Muslim Association For Social Change

UMD MASC was founded as the UMD Muslim Political Alliance (UMD MPA) in February 2017 by two SJP UMD activists, Sarah Eshera and Saarah Javed.

Within two months of its founding, UMD MASC began to campaign for the BDS movement at UMD, alongside SJP UMD. Two of UMD MASC’s first four events were events demonizing Israel, co-hosted by SJP UMD.

On February 12, 2017, UMD’s student newspaper reported on UMD MASC’s launch: “A new campus organization at UMD aims to give a political voice to Muslim students.”

On August 3, 2017, UMD MPA rebranded itself as UMD MASC.

UMD MASC’s mission statement states: “MASC is a safe place for all students with marginalized identities, both within and outside the Muslim community” and goes on to say, “we welcome all students regardless of their religion, race, sexual orientation, individual identity, and experience.”

However, two founding officers of the group tweeted attacks on Jews and Israel during the year before they assumed formal roles with UMD MASC.

On December 18, 2016, Alawi Masud, UMD MASC’s public relations chair, tweeted: “hitler was a baddy [a bad man] wym [what do you mean?] the only thing hotter than him were his camps.”

On April 10, 2016, Sarah Eshera, UMD MASC’s president, trolled the “comments” section of a UMD Jewish Student Union (Maryland JSU) announcement for Israel Fest, an event “celebrating the culture, history and people of Israel.”

Eshera commented: “Wow!! I didn't realize an apartheid state that runs the largest open air prison was something to be celebrated … As an Arab student, will I be able to cross the mall to get to my class in Jimenez without being harassed? Because that is definitely what would happen in Israel and if the goal is to show Israeli culture, then surely we don’t want to misrepresent it.”

On February 2, 2017, SJP UMD activist Sarah Eshera (also UMD MASC’s founder and president) created the UMD MASC Facebook group.

That same day, SJP UMD activist Saarah Javed and Eshera announced the launch of UMD MASC. Two out of the first four UMD MASC events were anti-Israel events that were co-hosted with SJP UMD.

On April 19, 2016, Eshera and Javed participated in an SJP UMD “die-in” disrupting the annual Israel Fest celebration. Other individuals holding membership in both UMD MASC and SJP UMD participated, including SJP UMD Vice President Miranda Mlilo and SJP UMD activists Delia Dreher and Laila Abujuma.

At the rally, Eshera participated in the chant “Netanyahu, what do you say, how many kids did you kill today?” and the chant “When people are occupied, resistance is justified.” Both chants were led by leading SJP UMD activist Mohammad Sajjad Soltanmohammadi — a supporter of Hezbollah and Hamas — outside McKeldin Library at the beginning of the rally.

Javed, after the die-in, joined demonstrators chanting against “Israeli Apartheid.”

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, defying university rules, and engaged in heated confrontations with campus police.

On April 27, 2017, UMD MASC and SJP UMD posted a co-authored letter on Facebook that promoted an anti-Israel rally at UMD. The “boycott” rally was timed to coincide with “Israel Fest” — an annual Israeli cultural event held at UMD, on Israeli Independence Day. The groups called the annual celebration of Israel’s independence on campus “unnecessary” and “insulting.”

UMD MASC and SJP UMD called for a “Mass Boycott of Israel Fest” and stated in their letter: “Our efforts may be wrongly confused with anti-Semitism, but we urge those who conflate this action with that sentiment to rethink the accusation … It is the country and its discriminatory policies that we oppose, and not the Jewish people.”

The letter said that Israel is “undeniably responsible for the displacement, imprisonment, and killing of thousands of Palestinians.” The letter added that Israel was an “apartheid state” that was “founded on the forced displacement of thousands of individuals” and that Israel was “the very country responsible for their suffering.”

UMD MASC and SJP UMD went on to demand that UMD’s Jewish Student Union (Maryland JSU), the festival organizer, prove that the event is “in fact a celebration of Jewish culture.” They also demanded that Maryland JSU change the festival’s name and remove tables promoting Birthright Israel and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Birthright Israel is a series of Jewish heritage trips to Israel for Jewish young adults from the United States, Canada and other countries around the world.

UMD MASC and SJP UMD ended their letter, stating: “We urge you to stand with Muslim and Arab Terps as their allies. We urge you to stand with justice.”

