdue listed as “Myth #5” the statement “Hamas is a Terror Organization.” The paper falsely alleged that Hamas was labeled a terror organization not “because it actually engages in acts of terror, but because it offers an effective means to marginalize and discredit the organization publicly.”

In the summer of 2014, during Operation Protective Edge (OPE), SJP Purdue posted a series of articles and unsourced claims on Facebook demonizing the state of Israel and whitewashing Hamas War crimes. OPE was launched to stop Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.

On August 2, 2014, SJP Purdue posted on Facebook a naive analysis of military force application, calculated to besmirch Israel and whitewash Hamas’ double war crime of firing rockets from populated Gazan areas at Israeli civilian population centers.

Also on August 2, 2014, SJP Purdue posted on Facebook a fraudulent article lying that "attacks on Gaza hospitals expose Israel’s ‘self-defense’ claims as lies." Hamas commandeered Gaza’s Shifa hospital, and the al-Wafa hospital, as command centers. Hamas also used Shifa hospital repeatedly as a launching area for rockets during the 2014 Gaza War.

Additionally, Hamas rockets — as confirmed by an Amnesty International report and an independent Italian journalist — killed and wounded scores of children at Shifa hospital and the nearby al-Shati refugee camp.

On July 31, 2014, SJP Purdue posted on Facebook an article by a member of Israel-hate group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), Joel Bedin, claiming that the real motive behind launching OPE was Israeli racism.

Welcoming Purveyors of Anti-Semitic Hate

On March 27, 2015, SJP Purdue hosted a discussion with Steven Salaita, now 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.

On December 4, 2014 SJP Purdue held a discussion with Ali Abunimah, the co-founder of the anti-Israel online magazine Electronic Intifada.

Abuminah is also a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). ISM has been accused of supporting terrorism and it encourages its foreign volunteers to act "as human shields in cities, towns and refugee camps." At least once, ISM facilities have been used in attempts to facilitate the escape of known terrorists.

Embracing Hate Speech

On September 29, 2009, SJP Purdue hosted New York-based Poet, Remi Kenazi at an event misleadingly titled "Speak Peace." Kenazi is notorious for aggressively anti-Israel poetry and spoken-word performances. SJP Purdue hosted Kenazi again on October 23, 2015, during SJP Purdue’s 2015 “Palestine Awareness Week.”

Promoting Intimidation

In October 2010, SJP Purdue sent a letter to the Chancellor of UC Irvine, Michael V. Drake, to defend a group of UC Irvine students (dubbed the "Irvine 11") who were arrested for repeatedly disrupting former Israeli ambassador Michael Oren’s talk at the university.

SJP Purdue condemned Chancellor Drake for inviting an Israeli ambassador to UC Irvine, demanded that he apologize for his handling of the incident, and suggested that he reconsider taking any disciplinary measures against the disruptors.

Bullying Students to Demonize Israel

In 2011, SJP Purdue members dressed up in mock Israeli Defense Forces uniforms and set up mock "checkpoints" on Purdue’s campus. SJP Purdue physically blocked students from passing until they produced “proper identification.” SJP Purdue’s disturbance of student life purported to illustrate how Palestinians experience military checkpoints.

Glorifying Attempted Murder

On May 8, 2013, SJP Purdue posted a picture glorifying rock-throwing by Palestinian youth. Palestinian rock-throwing has proven deadly — to Arabs mistaken for Jews by the rock throwers, as well as children like 4-year-old Adele Bitton.

Supporting a Terrorist

On November 14, 2013 SJP Purdue posted on Facebook that Purdue SJP "stands in strength, solidarity, and love with our sister 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.

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 Student 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.