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Ziena Smadi
Ziena Smadi was a member of a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter that expressed support for Hamas terrorism in October 2023. Smadi has also shown support for other terrorists and spread hatred of Israel.
Smadi was reportedly a member of the SJP at the University of California of Irvine (SJP UCI) in 2023 and board member in 2022. She has been affiliated with SJP UCI since 2021.
UCI is located in Irvine, California.
SJP UCI showed support for Hamas following a series of Hamas terror atrocities and war crimes against Israeli civilians, including mass murder, torture, rape, beheadings and kidnappings, which were executed on October 7, 2023.
The Hamas terror attacks left over 1,200 Israelis dead, hundreds kidnapped and thousands wounded. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.”
In January 2023, Smadi was reportedly a member of the UC Divest Coalition, a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement initiative.
As of March 2024, Smadi was listed on UCI’s website as a student in UCI’s Program in Public Health majoring in Public Health Policy.
As of the same date, Smadi’s LinkedIn profile said she was slated to graduate in 2024.
On October 12, 2023, SJP UCI posted on their Instagram a Statement titled: “Support for Palestinian Resistance” about the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.
On Saturday, October 7, 2023, approximately 2,900 heavily armed Hamas terrorists breached Israel’s border with Gaza. They executed numerous war crimes on civilians, including mass murder, beheadings of children, rape of men and women, torture, kidnappings and mutilation.
Hamas broadcast videos of their butchery on social media, often to victims’ accounts for families to see. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.” As of November 10, 2023, approximately 1,200 Israelis, the vast majority of them civilians, were murdered during the attacks. Hamas kidnapped 242 Israelis, including at least 30 children. At least 3,500 people were wounded, many severely.
A terrorist detained by Israel admitted he raped an Israeli woman when he broke into a kibbutz house during the October 7, 2023 attack. In March 2024, a former hostage of Hamas publicly stated she was sexually abused and tortured while in captivity.
For more information on the October 7, 2023 terror attacks, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.
SJP UCI’s statement claimed: “ “The First Intifada of 1987, the Second Intifada of 2000, and the current, active, decolonization of Palestine by land, sea, and air, are a direct response to the settler colonial violence inflicted upon our people.”
The term “intifada,” which translates from Arabic as “uprising” or “insurrection,” carries the connotation of violence. Palestinian intifadas waged against Israel have been marked since 1987 by hundreds of hijackings, shootings, stabbings, bombings and suicide missions.
The statement also alleged [slide 2]: “Any honest interpretation of the past week’s events must account for the effects of the oppressive fascist Zionist regime’s continued aggression and provocation of our people. They do not seek or require justification to partake in their brutalist violence …They have created the Gaza Strip as the world’s largest open air prison, but the Zionist regime’s chains could not hold our people back, and they have broken free.”
Referring to Gaza as an “open-air prison” is a way to delegitimize the UN-approved [pp. 39–41] joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip imposed in 2011 to prevent Hamas from acquiring more sophisticated rockets. Following Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the Israeli military discovered that Hamas went around the blockade by smuggling weaponry through tunnels under the Philadelphi corridor separating Gaza from Egypt.
SJP UCI then declared[slide 3]: “Zionism has manifested itself in every aspect of our lives. We are not merely in solidarity with our people in Palestine, but we are resisting in the struggle of liberation with them...”
On October 17, 2023, SJP UCI chapter posted on Instagram a document titled: “Condemnation Letter of the University of California Board of Regents Statement on Mideast Violence.”
In the post, SJP UCI wrote: “Students for Justice in Palestine across all of the UC’s condemns the University of California Board of Regents for the statement that was made on Mideast violence. We believe in the complete and total liberation of Palestine by any means necessary. @chancellor.may, this institution, and the UC system as a whole are complicit in the genocide, ethnic cleansing, and occupation of the Palestinian people.”
Anti-Israel activists use the phrase “By any means necessary” as one of multiple euphemisms for terrorist violence, of which another is “resistance.”
The post continued: “We as SJP at UCI call to you to click the link in our bio and sign this statement. Palestine will one day be free, from the river to the sea, and our martyrs will not die in vain.”
