Editor’s note: Over the past three years, the David Horowitz Freedom Center has led a campaign to expose the powerful campus group Students for Justice in Palestine as an integral part of the Hamas terror network and to challenge our universities to immediately cease providing SJP with a façade of intellectual legitimacy along with significant funding and resources. This university support has enabled SJP and like-minded campus groups including the Muslim Students Association and Jewish Voice for Peace to target and harass Jewish students without repercussion, and to sponsor anti-Israel speakers and events promoting the genocidal Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel which aims to weaken and ultimately destroy the world’s only Jewish state.
Each semester we have produced reports highlighting the American campuses most friendly to Hamas terrorists and their American supporters and most hostile to allowing pro-Israel voices to be heard. In conjunction with these reports, we have disseminated posters on these same campuses exposing the financial and organizational links between SJP and Hamas and showcasing the names and faces of leading student and faculty backers of Students for Justice in Palestine and allied groups. Our latest report on the “Top Ten Worst Schools Supporting Terrorists” follows below.
The Top Ten Worst Schools Supporting Terrorists
Brandeis University
Brooklyn College
DePaul University
San Francisco State University
University of California-Berkeley
University of California-Irvine
University of Chicago
University of Houston
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
University of Wisconsin-Madison
[Schools are listed in alphabetical order]
Introduction:
While America’s eyes are focused on the battle to defeat ISIS and cease the relentless series of global terrorist attacks, at colleges across the United States, a coalition of terrorist-linked organizations are waging a propaganda war to destroy the Jewish state, annihilate the Jewish people and fan the flames of hatred for America as Israel’s “protector.” Led by Students for Justice in Palestine, the Muslim Students Association, and Jewish Voice for Peace, these organizations do not launch rockets at Israeli civilian targets or dig terror tunnels under Israeli kindergarten classrooms. But they spread propaganda and take money and marching orders from those who do. Their mission is to whitewash actual terrorist attacks and promote the genocidal lies of terrorist organizations, specifically Hamas, whose stated goal is the destruction of the Jewish state.
In conducting these malevolent campaigns, these campus allies of the terrorists can count on the funding and protection of American universities like the University of California, who allow them to use their authority and prestige to lend this genocidal offensive an aura of respectability. The hatred that is an inevitable aspect of these campaigns has inspired an epidemic of anti-Semitic attacks on Jewish students, 59% of which – according to one study – are attributable to the anti-Israel lies spread by these campus groups, namely that Israel is built on stolen Arab land and is an “apartheid state.”
The primary collegiate member of the Hamas terror network is Students for Justice in Palestine whose principal founder is Hamas supporter Hatem Bazian, a Palestinian professor at UC-Berkeley. Bazian co-founded Students for Justice in Palestine in 2001 to support the Second Palestinian Intifada, which introduced suicide bombing into the attacks on Israel’s citizens in September 2000.
In his book American Jihad, terrorism expert Steven Emerson quotes Bazian’s exhortations at an American Muslim Alliance conference at which Bazian endorsed the infamous Hadith calling for the slaughter of the Jews, and advocated for the establishment of an Islamic state in Palestine: “In the Hadith, the Day of Judgment will never happen until you fight the Jews. They are on the west side of the river, which is the Jordan River, and you’re on the east side until the trees and stones will say, ‘Oh Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me. Come and kill him!’ And that’s in the Hadith about this, this is a future battle before the Day of Judgment.”
Every successful terrorist campaign has a political as well as a military arm. The IRA terrorist organization was aided and abetted by its sister organization, Sinn Fein, a parliamentary party which advanced the terrorists’ agendas through propaganda and political support. Hamas operates in a similar fashion, relying on Students for Justice in Palestine and its key campus allies – the Muslim Students Association and Jewish Voice for Peace – to advance its sinister agendas. It does so with Hamas’s organizational support and funding through an intermediary organization, American Muslims for Palestine, whose creator is also Hatem Bazian. Hatem Bazian currently serves as the chair of AMP’s board. In 2009, Bazian founded the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project at the University of California’s Center for Race and Gender. Thus, the University of California also lends its prestige and resources to a program designed by a terrorist agent to discredit critics of Islamic terrorism as “Islamophobes.”
