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Yasmeen-Abdel Majeed

Overview

Yasmeen Abdel Majeed is a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Columbia University (Columbia) and the Columbia Palestinian Dabke Brigade — a dance group that "was formed as a means of artistic resistance to the cultural and physical occupation of Palestine, and calls for the boycott of Israel."


In November 2014, the Dabke Brigade participated in a protest against the Batsheva Dance Company’s performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, organized by Adalah-NY.


Adalah is a BDS advocacy group that defines itself as “The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel.”


On February 1, 2016 Majeed urged her followers to support "Columbia University Apartheid Divest," Columbia’s BDS campaign, changing her Facebook profile picture to the movement’s logo.


Majeed is a student at Columbia.

CSJP Demonizing Israel

In December 2015, CSJP promoted a video originally produced by Al-Jazeera that referred to Israel’s security fence as “The Apartheid Wall.” The video also suggested falsely insinuated that a non-binding, advisory opinion on the security fence issued by the International Court of Justice is binding international law. 


Israel’s security barrier, 97 percent of which is a low chain-link barrier, was built as a deterrent to Palestinian terror attacks. The concrete portions of the fence were built in response to Palestinian sniper attacks.


On November 17, 2015, CSJP protested opposite an event hosted by Aryeh: Columbia Students Association for Israel, titled: “Israel Week.” CSJP members held signs accusing Israel of apartheid and ethnic cleansing. Another sign said: “Celebrating Israel is celebrating apartheid.”

In March 2015, CSJP’s yearly Israel Apartheid week featured the building of a mock ‘Apartheid’ wall on campus. 

Rebranding BDS

On February 1, 2016, SJP and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) launched a campaign at Columbia to rebrand its divestment effort as a fight against "apartheid." Entitled ”Columbia University Apartheid Divest,” (CUAD) the campaign targeted companies including Caterpillar, Hyundai Heavy Industries, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Hapoalim, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin.


CUAD’s press release stated that the campaign was "embedded in the larger BDS movement" — which calls for ending Israel’s so-called “occupation and colonization of all Arab lands.” The campaign was launched with a petition and inaugural event titled BDS 101, scheduled for February 4, 2016.

CSJP Excusing Anti-Semitism as Anti-Zionism

Columbia University which includes Barnard College (Barnard), was reported in 2015 to be the most anti-Semitic campus in the United States. Columbia employs a number of notoriously anti-Israel professors including Joseph Massad, Rashid Khalidi and Nadia Abu El-Haj.


In November 2014, CSJP hosted professor Steven Salaita. 


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.

CSJP’s Banner Controversy at Barnard

In March 2014, Columbia SJP organizer Jannine-Masoud Salman made a large banner that was hung at the entrance of Barnard college. The banner read: “Stand for Justice, Stand for Palestine” and featured a map of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, with no internal borders, colored uniformly green. 


The banner was reportedly removed after “students, their parents and alumni” said it made them “feel uncomfortable and unsafe in the space” and that it gave the impression Barnard was “endorsing SJP's message that Israel as a Jewish state does not have the right to exist.”  

CSJP Spreading Hate and Standing with Terrorists

In November 2010, CSJP staged a mock Israeli checkpoint on Columbia’s Low Plaza, in which members portraying "Israeli soldiers" harassed and yelled at passers-by. CSJP members also blindfolded and placed tape over the mouths of other students, who were meant to portray security detainees.


On November 20, 2010 the video CSJP uploaded of the event highlighted that "91% of students at An-Najah University miss classes because of delays at checkpoints." The video omitted that.

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/yasmeen.am1


Yasmeen-Abdel Majeed
Status:
Student
University:
Columbia
Organizations:
BDS,
SJP

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Last Modified:
06/23/2025

Photos & Screenshots

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