Sharif Zakout

Equating Zionism and Racism

Zakout’s Twitter and Facebook accounts are replete with accusations that Israel is a racist, colonizing regime.

On November 17, 2014, Zakout tweeted — "BDS should be used to de-normalize Zionism, not help recreate it's image. Zionism IS racism".

On January 23, 2014, Zakout posted a picture of himself on Facebook wearing a Keffiyeh, with the sign “Zionism is Racism.”

On April 11, 2013, Zakout tweeted — “Zionism is anti-semitism at its best.”On April 6, 2013, Zakout tweeted — “"Israelis have right to self determination just not in the form of a racist state." #RoRConf.”

Organizing Anti-Israel Demonstrations

Zakout regularly organizes and promotes anti-Israel demonstrations.

On July 26, 2014, Zakout tweeted a picture of with SJP founder Hatem Bazian speaking at a demonstration, where demonstrators chanted that Israel is committing genocide

On July 17, 2014, Zakout tweeted — “Mobbin deep. SF wants no Zionism or imperialism. #SF2Palestine.” The tweet featured a photo of of demonstrators holding a sign calling Israel an apartheid state.

On October 14, 2015, GUPS wrote on its Facebook page that GUPS “supports the uprising in Palestine.” The post continued: “We Stand with our Brothers and Sisters in the streets, and we will find victory!” The post also urged:” End to the colonist empire! We will not be silenced!” and called for an “End to the Zionist State!”

Supporting Economic Boycotts Against Israel

On August 16 2014, Zakout co-organized and advertised on Twitter the "Block the Boat - End Israel Apartheid" demonstration to prevent a ship owned by the Israeli company ZIM from unloading its cargo.

During the demonstration, demonstrators yelled out the chants "Intifada, Intifada" and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

Accusing Israel of Global Oppression

On October 23, 2014, Zakout was a panelist at an SJP event at Brooklyn College, entitled "Israel’s Worldwide Role in Repression." The event was advertised as an opportunity to learn about “the very real ways Israel is involved in repression and oppression worldwide,” and is the “common oppressor” of peoples struggling everywhere.

Spreading Propaganda

On October 16, 2015, Zakout inverted history and claimed that the past month showed an escalation of "systemic violence perpetuated [sic]" by Israeli security forces” against the Palestinian people — including “stabbings and shooting.”

October 2015 saw an upsurge in violence across Israel incited by Palestinian political and religious leaders. The wave of stabbings, known as the "Knife Intifada," saw young Palestinians across Israel stabbing and attempting to stab scores of Israeli civilians.

Zakout went on to reiterate the libel that Israel assaults Palestinians every few years to test weapons that are then sold to other countries. Zakout concluded by claiming that Israel starves the Palestinian population.

On April 5, 2013, Zakout tweeted — "Gaza is crowded because several labor camps were created to hold many Palestinians captured from nearby villages. #RoRConf"

On the same day, Zakout tweeted — “Zionists established forced Palestinian labor camps during the early years of the #Nakba #Nakba65 #FreePalestine http://zochrot.org/en/content/letter-1948-labor-camps …”

On May 15, 2013, Zakout tweeted: “Today marks the 65th year of the ongoing militarized ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and illegitimate rule of the state of Israel. #Nakba65.”

On February 24, 2016, Zakout alleged that Israel is testing weapons on the people in Gaza — after which they are used on minorities in the United States. On November 27, 2014, Zakout promoted the libel in a rap music video.

Supporting A Terrorist

Zakout is a consistent supporter of, promoter and fundraiser for terrorist Rasmea Odeh.

Zakout and fellow IFPB delegate Priya Handa created a banner honoring Odeh, which was featured at an IFPB art exhibit and event on September 7, 2015.

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.

Propagating a Libel

On July 7, 2014, Zakout tweeted — "'Israel stop killing our kids!!' #SF2Palestine," that featured a poster promoting the Al-Durah Hoax.

