Rula Jurdi Abisaab

On May 11, 2021, during OGW, violent Arab riots broke out in Israel’s mixed Jewish-Arab city of Lod and in other Israeli cities with large Arab populations. The Lod rioters reportedly raised Hamas and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) flags, and attacked Israeli civilians with slabs and rocks, firebombs and metal rods. Rioters also torched synagogues, cars and businesses, and vandalized hospital medical equipment, schools and government buildings.  

On February 5, 2022, Abisaab featured in a Masar Badil webinar alongside anti-Israel activist and professor Rabab Abdulhadi.

In the webinar, Abisaab said [00:11:54] that “BDS and all forms of opposition to normalization of relations with Israel are not a substitute for armed struggle for the liberation of Palestine” which should be carried out by a smaller group of young men and women, while BDS [00:12:11] “must have a much wider public base and audience that supports and complements the struggle.”

On June 26, 2022, Abisaab posted on Facebook in promotion of an online discussion she was featured in, organized by Samidoun and Masar Badil. Abisaab wrote in the post: “We dedicate this meeting to the memory of the passing of the creative fighter Ghassan Kanfani.”

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.  

Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network (Samidoun) is an anti-Israel NGO whose activism spreads awareness of terrorists. At least three senior Samidoun activists are members [pp. 22-28] of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror group. In February 2021, Israel’s Ministry of Justice declared Samidoun to be a “terror organization,” accusing [p. 2] the NGO of operating “as an arm” of the PFLP. 

Hatred of Israel

On August 10, 2022, Abisaab tweeted: “Join me and escalate solidarity mobilization with Palestinians. Take effective action to stop Israel's crimes and #DismantleApartheid by: Challenging mainstream media complicity. / Pressuring govs and @UN to act. / Escalating #BDS campaigns.”

Abisaab’s tweet linked to a post by the BDS movement that accused Israel of a massacre in Gaza and claimed that “fascist Israeli factions, supported and protected by the apartheid regime, have invaded and desecrated the Al-Aqsa mosque compound.”

The post also said “There are no excuses for artists, academics, and others who work or want to work with apartheid Israel. These are all forms of complicity in crimes against humanity.”

In August 2022, terror organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) threatened attacks on Israeli civilians. Israel preemptively launched Operation Breaking Dawn (OBD). Both PIJ’s northern and southern senior commanders in Gaza, Tayseer al-Jabari and Khaled Mansour, were killed in targeted Israeli airstrikes. PIJ responded by launching more than 1,000 rockets toward Israeli cities.

The allegation that Jews “threaten” to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque has been a pretext for Arab attacks on Jews long before the existence of the modern Jewish state. Such propaganda has led to multiple periods of violence against Israeli civilians.

In May 2021, Abisaab signed an open letter that accused Israel of “the random destruction of residential buildings, hospitals, schools, and infrastructure” in Gaza, claiming they were “war crimes.” The letter also accused Israel of “apartheid and settler colonialism with the aim of ethnic cleansing.”

Throughout the summer of 2014 — during Operation Protective Edge (OPE) — Hamas's deployment of human shields was extensively documented and publicized. Hamas encouraged Gazans to act as human shields to frustrate Israeli efforts to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza. 

The letter expressed support for BDS and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). It urged the Canadian government “to impose military and economic sanctions on Israel,” and Canadian art organizations and institutions “to end any form of collaboration with Israeli state-financed and sponsored art and cultural activities with Israel.”

Anti-Israel Activism (SPHR)

On April 25, 2022, Abisaab gave a speech at a protest organized by SPHR McGill in support of a “Palestine Solidarity Policy” created by SPHR. The policy had been revoked by the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) after finding it violated SSMU’s constitution as well as Quebec law.

The policy would have mandated SSMU to “publicly assert its support for the cause of Palestinian liberation biannually, boycott companies complicit in the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and pressure the McGill administration to do the same.”

Abisaab reportedly said in her speech: “...I caution against the statements used by the [McGill] administration, such as ‘a culture of ostracization and disrespect,’ to suppress the results of the democratic elections of McGill students.”

Abisaab also signed a letter by McGill staff endorsing the anti-Israel “Palestine Solidarity Policy.”

Abisaab signed an April 22, 2019 statement supporting a campaign by SPHR McGill demanding that McGill cancel a course because it included a two-week exchange program at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

The statement said: “As strong supporters of the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, we are appalled by the McGill University’s continued support for and engagement in exchanges with Israeli institutions…”

On March 9, 2017, Abisaab was a panelist for an event titled “The ethnic cleansing of Palestine: A never ending Resistance,” organized by SPHR at Concordia as part of Israeli Apartheid Week.

Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is presented as “an international series of events that seek to raise awareness of…Israel’s settler-colonial project and apartheid system over the Palestinian people” and build support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Among Palestinians and anti-Israel activists, the term “resistance” can be a euphemism for nationalistic terror. It is often used to excuse or even glorify anti-Israel and anti-Semitic violence.  

Abisaab and other McGill professors signed a March 2016 letter opposing a statement by McGill principal Suzanne Fortier that condemned BDS. The letter Abisaab signed claimed that Fortier’s denouncing BDS is “what ‘flies in the face of tolerance and respect’ – not the BDS movement itself.”

The letter also stated that “we resolve to steadfastly continue to support BDS and the work of our students at McGill who will carry on and continue to build this struggle.”

Abisaab signed a February 28, 2016 statement by 33 McGill professors in support of a BDS campaign group at McGill, the McGill BDS Action Network, after the group’s BDS resolution was nullified.

On September 25, 2014, Abisaab was a panelist for a SPHR McGill event, reportedly “the group’s first after being inactive for a few years,” to promote BDS and “to introduce students to SPHR and its activities on campus.”

The panel event was co-organized with McGill SPHR executive, Nazim Elnur and featured two additional professors from the university’s Institute of Islamic Studies and the then-head librarian of the Islamic Studies Library.

At the event, Abisaab said [00:03:28] “the only way you can move out of helplessness is actually to collectively support the boycott of academic institutions in Israel… Israeli academics…they have to feel the burden.” She also dismissed [00:05:08] charges that BDS is a “violent, discrimination [sic], anti-Semitic, whatever against Israel.”

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.