Wasique Iqbal

Wasique Iqbal promoted the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement at the University of Maryland (UMD), in 2019.

As of August 2019, Iqbal’s LinkedIn page said he was an “Aspiring engineer and entrepreneur” and a “Computer engineering” student at UMD from “2018 - 2020.” Iqbal’s LinkedIn page also said he studied “Computer Engineering” at Montgomery College from “2016 - 2018.”

As of the same date, Iqbal’s LinkedIn page said that he was a Software Development Intern at Nteligen, since June 2019.

Promoting BDS

On April 25, 2019, Iqbal was featured [01:44:46] in a video posted on Facebook by the UMD Student Government Association (SGA), urging the SGA to pass a BDS bill. The bill was launched by Divest UMD.

Divest UMD is a campaign that calls on UMD to divest from companies that do business with Israel. 

In the video, Iqbal said [01:44:52]: “I urge everyone here today to support this bill. Divestment tells the companies involved in the oppressing of the lives of Palestinians that we will not stand by as they engage in the wanton violence committed against the Palestinian people, and further the violation of human rights.” 

Iqbal continued [01:45:08]: “This divestment bill is not an argument of politics, territory or religion. It is posing the question of whether or not we will stand by idly as Palestinian beaches are bombed, murdering children in cold blood, among the... other heinous crimes they have committed.”

Iqbal added [01:45:08]: “Destroying and obliterating the smiles and laughters from Palestinian land. We must stand up and fight the torture, the arbitrary killings and arrests, the destruction of homes, the severe restrictions imposed on the freedom of movements… by hundreds of checkpoints, the land confiscations and the construction of illegal settlements, and finally the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.”

On April 25, 2019, Divest UMD announced on Facebook that following a UMD student government vote, the BDS bill failed to pass with “a vote of 9 for, 25 against, and 2 abstentions.”

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:www.facebook.com/100004315653462  

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/wasique-iqbal/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wasique12/ [Private] 

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