Rahim Kurwa

Overview

Rahim Kurwa has glorified terrorists, demonized Israel, endorsed anti-Israel agitators and opposed normalization. Kurwa is also an activist with the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

From 2009 until 2015, Kurwa was reportedly the curator of the Twitter account “Palestine Today,” which has tweeted over 60,000 anti-Israel tweets and posts, as of October 2021.

In 2013 and 2014, Kurwa advocated for divestment resolutions at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and across the University of California (UC) system.

Kurwa was a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at UCLA in 2016, and was a founding member of Columbia’s chapter of SJP in 2009.

Kurwa was a member of the National SJP Steering Committee from 2011-2016 and fundraised for the 2012 National SJP Conference.

Kurwa was a Steering Committee member of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) from 2014 to 2017. USCPR was formerly the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (ETO). In 2016, Kurwa was a member [00:24:38] of the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM).

As of October 2021, Kurwa’s website said that he was “a visiting scholar at the American Bar Foundation in the 2021-2022 academic year.”

As of October 2021, the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC)’s Department of Sociology website listed Kurwa as an Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law and Justice and Sociology.

As of October 2021, Kurwa’s LinkedIn said he graduated from UCLA with a Ph.D. in Sociology in 2018. Kurwa’s LinkedIn also said he received a master’s degree in Quantitative Methods in Social Science from Columbia University (Columbia) in 2010, as well as a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Public Affairs from UCLA in 2008.

Glorifying Terrorists

On October 24, 2015, Kurwa tweeted for Palestine Today: “rt [retweet] @theimeu Interview With Family of Fadi Alloun, Palestinian Teen Killed on Camera: Fadi Alloun was killed on...” The tweet linked to an article titled: “Interview With Family of Fadi Alloun, Palestinian Teen Killed on Camera.”

Fadi Aloon was shot by Israeli security forces after he stabbed a 15-year-old Israeli boy. Several hours before the attack, Aloon posted “Either martyrdom or victory” on his Facebook page.

On June 13, 2015, Kurwa tweeted for Palestine Today: “rt [retweet] @theimeu Khader Adnan Unable to Stand as Hunger Strike Enters 39th Day: Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan.”

Khader Adnan was a senior member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist organization. A 2007 YouTube video showed Adnan praising and encouraging suicide bombings: "Who among you will carry the next explosive belt? Who among you will fire the next bullets? Who among you will have his body parts blown all over?” In May 2023, Adnan died in prison after refusing medical treatment during a hunger strike.

On December 2-3, 2014, Kurwa spoke on behalf of SJP at the “International Conference of Governments and Civil Society Organizations in Support of Palestinian Rights call to intensify BDS,” held in Spain.

The conference participants issued a declaration urging the international community to demand“...freedom to all Palestinian political prisoners, supporting, among others, the international campaign ‘Free Marwan Barghouthi and all Palestinian prisoners.’”

Marwan Barghouti is currently serving five consecutive life sentences for his role in suicide bombings and shooting attacks that killed five Israelis during the second intifada.

Barghouti led the Palestinian Authority (PA) terrorist Tanzim force and founded the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. He also financed the guitar-case bomb used in the Sbarro Cafe massacre, where 15 civilians were killed and 130 injured.

On December 5, 2014, Kurwa tweeted for Palestine Today: “Rasmea Odeh in prolonged solitary confinement in Michigan jail.”

Odeh was a military operative with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization. In 1969, she masterminded a bombing that killed two university 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 her 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. In 2017, Odeh was deported to Jordan and stripped of U.S. citizenship, after admitting to immigration fraud.

On December 24, 2013, Kurwa tweeted for Palestine Today: “Freed Palestinian prisoner Samer Issawi arrives home in East Jerusalem.”

Samer Issawi is a member of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) who received a 26-year prison sentence in 2002. During the second intifada, Issawi manufactured and distributed pipe bombs and, in several incidents, fired indiscriminately on Israeli civilian vehicles.

On November 11, 2013, Kurwa tweeted: “Petition: Drop the Charges Against Rasmea Yousef Odeh!” and included a petition in support of Odeh.

On May 8, 2012, Kurwa tweeted for Palestine Today: “MIFTAH - Women’s Day in Solidarity With Hana Shalabi.”

Hana Shalabi is reportedly a supporter of the terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Shalabi was arrested in 2012 for alleged “involvement in planned attacks” by PIJ.

Kurwa’s Palestine Today’s tweet linked to an article published by the MIFTAH website describing Shalabi as “one strong woman and her brave act is the symbol of all women still fighting to be free and equal.”

MIFTAH is an Israel-based non-governmental organization that has spread anti-Semitism, defended terrorism, and extensively demonized Israel. MIFTAH also supports BDS.

On September 12, 2011, Kurwa tweeted for Palestine Today: “Resistance and Revolution as Lived Daily Experience: An Interview with Leila Khaled (Intro).” The tweet linked to an article which referred to Khaled as “an icon of the ‘Palestinian revolution.’”

Leila Khaled is a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and participated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 840 in 1969 and El Al Flight 219 in 1970. As of 2017, Khaled was a member of PFLP's Political Bureau. Khaled has said that the second intifada failed because it was not violent enough, advocated [00:36:07] for the use of children in terror activities and compared Zionists to Nazis.

Kanafani was a leading member and spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) during the terrorist organization’s early years. Kanafani announced the PFLP’s responsibility for the Lod Airport Massacre of May 1972 and was linked to the airport attackers. The attack killed 26 people and wounded 80 others.

Demonizing Israel

On June 5, 2020, Kurwa responded to a tweet that criticized podcast hosts for insensitive comments about U.S. immigrants, tweeting: “they did the same thing with palestine, joking about whether or not to use the word apartheid before transitioning to interviewing a former government official who helped entrench that very apartheid.”

