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General Union Of Palestine Students
The General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) at San Francisco State University (SFSU) is the first — and apparently only — GUPS chapter operating in the United States. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) was created as an offshoot of GUPS in 2001 by UC Berkeley professor Hatem Bazian, who had been a GUPS leader while studying at SFSU.
GUPS is an international organization that was founded and initially administered by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). PLO leader Yasser Arafat officially founded GUPS in Cairo in 1959.
The SFSU chapter of GUPS was founded in 1973, at a time when the American State Department still listed the PLO as a foreign terrorist entity.
GUPS describes its overall goal as organizing student activists to achieve justice and freedom for the Palestinian people. To this end, GUPS claims to form an umbrella organization for Palestinian student groups and to form alliances with non-Palestinian groups.
GUPS’s focus, however, is almost entirely on its anti-Israel campaigns, including harassment, anti-Semitic libels, celebrating violence, glorifying terrorists, intimidating pro-Israel voices and shutting down pro-Israel events, supporting the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, Israel-Apartheid initiatives, “die-ins” as well as rallies and protests.
Former GUPS leaders at SFSU include Mohammad G Hammad, Lubna Morrar and Linda Ereikat.
GUPS SFSU president Mohammad G. Hammad left SFSU after posting murderous rants on his Tumblr page that threatened violence and expressed praise for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
On August 10, 2013, Hammad posted a picture of himself holding a knife with the caption reading, “I seriously can not get over how much I love this blade. It is the sharpest thing I own and cuts through everything like butter and just holding it makes me want to stab an Israeli soldier.”
Campus anti-Semitism watchdog group, AMCHA, compiled the material and sent it to university officials, the FBI, the San Francisco Police Department and the San Francisco District Attorney. SFSU announced that Hammad was no longer enrolled as a student as of the 2014 Spring semester, without specifying a reason.
Lubna Morrar was president of GUPS SFSU from 2014-2015. She has written and performed aggressively anti-Semitic poetry and used social media to spread hatred for Jews and praise for terrorism, but deleted her social media accounts after Canary Mission profiled her. Morrar led the chanting at the 2016 protest against Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, of “Get the f**k off our campus!”
GUPS SFSU activist Linda Ereikat led the April 2016 disruption of Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat’s speech together with Morrar. She is a regular leader of anti-Israel demonstrations like “Block the Boat” and can be seen chanting “We Support the Intifada!” in front of the Israeli consulate, referring to the Arabic term for terror waves that often targets Israeli civilians.
On April 6, 2016, a large group of anti-Israel protesters shouted down Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat as he was speaking at SFSU. The protest was led by GUPS SFSU and joined by members of the Black Student Union, Defend and Advance Ethnic Studies and the League of Filipino Students.
Upon entering the room where Barkat was addressing SFSU students, Lubna Morrar led the group in yelling “Get the f**k of our campus!”
Following that, Linda Ereikat led the group in violent chants, including “Intifada, Intifada!” and “If we don’t get no justice, then you don’t get no peace!”
Barkat’s personal security guards ensured his safety and a campus police officer arrived while student leaders from the event attempted to dialogue with the protesters. The protesters persisted in their disruption, forcing Barkat to move from the podium to sit with the audience, in an attempt to continue his talk.
On April 7, 2016, SFSU President Les Wong issued a statement, condemning the protesters for the disruption. He promised to open an investigation of the incident.
GUPS SFSU’s history of disruption and intimidation goes back to May 2014, when the director of SFSU Hillel, a Jewish campus group, reported that GUPS SFSU students invaded Hillel’s celebration of Israel’s Independence Day. The protest included “extreme” chants and Hillel’s director reported that “as hundreds gathered to watch the spectacle, it became very tense.”
On October 14, 2015 — following months of raging Palestinian violence directed mainly against Israeli civilians — GUPS SFSU posted on Facebook that it “supports the uprising in Palestine.” The post continued: “We Stand with our Brothers and Sisters in the streets, and we will find victory!”
The post called for an “End to the colonist empire! We will not be silenced!” and an “End to the Zionist State!”
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.
On November 7, 2013, GUPS SFSU celebrated a Palestinian mural on SFSU’s campus by setting up an art station for students to create their own placards — using a pre-made stencil with the words “MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS KILLED COLONIZERS.”
