Sofia-Moreno Haq

Overview

Sofia Haq [Sofia Moreno Haq] discriminated against a Jewish student as a member of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Undergraduate Students Association Council (USAC), in 2015.

Haq also supported a 2014 Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign at UCLA and was affiliated with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at UCLA from 2013 to 2014.

In 2014, Haq served as the Director of Public Relations for the Muslim Students Association (MSA) at UCLA. 

As of February 202, Haq’s LinkedIn page said she was Founder/CEO of Muslim Women Professionals and an Ambassador in The United State of Women program, since June 2019, representing Los Angeles County and Orange County in California. 

Her LinkedIn also said she was an Experiential Learning Educator at Pathway Travels since October 2018, and that she graduated with an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management in 2018. She also received a bachelor’s degree in Gender Studies from UCLA in 2015.

Discriminating Against a Jewish Student

On February 10, 2015, Haq was one of four members of the UCLA Undergraduate Students Association Council (USAC) who voted against a student’s appointment to USAC because she was Jewish. 

The student, Rachel Beyda, had been nominated to the council’s Judicial Board. At the February 10 USAC meeting, one of the four council members, Fabienne Roth, asked Beyda: “Given that you are a Jewish student and very active in the Jewish community, how do you see yourself being able to maintain an unbiased view?” 

Once Beyda left the room, the council debated “about whether her faith and affiliation with Jewish organizations… meant she would be biased in dealing with sensitive governance questions that come before the board.”

After a faculty member interjected that “belonging to Jewish organizations was not a conflict of interest,” the students held a re-vote and unanimously voted to appoint Beyda to the board. 

The New York Times reported that the discussion, which was recorded in written minutes and captured on video, “seemed to echo the kind of questions, prejudices and tropes — particularly about divided loyalties — that have plagued Jews across the globe for centuries, students and Jewish leaders said.”

Haq and the other three council members who had voted against Beyda submitted a collective letter to the Daily Bruin apologizing to the Jewish community.

On April 27, 2015, the Daily Bruin’s annual USAC Officer Evaluation of Haq reported that “she unconvincingly claimed that she didn’t know why President Avinoam Baral was upset by the anti-Semitic lines of questioning during the meeting. She even said the four council members acted ‘with the best of intentions,’ indicating she still doesn’t realize the magnitude of her actions.”

Supporting BDS

On November 4, 2014, Haq changed her Facebook profile picture to an image promoting UCLA Divest, SJP at UCLA’s BDS campaign. SJP at UCLA submitted a BDS resolution to USAC, which passed on November 18, 2014.

The resolution targeted companies it accused of profiting from and enabling “human rights abuses and violence,” and said that investment in the companies “shows implicit support for the decisions and actions of these companies, as well as their consequences, which include the killings of civilians.”

On November 3, 2014, Haq changed her Facebook profile picture to an image promoting UCLA Divest and linked to SJP at UCLA’s event titled “Palestine Awareness Week 2014.”

Palestine Awareness Week (PAW) is a re-branding for American audiences of Israel Apartheid Week (IAW), originally presented as “an international series of events that seek to raise awareness of Israel’s settler-colonial project and apartheid system over the Palestinian people” and build support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
On February 24, 2014, Haq changed her Facebook profile picture to an image that read: “#UCLADIVEST” and captioned it: “#UCLADIVEST #justthebeginning.”

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.



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.


MSA

The MSA was  established by members of the Muslim Brotherhood in January 1963 at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, with the goal of "spreading Islam as students in North America." A 2004 FBI investigation uncovered an internal Muslim Brotherhood document in which a brotherhood leader identified the MSA as "one of our organizations." 


The MSA reportedly has “nearly 600 chapters” located in the United States and Canada, and is “the most visible and influential Islamic student organization in North America,” boasting conferences, special events, publications, websites and other activities.


The organization includes a number of previous chapter presidents with explicit links to terrorist groups. Included are al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki (Colorado State University), Somali al-Shabaab militant leader Omar Shafik Hammami (University of South Alabama) and Pakistani Taliban recruiter Ramy Zamzam of the MSA's Washington, D.C. council.  

Social Media and Weblinks

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/sofia.m.haq 

Twitter:https://twitter.com/Sofia__Haq

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sofia__haq/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sofiahaq

Website: https://www.sofiahaq.com/

Linktr.ee: https://linktr.ee/sofia__haq