Other key board member officers of American Muslims for Palestine were formerly board members of the Holy Land Foundation, the largest Muslim charity in America until it was exposed in trial as a front for Hamas. American Muslims for Palestine has copied the Holy Land Foundation model. In recent testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Jonathan Schanzer, who worked as a terrorism finance analyst for the United States Department of the Treasury from 2004-2007, and now serves as the Vice President of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), described how Hamas funnels large sums of money and provides material assistance to Students for Justice in Palestine through AMP for the purpose of promoting BDS campaigns and disseminating Hamas propaganda on American campuses.
According to his testimony, “At its 2014 annual conference, AMP invited participants to ‘come and navigate the fine line between legal activism and material support for terrorism.’” He further classified AMP as “arguably the most important sponsor and organizer for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which is the most visible arm of the BDS campaign on campuses in the United States.” He revealed that AMP “provides speakers, training, printed materials, a so-called ‘Apartheid Wall,’ and grants to SJP activists” and “even has a campus coordinator on staff whose job is to work directly with SJP and other pro-BDS campus groups across the country.” Furthermore, “according to an email it sent to subscribers, AMP spent $100,000 on campus activities in 2014 alone.”
Since its founding in 2001, Students for Justice in Palestine has served as a front for Hamas on university campuses. Students for Justice in Palestine is the leading force behind the Hamas-endorsed and funded Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, a form of economic terrorism which seeks to weaken the Jewish state, deny it legitimacy, and ultimately destroy it. As of May 2017, over 50 campuses had passed resolutions endorsing the BDS movement against Israel and over 100 campuses had debated the issue. Students for Justice in Palestine’s chief allies in these BDS campaigns are the Muslim Students Association and Jewish Voice for Peace.
Students for Justice in Palestine and its partners are also responsible for the proliferation of Hamas propaganda attacks known as “Israeli Apartheid Weeks” which occur on dozens of prominent university campuses every year. These weeks provide opportunities to bring in Hamas-supporting campus speakers and to erect mock “apartheid walls” featuring Hamas propaganda claims that Israel targets Palestinian children for slaughter, and fake maps that purport to show that Israel stole Palestinian land. While SJP falsely accuses Israel of theft and war crimes, it also works to whitewash the atrocities committed by Hamas, whether the deliberate use of civilians as human shields in military combat or the abduction and slaughterof three Israeli teenagers that started the 2014 Gaza War. And it works to glamorize terrorists such as Rasmeah Odeh who was convicted by an Israeli military court in 1970 for her involvement in two fatal terrorist bombings. Another terrorist lionized by SJP is Leila Khaled, a convicted hijacker and a member of the terrorist organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
SJP and its partners conduct their campaign of aggression against the Jewish state through the relentless dissemination of genocidal lies intended to warp student opinion on Israel. Prominent among these lies is the claim that Israel occupies Arab land. In fact, the land on which Israel was created by the U.N. was part of the Ottoman Empire that belonged to the Turks for 400 years previously. The Turks are not “Palestinians,” and are not even Arabs. A second lie designed to de-legitimize the Jewish state and justify its destruction, is the claim that Israel is an “apartheid state.” The Arab citizens of Israel have more rights, and enjoy more freedom, education, and economic opportunity than the Arabs of any Arab state. Arab citizens of Israel vote in national elections, have representatives in the Israeli Parliament, sit on the Israeli Supreme Court, and serve as tenured professors teaching in Israeli colleges and universities.