The Al-Durah hoax is an iconic piece of anti-Israel propaganda, fabricated on September 30, 2000 at the start of the Second Intifada by a France 2 reporter.  

On July 7, 2014, Zakout was photographed holding the same placard that appeared in his tweet.

GUPS - Celebrating A Militant

On March 9, 2016, GUPS posted on Facebook a photo of a mural featuring Leila Khaled — with the comment "Happy International Women’s Day to all of the fierce women resisting colonial powers and repression every day!"

Khaled is a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and participated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 840 in 1969 and El Al Flight 219 in 1970. As of 2017, Khaled was a member of PFLP's Political Bureau.

Khaled has said that the second intifada failed because it was not violent enough, advocated for the use of children in terror activities and compared Zionists to Nazis.

The PFLP claimed credit for the 2014 Har Nof Massacre where six people were murdered during morning prayers in a Jerusalem synagogue. The PFLP also claimed credit for the 2001 assassination of the Israeli tourism minister. 

UCSC CJP/SJP Campus Activity

In November 2015, UCSC SJP members held a die-in, in opposition to another student group’s showing solidarity with Israelis murdered during a wave of Palestinian terror attacks that surged that Fall. UCSC SJP members lay down directly in front of the student group’s table for the protest.

In April 2015, UCSC SJP members disrupted a talk given by former Israeli officers, trying to dialogue with students on-campus. One demonstrator covered his face and bellowed from a prepared text at the visiting Israelis.The Israelis welcomed the protesters’ voices and beseeched them to engage in civil dialogue. However, UCSC SJP member Wessam Awadalla shrieked: "You can’t tell me that you value life and you lost people and that hurts you...You can’t talk to me like this!" 

Awadalla called additional requests for dialogue “an act of terror and the violence of colonization.” Meanwhile, the masked disruptor continued his rant — accompanied by fellow UCSC SJP members chanting “Free Free Palestine,” before walking out.

UCSC SJP/ CJP Spreading Fear and Hate on Campus

On March 7, 2015, UCSC SJP members dressed up in mock Israeli Defense Forces uniforms and set up four mock "checkpoints" on UCSC’s campus. UCSC SJP physically blocked students entering one of the main campus libraries before final exams until they produced “proper identification.” UCSC SJP’s disturbance of student life purported to illustrate how Palestinians experience military checkpoints.

On March 12, 2015, UCSC’s Chancellor and Campus Provost sent an email to the UCSC community that the administration had received "hate/bias" reports filed against the mock-checkpoint demonstrators and acknowledged that other students felt “particularly targeted” by the UCSC SJP tactic.

On December 2, 2013, UCSC CJP members distributed fake eviction notices to more than 400 UCSC students in campus dorm rooms. Those notices ordered the students to leave their rooms, threatening that they would be demolished within four days.

In January 2015, UCSC SJP members violated the safe space of an LGBT campus event hosted by "A Wider Bridge". Hoisting a placard reading “LONG LIVE THE INTIFADA!” the demonstrators invoked,with approval, the wave of Palestinian Arab violence occurring in Israel that month. UCSC SJP members moved to the front of the room and imposed their message upon the audience while delaying the invited speaker from talking. UCSC SJP later posted a video inadvertently showing that its members lied when agreeing not to disrupt the event, as a condition of their admittance.

Hours before the event, unidentified callers harassed the UCSC’s LGBT center threatening to block students’ entry to the event — and demanded its cancellation. A flyer advertising the LGBT event was defaced with "F**k Zionist Pinkwashing Free Palestine." Eventually, the LGBT Center’s environs, intended to be a safe place for students, became so hostile and threatening that the program was relocated.

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/sharif.zakout.3?fref=ts

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShaRiffRaff

https://twitter.com/shamynisms [Deleted]

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shariffraff/ [Private]

Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2ABCP6E46EtuWTTwzZr8YQ