William Matchin
Overview
Hosting an Anti-Semitic Propagandist
Hamideh is the co-founder of Al-Awda - The Palestine Right to Return Coalition (Al Awda) and is known for his denial of Jewish history, his denigration of Judaism and his frequent comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany. Hamideh is a vocal supporter of terrorist organizations, including Hamas and Hezbollah.
Hamideh’s Twitter feed — especially in the month leading up to the event — was replete with hate speech and terror support. Matchin and other SJP UMD members posed for a photo with Hamideh after his talk on the “Nakba.”
On March 22, 2015, Hamideh tweeted: “They are dealing with the Hitler regime of our time! #ProtectGazaPress.”
That same day, he also tweeted: “One #Holocaust doesn't justify another. #Palestine.”
On March 16, 2015, Hamideh tweeted: “European Jews don't have any relations to #Palestine. The only connection to the land for 3,500 years is a bunch of perpetual myths. #Lies.”
Vilifying Israel
Israel commenced Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in July 2014, to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.
SJP UMD - Disrupting an Israeli Cultural Event
On November 10, 2014, SJP UMD tweeted: “Dozens of students walk out on Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer at UMD: Read more here!”On March 24, 2014, SJP UMD’s blog featured a letter co-signed by other SJP chapters that supported as “political speech” numerous instances of anti-Israel heckling, hate speech and intimidation. SJP UMD referred obliquely to the 11 Muslim Student Union (MSU/MSA) members who were arrested after repeatedly attempting to shout down Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., when he spoke at the University of California at Irvine in 2010. One of the students slandered Israel by claiming it was engaging in the “genocide” of Palestinian Arabs.
SJP UMD - Inciting Violence Against Israeli Jews
In the spring of 2010, SJP UMD hosted Obi Egbuna for its first Palestinian Solidarity Week — a variation of Israeli Apartheid Week — who reportedly stated that “the only good Zionist is a dead Zionist.”On October 20, 2015, SJP UMD co-president Manar Dajani led an SJP UMD event deceptively titled: “Palestine Under Attack.”
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 throughout the country stabbing and attempting to stab scores of Israeli civilians.
The attacks were sparked and fueled by Palestinian leaders propagating the libel that Israel intended to desecrate the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
SJP UMD’s Facebook announcement compounded the incitement, repeating the libel that the Israeli military was “occupying” the Al-Aqsa mosque. The announcement also featured an image with the phrases “Hands Off Al-Aqsa” and “Boycott Israel Now!”
The SJP event announcement further claimed: “In light of Israel's escalation of violence against the Palestinians, SJP is holding an emergency forum.” The announcement omitted any mention of the Palestinian terror campaign but alleged that “In the past two weeks, over 1600 people have been shot…” and continued with the incendiary libel that “dozens were killed by the Israeli police, soldiers and settler lynch mobs.”
On November 16, 2015 SJP UMD hosted Washington, D.C.-based Reverend Graylan Hagler who said that he was “sick and tired of hearing about ‘THE’ Holocaust… as if there has only been one holocaust in the world at any point in history.”
Hagler also romanticized Palestinian violence against Israel and compared Palestinian terrorism to anti-police demonstrations in Black American neighborhoods. Hagler stated: “As I saw the young folks jump off in Baltimore, it reminded me of the first and second intifada because you saw young folks with bricks and rocks standing up against glocks, the cops were on the run because the folks were mad.”
SJP UMD - Supporting Terrorists
As of August 1, 2016, an image in support of Rasmea Odeh was the group’s Facebook cover photo.SJP UMD’s said in the tweet: “RT @allissonCD ‘An hour ago the Israeli air force dropped two bombs on #Gaza. A 21 year old was killed. http://tinyurl.com/mlqhahb ’ #AIPAC14.”
On November 15, 2013, SJP UMD shared an article from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) praising Yasser Arafat’s 1988 declaration of Palestinian independence. The story showed photos of ISM agitators joining Palestinian militants to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Arafat’s declaration — by breaching Israel’s security fence, using sledgehammers and bolt cutters.
The post also slandered Israel with unsupported allegations that Israeli forces used Palestinian civilians as human shields in its three-week Operation Cast Lead (OCL) against Hamas in 2008-2009. To support its claim, SJP UMD cited unsubstantiated and anonymous testimonies from the discredited anti-Israel organization, Breaking the Silence.
SJP UMD - Celebrating the Disruption of Israeli Officials
On April 19, 2016, SJP UMD held a “die-in” disrupting the annual Israel Fest celebration — a non-political event held at UMD to celebrate Israeli culture.During the die-in, students lay on the ground near the Israel Fest participants and blocked student walkways. Several SJP UMD activists refused police requests to get off the ground and clear the area. Many demonstrators continued to occupy the space, in defiance of university rules and engaged in heated confrontations with campus police.
The demonstration began with a rally outside McKeldin Library where leading SJP UMD activist Mohammad Sajjad Soltanmohammadi — a supporter of both Hezbollah and Hamas — led chants of “when people are occupied, resistance is justified.”
SJP UMD co-president Shane James led the chant: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” The chant, a standard feature at SJP rallies, calls for the dismantling of Israel as a Jewish state.
When some onlookers challenged SJP UMD for spreading propaganda, one SJP activist conjured the conspiracy theory: “When the textbooks are written and taught by the Jewish or the Israeli faculty? Of course they’re biased!” Another SJP UMD activist accused Israel of “genocide.”
Soltanmohammadi led the chant: “Netanyahu what do you say, how many kids did you kill today?” The demonstrators called for shutting down Israel’s “border wall” and accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and having “racist policies.” Some demonstrators held signs painted with simulated blood stains, reading: “Zionism Kills.”
Following the rally, Soltanmohammadi led the protestors in a march on Israel Fest, where — against campus rules — they laid down on an adjacent walkway for the die-in. During the march toward Israel Fest, they chanted: “Israel is an apartheid state. Israel is a terror state. Israel is a racist state.”
SJP UMD - Supporting Steven Salaita's Hate Speech
On October 8, 2014, SJP UMD tweeted its support for Steven Salaita, 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.
SJP UMD’s tweet claimed that Salaita was “unfairly targeted on the job” due to “his support for Palestine.”
SJP UMD - Spreading Propaganda on Campus
On October 22, 2015, SJP UMD hung posters on campus of a map that showed lands that were controlled by Britain, Egypt and Jordan as autonomous “Palestinian Land” stolen by Israel.In February of 2016, publisher McGraw-Hill Education recalled and destroyed copies of a college level textbook that contained the fraudulent maps. In October 2015, the United States cable news network MSNBC apologized for airing a similar series of maps and retracted them.
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.
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