Perhaps the most destructive lie is the one that motivates all the campaigns of SJP and its partners — the claim that the terrorist aggressions by Arabs against Israel which began in 1949 as unprovoked attacks on the newly created Jewish state are efforts to liberate “Palestine.” Palestinians are a “nationality” that didn’t even exist until 1964 – sixteen years after Israel’s creation. Jordan is a majority Palestinian country ruled by a Hashemite minority, but it is not a target of this alleged liberation campaign. The campaign in fact has only one clear agenda: the destruction of the Jewish state.
The campaigns inspired and funded by Hamas terrorists and carried out by Students for Justice in Palestine, the Muslim Students Association and Jewish Voice for Peace have had the demonstrable effect of spreading hate against Jewish students on American campuses. A recent study conducted by Trinity College and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights found that 54% of students surveyed experienced or witnessed anti-Semitism during the previous six months on campus. Anotherstudy conducted by the Amcha Initiative revealed a very strong correlation between these so-called “anti-Zionist” groups and incidents of anti-Semitism and harassment of Jewish students. The study found that “99% of schools with one or more active anti-Zionist groups had one or more incidents of anti-Semitic activity, whereas only 16% of schools with no active anti-Zionist student group had incidents of overall anti-Semitic activity.” As these studies make clear, Hamas’s campus front has spawned an epidemic of anti-Semitic attacks on Jewish students that continues to grow worse.
The following report chronicles the campus terrorist campaign to delegitimize and destroy the Jewish state at ten American universities. The fact is that hundreds of campuses across our nation now support terrorist-inspired campaigns whose goals are genocidal and whose weapon is hate. What follows are descriptions of these campaigns on ten characteristic campuses, which we have singled out as the worst.
Brandeis University
Brandeis University was named for the first Jewish justice on the Supreme Court, Louis D. Brandeis, and is one of only a few prominent American universities to be founded primarily by Jews. In spite of these strong ties to the American Jewish community, Brandeis has stood apart in recent years for its hostility to Israel and its strong support of Israel’s terrorist enemies. In the past year, swastikas have appeared in multiple locations on campus and the campus SJP chapter has held an event supporting Hamas’s policy of refusing to normalize relations with Israel or its allies. Brandeis rescinded an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a critic of radical Islam and advocate of Muslim women’s rights, while granting one to notoriously anti-Semitic playwright Tony Kushner. Brandeis also hosted a secret listserve where prominent professors exchanged emails attacking Israel—even comparing the Jewish state to Nazi Germany— and supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that is supported and funded by Hamas. When a Brandeis student used her personal twitter account to call for an Intifada, she was vigorously defended by the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Two additional Brandeis students sought to restore relations between the university and Al Quds University in Palestine, which is a recruiting ground for the terror group Hamas.
Supporting Evidence:
In November 2016, a swastika was found on the door of the men’s restroom in the campus library at Brandeis.
On November 3, 2016, Brandeis SJP held an event titled “Apartheid is Not ‘Green': Greenwashing and Palestine.” The purpose of the event was to demonize Israel and to claim that the Jewish state uses its record of positive environmental activism to hide its alleged “apartheid” and mistreatment of the Palestinians. The event description stated: “Israel inaccurately portrays itself as environmentally conscious in order to justify and distract from its violence against Palestine.” Of course all the violence in the Middle East conflict is the result of a 70-year unprovoked aggression by the Arab states and terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas against the Jewish state.
On March 8, 2016, Brandeis SJP held an event called “Presentation & Discussion on Pinkwashing.” The term “pinkwashing” is used by Israel’s enemies to claim that the Jewish state uses its overwhelmingly positive record on gay rights to hide its mistreatment of the Palestinians.
In May 2015, Former U.S. Ambassador Thomas Pickering, known for his extreme anti-Israel views, gave the Commencement address at Brandeis. In an op-ed recently co-written for Politico.com, Pickering repeated Hamas tropes such as “Israel’s half-century-long occupation” and stated that “the marginal improvement in Israel’s security provided by these expansive Israeli demands can hardly justify the permanent subjugation and disenfranchisement of a people to which Israel refuses to grant citizenship in the Jewish state.”