“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” is a chant used [00:02:47] to call for the elimination of the State of Israel. It has also been employed by Hamas leader Khaled Mashal to call for the replacement of Israel with an Islamic state. In April 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning the chant as antisemitic.
In December 2022, SJP UCI posted on Instagram photos and videos of a vigil held on campus that eulogized terrorists and commented: “We must remember and honor these martyrs and continue to resist and fight against the occupation.”
Anti-Israel activists use the term “resistance” to refer to violence and terror perpetrated against Israeli civilians and their allies. It is used to glorify and encourage anti-Israel and anti-Semitic violence. Anti-Israel activists chant slogans such as: “Resistance by any means necessary!” and “Resistance is justified when people are occupied!” in response to terror attacks.
One of the terrorists on an SJP UCI poster titled “Honor Our Martyrs,” was Mohammed Ayman Saadi, a reported commander of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a terror group “whose objective is the destruction of the State of Israel and the establishment of a sovereign, Islamic Palestinian state.” PIJ has killed dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks.
A second terrorist included on SJPUCI’s poster was PIJ commander Naeem Jamal Zubiedi, who was reportedly an operative of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade is the armed wing of Fatah, the main group in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The Brigade has been listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the U.S. State Department since March 2002 and was responsible for multiple suicide bombings [00:13:37] during the second intifada, in 2002-2004.
A third terrorist eulogized on SJPUCI’s poster was Immad [Ammar] Mufleh, who reportedly attempted to attack Israeli civilians and stab border police officers in December 2022.
Another terrorist on SJP UCI’s poster was Muhammad Badarna, a reported operative for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
The PFLP has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., the EU, the Gulf Cooperation Council, Israel and several other countries. The PFLP pioneered aircraft hijackings, most notably the 1976 capture of an Air France plane they rerouted to Entebbe, Uganda. The PFLP also claimed “credit” for the November 2014 Har Nof Synagogue massacre, in which PFLP operatives murdered six people with a gun, axes and a butcher knife during morning prayers.
On May 4, 2023, SJP UCI posted a video on their Instagram page of a May 2, 2023 protest held on the UCI campus that showed SJP members and supporters waving flags and marching.
The description of the video said: “On May 2 Many of you came to stand next to Student for Justice in Palestine and to support the fight to the Palestinian that have been experiencing the unfair oppression from the Israeli settlers. PLEASE keep your voice high and don’t fear to speak against the oppression. YOU CAN MAKE A CHANGE!! / FREE PALESTINE ps ✊.”
The same video showed a protester holding up a sign that said [00:00:25]: “RETURN IS OUR RIGHT AND OUR DESTINY.”
The “right of return” is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel.
In the same video, protesters held signs that said [00:00:15]: “FREE PALESTINE”, “GENERATION AFTER GENERATION UNTIL TOTAL LIBERATION”, “PALESTINE WILL BE FREE.”
While Smadi was affiliated with SJP UCI, the group promoted a BDS campaign in November 2023.
On November 17, 2024, SJP UCI posted on Instagram a video of an October 25, 2024 “UC Irvine Walkout.” Text on the post read: “On WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, we call on UCI students, faculty, staff to join us as we participate in the national student walkout to voice our demands”
The video showed SJP UCI protesters chanting [slide 2]: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. Palestine will be free. Free free Palestine, long live Palestine. Free free Palestine, and end the occupation. Free the people free them all, break the chains and let them fall. Free the people, free the land, justice is our demand. No no normalization, we demand full liberation…”
SJP is the leading 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, who has spread anti-Semitism and defended the Hamas terror group.
SJP organizes anti-Israel campus campaigns, including running annual Israel Apartheid Weeks and pushing the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. SJP activists have reportedly physically assaulted, intimidated and harassed Jewish students, and SJP chapters have often endorsed and campaigned for terrorists.
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by pro-terror activist Omar Barghouti in 2005 to turn “Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.” Barghouti has also called for Israel's destruction and the BDS movement demands would result in that same goal.
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 infiltrating university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments propose resolutions to boycott or divestment from Israel or Israeli-affiliated entities. 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 and pro-terror activism on campus.