An article appearing on the Northern California International Solidarity Movement (ISM) website confirmed that GUPS SFSU provided an additional stencil, featuring an image of convicted airline hijacker Leila Khaled. Khaled was a leading member of the PFLP and participated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 840 in 1969 and El Al Flight 219 in 1970.
On November 19, 2013, SFSU President Les Wong released a statement condemning the GUPS SFSU mural event as anti-Semitic. California State legislators issued a letter thanking President Wong for condemning “[c]elebrations of violence” and “hateful demonstrations [that] foster prejudice and bigotry” and “seek to intimidate the Jewish community.”
As of 2016, Leila Khaled remains a member of the PFLP's Political Bureau. The PFLP claimed “credit” for the 2001 assassination of the Israeli tourism minister, the 2011 massacre of the Fogel family (including an infant and small children), and the 2014 attack on a Har Nof Synagogue, where six worshipers were murdered during morning prayers in Jerusalem.
On March 9, 2016, GUPS reaffirmed its support for Khaled. The group posted on Facebook a photo of a mural featuring her, with the comment “Happy International Women's Day to all of the fierce women resisting colonial powers and repression every day!”
On February 21, 2016, GUPS SFSU held an event in support of hunger-striking Muhammad al-Qiq, who Israel detained for Hamas terror-related activities. The GUPS event misleadingly characterized al-Qiq merely as a “journalist.”
On March 3, 2016, GUPS SFSU announced on Facebook the opportunity to apply to the annual “Ghassan Kanafani Scholarship Foundation.”
Kanafani was a leading member and spokesperson of the PFLP in its early years. Kanafani announced his organization’s responsibility for the Lod Airport Massacre of May 30, 1972 — an action that killed 26 people.
The scholarship was offered by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM). PYM’s website states: “Our liberation… will be gained with the path that was written with the blood of our martyrs. We reaffirm that the only path that we are concerned with is the path that explicitly heads towards the liberation of our land and the return of our people to Palestine… All Palestine.”
In July 2014, GUPS SFSU encouraged its Facebook followers celebrating Ramadan to boycott Israeli dates. The Facebook post linked to a site detailing the boycott effort and featuring a banner with signs reading “Zionism is Racism - Boycott Israel” and “Stop Funding Genocide - Boycott Israel.”
In October of 2014, GUPS SFSU endorsed a “Block the Boat Protest” where BDS supporters stopped a shipment from ZIM, an Israeli shipping company, from unloading its cargo in Oakland, California.
On May 28, 2013, GUPS SFSU advertised on Facebook an event featuring anti-Israel activist Abir Kopty speaking on “why BDS is important for resistance on the ground.”
GUPS SFSU’s faculty advisor, Professor Rabab Abdulhadi, has made efforts to establish ties between SFSU and Hamas-dominated Palestinian universities, Birzeit and An-Najah.
In January of 2014, Abdulhadi organized and participated in a controversial, university-funded “Academic and Labor Delegation to Palestine.”
The ostensible purpose of the trip was “to attend an international conference and to research, network, and collaborate with potential university partners towards a possible memorandum of understanding.”
During the trip, Abdulhadi met with individuals affiliated with American State Department-designated terrorist organizations, including Leila Khaled and Sheikh Raed Salah.
Although not advertised in the 2014-2015 annual report for SFSU, a February 2015 statement on the An-Najah website attested that an memorandum of understanding was signed between An-Najah and SFSU following Abdelhadi’s visit.
On September 21, 2016, GUPS SFSU posted a statement of support for Abdulhadi and the memorandum with An-Najah and condemned pro-Israel organizations for denouncing the partnership.
In April 2002, GUPS SFSU students circulated a flyer advertising a pro-Palestinian event entitled: “Genocide in the 21st Century.” Invoking a medieval anti-Semitic blood libel, the flyer featured a dead baby on a soup can label, framed by two Israeli flags and the words “Made in Israel -- Palestinian Children Meat -- Slaughtered According to Jewish Rites Under American License.”
In May of 2002, at the end of a pro-Israel peace rally sponsored by the SFSU Hillel, GUPS SFSU students who had been participating in a counter demonstration surrounded the Hillel students and threatened them verbally and physically. According to one eyewitness, angry GUPS SFSU students poured into the plaza, screaming "Get out or we will kill you!" and "Hitler did not finish the job!"
Jewish students had to be accompanied to the Hillel House under armed police protection.
In response to these incidents, SFSU President Robert A. Corrigan put the GUPS SFSU students on probation for a year.