On April 23, 2015, Professor Noam Chomsky, known for his extreme anti-Israel views, spoke at Brandeis. During his speech, he described Israel’s actions towards Palestine as “vicious, brutal and criminal” and claimed that Israel “is alone in denying” its “illegal occupation of territories.”
During March 21-27, 2015, Brandeis SJP held Israel Apartheid Week on campus. Israel Apartheid Week is a weeklong series of anti-Israel events designed to demonize and destroy Israel. Events included a talk on “Facing the Ongoing Nakba.” (Nakba, an Arabic term meaning “catastrophe,” is used by Hamas and its supporters to describe the creation of Israel). The “Nakba” event included a display of the false Hamas maps which purport to show the infiltration and colonization by Jews of Arab “Palestine.” The Week also included a talk by Professor Sa’ed Atshan, an anti-Israel activist who currently serves as a professor in “Peace and Conflict Studies” at Swarthmore College, who has called Gaza an “open-aired prison” and has referred to Israeli military strategy as “scorched-Earth policy.”
In December 2014, Brandeis junior Khadijah Lynch, an undergraduate department representative in the African and Afro-American Studies Department, was exposed for her violent anti-American and anti-Israel tweets, including “amerikka needs an intifada. enough is enough” and “a social justice themed institution grounded in zionism. word. thats a fucking fanny dooley.” When Jewish student Daniel Mael published her public tweets, Lynch attacked him and Mael subsequently received death threats. Brandeis SJP defended Lynch in a public statement on Facebook.
On November 9, 2014, Brandeis SJP posted a petition in support of convicted Palestinian terrorist Rasmeah Odeh on its Facebook page. Odeh was convicted by an Israeli military court in 1970 for her involvement in two fatal terrorist bombings. She was subsequently convicted of immigration fraud by a U.S. federal jury in 2014, after she failed to disclose her previous conviction on her application for U.S. citizenship. Odeh has claimed that she was tortured into confessing to the Israeli bombings, but U.S. prosecutors have uncovered Israeli military reports indicating that they found “explosive bricks in her room” along with “extensive bomb-making materials and explosives.”
In July 2014, a Jewish student at Brandeis, Daniel Mael, exposed a secret faculty email Listserve of 92 left-wing professors at Brandeis. Some participants in the listserve expressed extreme anti-Israel views while also supporting Hamas’ rhetoric and positions. Professor Donald Hindley, for instance, referred to the Jewish state as “The Vile, Terrorist Israeli Government,” in a post about the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers by Hamas terrorists. Hindley also sarcastically wrote: “Zionist olive trees grow wondrously on Palestinian corpses...In that way, we combine great trees with our own holocaustic ethnic cleansing.” Hindley also compared an event challenging the anti-Semitic BDS movement to a Nazi rally, describing it as “Germany in the later 1930s with everyone at least a Nazi sympathizer” and asking “Will the lunch be kosher?” Also on the listserve, Brandeis sociology professor Gordon Fellman sought signatures for an open letter to “end the illegal occupation in Palestine.” According to the letter, “the government of Israel, having provoked the firing of rockets by its rampage through the West Bank, is now using that response as the pretext for an aerial assault on Gaza which has already cost scores of lives.”
In April 2014, two Brandeis students, Eli Philip and Catriona Stewart, who served as co-presidents of the anti-Israel, Jewish student organization, J. Street U., received a $10,000 grant from an organization called the Davis Projects for Peace to travel to Al Quds University in Palestine to attempt to repair relations between Al Quds and Brandeis. The previous relationship between the universities formed in 2003 was severed in 2013 after Al Quds hosted rallies for Hamas during which participants performed a traditional Nazi salute. Philip and Stewart previously disrupted the speech of an IDF member on campus.
