Sabreena Ghaffar-Siddiqui
Overview
Sabreena Ghaffar-Siddiqui expressed support for Hamas terrorism on October 7, 2023. She also denied Hamas war crimes, spread anti-Semitism and promoted hatred of Israel and Zionists.Ghaffar-Siddiqui made her remarks in the wake of the October 7, 2023 terror attacks when Hamas murdered over 1,200 Israeli Jews, kidnapped hundreds and wounded thousands. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.”
Ghaffar-Siddiqui is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Also as of May 2024, Ghaffar-Siddiqui’s LinkedIn said she had been a professor of sociology and criminology at Sheridan College (Sheridan) since January 2020. Her LinkedIn also said she was senior advisor for Sheridan’s EDI [Equity, Diversity, Inclusion] Knowledge Mobilization from February 2023 to January 2024. Sheridan is located in Oakville, Ontario, Canada.
In November 2023, Ghaffar-Siddiqui claimed on Instagram that her employer, Sheridan College (Sheridan), had told her that her anti-Israel and pro-terror social media posts were “found to have NOT violated any organisational policy.” She also said Sheridan told her that her advocacy “is valued and important.”
As of May 2024, Ghaffar-Siddiqui’s LinkedIn profile said she co-founded the interfaith group Canadian Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom (SOSS) in 2017, along with a Jewish woman who she said [00:13:41] was “not a Zionist…[and] was pro-Palestinian.” However, according to the SOSS website, the Jewish co-founder said: “During the summer of 2010, I co-founded the first chapter of the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom® with Atiya Afta.”
In October 2023, Ghaffar-Siddiqui said [00:17:58]: “Interfaith work ends where justice begins.” She explained that she had left [00:18:06] SOSS “because justice wasn’t being served.” She claimed [00:19:12] interfaith work “puts barriers in the path of, you know, doing the real work, which is anti-oppression work and decolonization work…”
As of May 2024, Ghaffar-Siddiqui’s LinkedIn said she had been a “Principle [sic] Investigator” at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) since May 2022. She was also listed as a self-employed “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Org. Development, Public Policy, and PR Consultant” since 2015.
Also as of the same date, Ghaffar-Siddiqui’s LinkedIn said she received a PhD in sociology from McMaster University (McMaster) in 2019.
As of May 2024, Ghaffar-Siddiqui’s Facebook said she was located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Support for Hamas Terrorism on October 7, 2023
On October 7, 2023, the day of Hamas atrocities against Israeli Jews, Ghaffar-Siddiqui posted on Instagram: “...it is important today more than ever before to challenge the ‘Muslim terrorist’ narrative. History has never called revolutionaries and resistance fighters terrorists, don’t let western wordplay brainwash you into believing that fighting back the oppressor is terrorism…know that what you’re seeing today in Pal**tine is the way we wished the story would have turned out. This IS decolonisation!”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.
Also on October 7, 2023, Ghaffar-Siddiqui posted on Instagram: “You know what internalised colonialism looks like? Believing that what you’re seeing is terrorism and not resistance!...”
On Saturday, October 7, 2023, approximately 2,900 heavily armed Hamas terrorists breached Israel’s border with Gaza. They executed numerous war crimes on civilians, including mass murder, beheadings of children, rape of men and women, torture, kidnappings and mutilation. Hamas broadcast videos of their butchery on social media, often to victims’ accounts for families to see. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.” As of November 10, 2023, over 1,200 Israelis, the vast majority of them civilians, were murdered during the attacks. Hamas kidnapped 242 Israelis, including at least 30 children. At least 3,500 people were wounded, many severely.
A terrorist detained by Israel admitted he raped an Israeli woman when he broke into a kibbutz house during the October 7, 2023 attack. In March 2024, a former hostage of Hamas publicly stated she was sexually abused and tortured while in captivity.
For more information on the October 7, 2023 terror attacks, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.
On October 9, 2023, Ghaffar-Siddiqui posted [slide 1] a graphic to Instagram where she wrote: “‘Say it! Say it! Say you condemn the killing of Israelis by Hamas! / Nope /
/ It’s not 2001 anymore. / We’re not playing this game anymore…You can scream and shout terrorism to distract us till you’re blue in the face, it won’t change the TRUTH.”In the same post, Ghaffar-Siddiqui posted [slide 2] another graphic to Instagram where she wrote: “Israel has spent 75 years terrorizing Palestinians…What was the expectation? For Palestinians to quietly endure and die! / This is decolonization. / This is liberation. / This is resistance.”