On May 2, 2017, UMD MASC and SJP UMD co-hosted their “boycott” of Israel Fest. The rally featured a barrier, emblazoned with “ISRAELI APARTHEID WALL” and promoted BDS. The barrier also featured text that said “FREE GAZA” and “NO BORDERS.” SJP members chalked "Boycott Israel Fest" all over the campus in the week preceding the festival.

On April 10, 2017, Eshera announced on Facebook that the University of Maryland Student Government Association (UMD SGA) had scheduled a vote on an anti-Israel divestment bill for April 19, 2017. Eshera stated that UMD MASC and SJP UMD jointly introduced the anti-Israel resolution.

On February 12, 2017, the UMD student newspaper reported on the launch of the BDS campaign and interviewed SJP UMD’s president, Miranda Mlilo. The newspaper wrote: “Mlilo said SJP doesn't know what organizations this university may be invested in, but that they may file a public records request to find out.”

As of May 23, 2017, the UMD student newspaper had no reportage about the scheduled divestment vote.

On April 18, 2017, UMD MASC and SJP UMD co-hosted a BDS event featuring Taher Herzallah and Kareem El Hosseiny, in anticipation of a divestment vote reportedly scheduled for the following day.

Herzallah serves as the Associate Director of Outreach & Grassroots Organizing for American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). Hosseiny is the AMP Government Relations Coordinator.

On November 27-29, 2014, Herzallah — at the seventh annual AMP conference — accused “progressive community” allies of viewing only Muslim “freedom fighters” who employed violent means as practicing “terrorism.” Herzallah then rhetorically asked: “What if, as Muslims, we wanted to establish an Islamic state? Is that wrong? What if, as Muslims, we wanted to use violent means to resist occupation? Is that wrong?...”

The April 18, 2017, event was originally billed as “A Conversation with Yousef Munayyer.” Munayyer is the Executive Director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), formerly the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (ETO).

However, on April 16, 2017, UMD MASC wrote on the Facebook event page that Munayyer could not attend and that “in his place we will have Taher Herzallah from American Muslims for Palestine. We're so happy to be hosting him!”

On February 26, 2017, SJP UMD released an online petition, titled “OFFICIAL STATEMENT ON BDS,” addressed to the UMD SGA and UMD President, Wallace Loh. The petition was circulated in anticipation of the anti-Israel divestment bill, which UMD MASC and SJP UMD co-authored. It was announced on Facebook by Sarah Eshera, founder of UMD MASC and an activist with SJP UMD, on April 10, 2017.

The petition alleged that Israel committed murder and claimed: “Innocent children are forced from their homes to make room for Israeli settlers.” The petition also condemned Israeli checkpoints, which were built to stop suicide bombings and other terror attacks.

The petition also cast Israel in the role of apartheid South Africa and stated: “In 1989, our university boldly stood against South African apartheid by divesting from the institutions which supported racist policies in that country. Our goal is to have our university take a strong stand against injustice again.”

SJP UMD’s online February 26, 2017, BDS petition, mentioned above, concluded with a paraphrased 2010 quote from BDS’s founder, Omar Barghouti: “The global BDS movement for Palestinian rights presents a progressive, antiracist, sophisticated, sustainable, moral, and effective form of nonviolent civil resistance to apartheid.”

Barghouti’s original quote spoke of “resistance for Palestinian human rights.” However, SJP UMD replaced that phrase with “resistance to apartheid.” The petition also prefaced its paraphrased Barghouti quote with the statement: “To ensure the safety and equality of Palestinians is to ensure the safety and equality of all.”

However, as early as December 13, 2003, Barghouti made clear that his goal is to create a “unitary state, where, by definition, Jews will be a minority.”

On May 31, 2009, Barghouti also said: “I am completely and categorically against binationalism because it assumes that there are two nations with equal moral claims to the land and therefore, we have to accommodate both national rights.”

SJP UMD’s online petition concluded with a core BDS demand, stating: “As proponents of BDS, we call for Israel to respect the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their home country from which they are currently exiled, as stipulated by UN Resolution 194.”

The BDS movement’s selective appeal to the U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194 (Article 11) has been discredited as a subterfuge to eliminate Israel. The non-binding resolution made no mention of the refugees’ ethnicity — either Jewish or Arab — indicating it was aimed at all refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

Resolution 194 urged that refugees be allowed to return to their pre-war homes, provided they were “willing to live in peace with their neighbors.” The Arabs unanimously rejected Resolution 194.