Mohammed Abed

Overview

Mohammed Abed is a professor of Philosophy on a tenure track at California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA). He has been a frequent guest speaker on college campuses at events organized by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

Abed is a long-time anti-Israel activist and leader within the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. In the Fall of 2007, Abed wrote an article defending the academic boycott of Israel. During an academic conference at the University of Southern California in 2011, Abed reportedly stated that "the only hope for a resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was for ‘international civil society’ to join the BDS movement against Israel."

Abed is a member of Al-Awda, which advocates for BDS and the destruction of Israel. He was also a speaker and organizer for the anti-Israel Palestine Solidarity Movement (PSM), which used “divestment as a means to organize anti-Israel activists, especially on campus,” and declined to condemn acts of terrorism against Israelis.

During his graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW), Abed led an Al-Awda divestment campaign targeting companies doing business with Israel.

While at UW, Abed also wrote a PhD dissertation on the “study of suicide bombing and ethics of self-sacrifice,” which posed the question: “Does [suicide bombing] have some feature that could be considered morally laudable?”

Abed endorses of the United States Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI), and was once a member of its Organizing Collective.

Defending the Violent “Gaza Flotilla”

In a June 9, 2010 article called “Israel’s Many Excuses for The Inexcusable Attack on the Gaza Aid Flotilla,” Abed defended the May 2010 Gaza “Freedom Flotilla” — whose stated goal was to illegally sail to the Gaza Strip to end Israel’s maritime blockade.

Activists aboard the flotilla’s lead ship — the Mavi Marmara — agitated for violent confrontation with Israeli security forces and chanted "Khaibar, khaibar ya yahud," a slogan glorifying the killing of Jews. The protesters refused instructions to change course and when boarded, attacked Israeli security forces with iron bars, metal chairs, knives, stun grenades and firearms, rocks and bottles.

The 2011 United Nations’ Palmer Commission report found that the flotilla agitators intentionally initiated an organized, violent confrontation with Israeli forces. Following the incident, the Mavi Marmara was found to be carrying no humanitarian aid on board — only crude weaponry.

Abed defended the activists, writing that "Clubs, knives and pistols are not sophisticated rockets that can hit Tel-Aviv or Jerusalem." He also stated that “[a] flotilla of civilian vessels carrying cement, water purifiers, and medicine is not a collection of warships,” omitting that no humanitarian aid was found aboard the ship.

Abed wrote that “the Israelis had no right to attack [the Mavi Marmara]. Doing so was a naked act of aggression…only the activists on board the flotilla can legitimately claim self-defense as their cause and as a means of explaining their actions.”

Abed concluded his article by stating that the “activists on board the Gaza flotilla ...should be praised.”

Demonizing Israel

At an October 2015 UC Riverside conference called “Palestine, Israel, and the Assault on Academic Freedom,” organized by anti-Israel professor David Lloyd, Abed accused Israel of committing “genocide.”

Abed was also the featured speaker at a public teach-in in 2009 on Israel’s Operation Cast Lead (OCL), launched to stop Hamas’ use of rocket fire targeting civilians, as well as weapons smuggling into the Gaza strip. The event flier stated that the teach-in would “[show] how the recent war was not an isolated incident, but part of a long and carefully planned project aimed at eliminating both the history and actuality of the Palestinian people.”

Abed has also written a number of articles promoting BDS and accusing Israel of practicing “state terrorism against Palestinian civilians,” “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing.”

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.