The modern State of Israel was founded 75 years earlier, in 1948.
Also on October 9, 2023, Ghaffar-Siddiqui posted on Facebook: “Did Olivia Chow your new ‘progressive’ mayor of Toronto just call all Palestinians terrorists?! Here is her statement on a planned rally called ‘All Out for Palestine’ at Nathan Phillips Square. So if you’re there for Palestine, you’re apparently there for terrorism.”
Ghaffar-Siddiqui’s post included a screenshot of the statement Mayor Chow made condemning an illegal anti-Israel protest taking place that day that would glorify the Hamas massacre that had taken place two days before.
The event flyer featured a photo of Gazans on the day of the attack celebrating atop an Israeli army vehicle that Hamas had stolen and commandeered.
A since-deleted Facebook post by the rally’s organizer, Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), called Hamas “our heroic resistance in Gaza” and celebrated “over 30 Zionist hostages captured, [and] the fall of settlements surrounding Gaza.” The same PYM post said the attack “shaped a new precedent for our national liberation struggle and we remain steadfast in our right to resist by any means necessary.”
On October 22, 2023, Ghaffar-Siddiqui was a featured speaker at an anti-Israel protest held in Mississauga, Ontario, which was organized by Palestine House - Toronto. During her speech, she said [00:02:24]: “Every time you condemn Hamas, you are colonized.”
Ghaffar-Siddiqui added [00:03:14]: “I am telling you right now, as a doctor, as a professor, as an EDI specialist…I will not condemn Hamas until they condemn state-sponsored terrorism of Israel…”
On the same date, Ghaffar-Siddiqui also posted on Instagram a video from the protest of participants chanting [00:03:36]: “Viva, viva, intifada!”
The term “intifada,” which translates from Arabic as “uprising” or “insurrection,” carries the connotation of violence. Palestinian intifadas waged against Israel have been marked since 1987 by hundreds of hijackings, shootings, stabbings, bombings and suicide missions.
Denying Hamas War Crimes
On October 12, 2023, Ghaffar-Siddiqui posted on Facebook: “The level of propaganda being delivered to the masses is at an unprecedented high at the moment. To think that ‘credible’ news mediums and ‘respectable’ professionals haven’t hesitated for a minute to share the now confirmed to be fake news about ‘rape’, ‘torture’, even ‘babies being beheaded’ by Palestinian militants!...”Denial of the Hamas war crimes of October 7, 2023, among anti-Israel activists has been likened to Holocaust denial among neo-Nazis.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas raped women next to the bodies of dead friends. Some were raped and then shot in the head. Others, including young girls, were raped and murdered or mutilated in other ways.
Israeli officials opened an unprecedented investigation into the widespread sexual assault. Forensic analysis of corpses showed evidence of torture and rape. Hamas terrorists said they were given explicit orders to carry out the atrocities, including chopping off legs and raping the corpses of murdered victims.
A terrorist detained by Israel admitted he raped an Israeli woman when he broke into a kibbutz house during the October 7, 2023 attack. In March 2024, a former hostage of Hamas publicly stated she was sexually abused and tortured while in captivity.
Hamas terrorists murdered at least 40 Israeli Jewish babies during its October 7, 2023, terror attacks. Some of the babies were beheaded and some were murdered in front of their parents.
Also on October 12, 2023, Ghaffar-Siddiqui posted on Facebook a video of an interview she gave on CP24 news. When the interviewer brought up [00:04:00] the “about 40” babies Hamas decapitated on October 7, 2023, Ghaffar-Siddiqui said [00:04:31]: “This trope has been used – the barbaric, savage Muslim terrorists – that’s been going on for 25 years…” She also claimed [00:09:18] that reports of the beheadings were debunked.
In response to the interviewer’s raising the issue [00:05:51] of people at rallies justifying Hamas’s attacks, Ghaffar-Siddiqui claimed [00:05:57]: “I have not heard language like that being circulated.”
On November 17, 2023, Ghaffar-Siddiqui tweeted: “Many of you used the false beheaded babies story to justify Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza…”
As of November 20, 2023, Ghaffar-Siddiqui had signed [no. 1724] a letter to the members of the Canadian Parliament that referred to “the unverified accusation that Palestinians were guilty of sexual violence.” The letter further stated: “by failing to recognize Israeli occupation as ‘terrorist’ and only directing this term at Palestinian resistance, you perpetuate an Islamophobic trope.”
