Zahra Haider

Overview

Zahra Haider is the events chair for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Northwestern University (NU) .

Haider is a very active member of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement on the NU campus. Haider has led pro-BDS workshops on campus and designed graphics for the NU divest campaign.

Haider initiated a film documentary series, entitled "Memoirs of A Stolen Land" in which she interviews Palestinians and anti-Israel activists.

Haider is a student at NU pursuing a degree in Journalism and Integrated Marketing Communications. Haider is active in campus life at NU, serving in both the Student Government and the Student Advisory Council.

Supporting Terrorist Rasmea Odeh

During 2014, Haider was active in protesting the fresh federal charges laid against convicted terrorist-murderer Rasmea Odeh.

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.

Haider wrote, recorded and published a poem about Rasmea Odeh on her personal website, in which she referred to Odeh as a victim and accused the court of committing an atrocity.

SJP NU

She was one of 12 co-authors of a Letter to the Editor written to the Daily Northwestern that chastised a J Street U Northwestern-hosted event, which attempted to present both a Palestinian and Israeli perspective on major milestones in Israeli history.

Haider and her co-authors argued that an Israeli perspective on the region's history is inherently invalid and that only a Palestinian narrative showing Israel's "colonialism, occupation and settlements" should be presented. They additionally objected that the presentation did not include an "authentic Palestinian perspective," that presented the "ethnic cleansing of Palestinians" by Israelis and "the systematic uprooting of Palestinians for the Zionist project."

Advocating for BDS on Campus

The NUDivest Resolution, which called for the university to boycott six Israeli corporations, narrowly passed on February 19, 2015 — after a hearing lasting over five hours. Prior to the vote, the NU Divest team campaigned to promote the resolution. Abdullah-Smith presented a pro-BDS workshop to spotlight the "corporations that are profiting off of the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands." NU Divest have continued to put pressure on the university since the vote, most recently through engaging in discussion with the chief Investment Office at NU. Despite this, it was reported in May 2015 that no policy changes or divestment have taken place at NU, which is usually the case following the passing of these non-binding divestment resolutions.

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.