On August 30, 2014, Kurwa published an article in Mondoweiss, in which he referred to Gaza as “the world’s largest open-air prison.”

On April 10, 2014, Kurwa tweeted: “Normalization groups are deeply invested in inventing a middle ground, which depends on smearing SJP as ‘extreme’ #NoToNormalization.”

On December 9, 2013, Kurwa published an article titled: “Honor Mandela by viewing Palestine with the same moral clarity as apartheid South Africa,” in which he accused Israel of operating an “apartheid system.”

In the summer of 2013, Kurwa published a report titled: “BDS Campaign Sweeps UC Campuses,” in which he accused Israel of “war crimes and crimes against humanity” during Israel’s“Operation Cast Lead (OCL)” against Hamas in Gazain 2009.

Israel commenced OCLin 2008-09 in order to stop Hamas rocket fire from Gaza targeting Israeli civilians. In 2010, Hamas admitted that nearly 700 of the Palestinian casualties in OCL were combatants.

Endorsing Anti-Israel Agitators

On September 20, 2014, Kurwa gave the introductory speech at USCPR’s 13th Annual National Organizers' conference panel, where he defended [00:03:21] the “Irvine 11” and claimed [00:03:47] they were prosecuted due to “twisted interpretations of the law”.

The “Irvine 11” were a group of 11 University of California students, many of whom belonged to the Muslim Student Association (MSA), who were detained by police for disrupting a speech given by then-Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren, in 2010. Ten of the students were charged with and convicted of two misdemeanors of “conspiring to disrupt – and then disrupting” Oren’s speech, and sentenced to three years of “informal probation.” The MSA was also suspended by the university.

On February 4, 2010, Kurwa tweeted for Palestine Today: “In NY today? Come see Dr. Mads Gilbert & Human Rights Watch's Fred Abrahamsspeak on Gaza at Columbia at 6:30pm http://ow.ly/13fXj.”

Gilbert has been banned indefinitely from entering Gaza through Israel because of his connections to the Hamas leadership.

In 2008, 2009, 2012 and 2014 Gilbert was stationed at a hospital that served as a Hamas command center and rocket launching site. During that time he acted as a propagandist for the Hamas government in Gaza.

In 2001, following al Qaeda's September 11 terrorist attacks, Gilbert expressed support for the terror acts as a “legitimate response.” In December of 2009, Gilbert was accused of faking resuscitation on a dead child in Gaza for dramatic effect for a CNN video.

Opposing Normalization

On February 6, 2013, Kurwa published an article titled: “Why Students in Solidarity with Palestine Should Not Join The Olive Tree Initiative.” In the article, Kurwa called to boycott the Olive Tree Initiative (OTI) “because it normalizes Israel’s colonial domination over Palestinians.”

Located on the University of California, Irvine (UCI) campus, OTI states on its website that its mission is “to promote conflict analysis and resolution through rigorous academic preparation, experiential education and leadership development.”

Proponents of the “anti-normalization” policy seek to police all interactions between Israelis and Palestinians and shut down all conversations and interactions perceived as being ideologically unaligned with their own agenda. They believe “liberal Zionist” dialogue with Palestinians “normalizes” entrenched power dynamics. This policy was originally dictated by the BDS National Committee (BNC), which prioritized the “Monitoring & Rapid Response” against interactions that recognize or cooperate with “Israel’s regime.”

On January 28, 2014, Kurwa published an article titled: “Dialogue in the Service of Power: UC [University of California] Leadership's Anti-Divestment Strategy,” where he rejected OTI for its call for dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians.

On April 10, 2014, Kurwa tweeted for Palestine Today: “You are either for or against investments in apartheid. As much as they try campus normalization groups cant change that #NoToNormalization.”

On the same day, Palestine Today tweeted: “Dear OTI members: Join us in activism for justice. And if not, ask yourself why not? #NoToNormalization.”

Supporting BDS

In 2013, USCPR listed Kurwa as a “Campus Connection” contact for their Campus BDS Support Team, described as a “ joint effort of the American Friends Service Committee, Jewish Voice for Peace, National Students for Justice in Palestine, Palestine Legal, SJP-West, American Muslims for Palestine, US Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel, and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.”

In the summer of 2013, Kurwa published a report titled: “BDS Campaign Sweeps UC Campuses,” detailing SJP’s BDS activities on University of California (UC)’s campuses in 2012-2013.

On January 28, 2014, Kurwa published an article titled: “Dialogue in the Service of Power: UC Leadership's Anti-Divestment Strategy,” promoting the BDS initiatives on UC campuses.

In November 2014, SJP at UCLA pushed a divestment resolution, which was reportedly co-authored by Kurwa “calling on the Regents to divest from companies that enable and profit from violations of Palestinian rights.”

On November 18, 2014, the undergraduate student government adopted the divestment resolution with a vote of 8-2-2.

In February 2015, SJP at UCLA pushed BDS beyond the UCLA campus by promoting a divestment resolution to the state-wide UC Student Association (UCSA). The resolution also called on the UC Regents to divest from American-based corporations that “violate Palestinian human rights.”

On February 6, 2015, Kurwa co-authored an editorial in the University of California at Berkeley (UC Berkeley)’s student newspaper The Daily Californian titled: “UCSA stands with student body on issue of divestment” calling on the UCSA to pass the divestment resolution.

The UCSA Board of Directors passed the resolution by a 9-1-5 vote.

On December 22, 2015, Kurwa published an article advocating for the BDS movement to Inside Higher Ed magazine titled: “Why Invest in Occupation?”

On July 29, 2016, Kurwa and fellow SJP organizer Omar Zahzah co-authored an article titled: “Resolving to Divest: The History of SJP at UCLA's Divestment Campaign.”

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.