Anti-Semitism
On December 9, 2023, Ghaffar-Siddiqui posted on Facebook: “Israel is a white settler colonial state. Its inhabitants are not Indigenous to the land, they are mainly of European descent…they believe themselves to be superior to the Arab Indigenous people - quite literally describe themselves as ‘the chosen ones’.”One way that anti-Israel activists spread anti-Semitism is to claim [00:06:46] that Jews, particularly Ashkenazi Jews, do not descend from the ancient Israelites. This claim alleges that Jews are white Europeans who lack a connection to the Land of Israel. The Khazar myth is a common version of this claim which is used to delegitimize [00:02:16] the existence of the modern State of Israel.
Ghaffar-Siddiqui continued in the same Facebook post: “Zionism…is a white supremacist political ideology…The Zionist playbook is the white supremacist, white colonial, white imperialist playbook…”
Zionism is the belief that Jews have the right to self-determination in their own national home, and the right to develop their national culture.
Also on November 5, 2023, Ghaffar-Siddiqui tweeted: “...Zionism=Nazism...”
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) highlights as one possible contemporary example of anti-Semitism: “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” The U.S. State Department adopted the IHRA’s working definition of anti-Semitism in 2016. Over 40 countries have adopted the definition as well.
Hatred of Israel and Zionists
On November 5, 2023, Ghaffar-Siddiqui tweeted: “You know, you keep talking about ‘fighting’, ‘war’, ‘conflict’, but I don’t see any images or videos of the ‘fight’. Please help me by providing footage of the ‘conflict’. I’d honestly like to see who Israel is fighting, other than men in flip flops digging rubble and women carrying dead corpses of their children.”On October 27, 2023, Ghaffar-Siddiqui posted on Facebook: “...There are NO progressive Zionists. Being a Zionist = being an illegal settler on stolen land, and therefore, making them complicit in every crime that is committed in its name. And, we have many in our midst…Be careful of the wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
On October 18, 2023, Ghaffar-Siddiqui posted on Instagram a video of herself speaking on Palestinian advocacy. Referring to her interfaith work, she claimed [00:16:00]: “‘Soft’ Zionists…admit that they’re settlers, but then they’re not willing to forfeit that privilege, they’re not willing to forfeit that land.”
Ghaffar-Siddiqui continued [00:16:55]: “We had a lot of ‘soft’ Zionists amidst us and…I actually realized the dangers of ‘soft Zionism,’ that it actually puts bigger hurdles in the path of justice.”
Ghaffar-Siddiqui also claimed [00:21:16] in the same video: “...only 25 percent of people in Israel are Jewish…when you’re talking about Israel, you’re not talking about Jewish people.”
As of April 2023, 73.5 percent of Israel’s population was reported as Jewish.
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.
Social Media and Weblinks
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/sabreena.ghaffarTwitter:https://twitter.com/sabreenags
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/drsabreena_gs/
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabreenags/
Personal Website:https://drsabreena.com/
Professional Website:https://www.ispu.org/scholars/sabreena-ghaffar-siddiqui/
YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@Dr.Sabreena
TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@the_overdramatic_prof
Threads:https://www.threads.net/@drsabreena_gs
Linktr.ee:https://linktr.ee/dr.sabreena
Videos
5 videos
Photos & Screenshots
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Infamous Quotes
“Zionism=Nazism.”
“Only 25 percent of people in Israel are Jewish…when you’re talking about Israel, you’re not talking about Jewish people.”
“Israel is a white settler colonial state. Its inhabitants are not Indigenous to the land, they are mainly of European descent. And so, their system of operation IS white supremacy.”
“Every time you condemn Hamas, you are colonized.”
“You know what internalised colonialism looks like? Believing that what you’re seeing is terrorism and not resistance!”
“History has never called revolutionaries and resistance fighters terrorists, don’t let western wordplay brainwash you into believing that fighting back the oppressor is terrorism.”
“Know that what you’re seeing today in Pal**tine is the way we wished the story would have turned out. This IS decolonisation!”
“There are NO progressive Zionists. Being a Zionist = being an illegal settler on stolen land, and therefore, making them complicit in every crime that is committed in its name. And, we have many in our midst…Be careful of the wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