Under pressure from students and faculty, in April 2014 Brandeis withdrew an honorary degree offered to women’s rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Some students protested giving the honorary degree to Somali-born Ali, who has condemned the mistreatment of women in Muslim countries, including female genital mutilation, because she is a vehement critic of radical Islam. The tipping point in the controversy came when eighty-seven Brandeis faculty members signed a petition calling for rescinding Ali’s degree because of her “extreme Islamophobic beliefs.” (The term “Islamophobia” has been used polemically by the Muslim Brotherhood to censor any criticism of Islam, including Sharia law.)
Brandeis had previously awarded an honorary degree to playwright Tony Kushner, who has a long history of anti-Semitic statements, among them the claim that “The biggest supporters of Israel are the most repulsive members of the Jewish community.”
During February 2014, Brandeis SJP staged “Israel Apartheid Week,” a weeklong series of anti-Israel events designed to demonize Israel and create a rationale for its extinction. Events included a speech by notorious anti-Israel activist Max Blumenthal, author of Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, a book about which one reviewer commented, “It is no exaggeration to say that it could have been published by the Hamas Book-of-the-Month Club (if it existed).”
On March 26, 2012, members of Brandeis SJP disrupted an event featuring members of the Israeli Knesset which was held at a local Temple. The SJP members wore shirts with “apartheid” written on them in Hebrew and shouted slogans, including “Israel is an apartheid state and the Knesset is an apartheid parliament!” and “We will not welcome Israeli officials to any Brandeis University event until apartheid ends!” These actions are consistent with Hamas’s policy of refusing to “normalize” relations with any pro-Israel groups.
On April 4, 2011, a university panel featuring six members of the Israeli Knesset was disrupted by Brandeis SJP activists who repeatedly called the members “war criminals” and attempted to distribute fake warrants calling for their arrest. The students particularly targeted Avi Dichter, former head of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, accusing him of torture. One student called to him in Hebrew, “Don’t worry Avi Dichter, we’ll meet you in The Hague.”
Brooklyn College:
Brooklyn College is home to a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter which has repeatedly promoted Hamas propaganda and defended terrorism against Israel. BC SJP posted an advertisement titled “The Third Intifada” on its Facebook page, and has also used the slogan “From the River to the Sea” which is a genocidal threat to destroy Israel and its Jewish population. BC SJP continues to promote the Hamas-inspired and funded Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel and held an event to discuss its policy of refusing to dialogue or establish “normalization” of relations with pro-Israel organizations and students. A gang of 10 campus activists affiliated with SJP stormed a campus faculty meeting, calling one faculty member a “Zionist pig” and issuing demands for “Zionists off campus.” In spite of these actions, Brooklyn College President Michelle Anderson ordered posters exposing the links between SJP and Hamas be immediately torn down and called them “hate speech,” while defending SJP’s right to continue its operations on campus.
Supporting Evidence:
In January 2017, BC SJP shared an announcement from NYC SJP about a protest on its Facebook page. The protest announcement stated “Fight Trump, Free Palestine, From the River to the Sea.” The statement “From the River to the Sea” is a genocidal call for the elimination of the entirety of Israel and its Jews which lie between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
In November 2016, Brooklyn College President Michelle Anderson responded to posters exposing the links between the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine and Hamas by tearing them down and denouncing their sponsor, the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Anderson’s response included lofty passages about the importance of free speech and intellectual diversity on a college campus, yet she exempted the Freedom Center from these protections by calling its posters “hate speech” and accusing the posters of “target[ing] individual SJP leaders with the aim of bullying them and making them vulnerable to additional harassment or worse.”
In May 2016, Brooklyn College SJP held a demonstration at City Hall Park in New York to commemorate “Al-Nakba.” Nakba is an Arabic term meaning “catastrophe” that is used by Hamas and its supporters to describe the creation of Israel. For the record, Israel was created by the United Nations on land that belonged to the Turks (who are not Arabs, let alone “Palestinians”) for 400 years previously. Israel was created in the same way Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Iraq were created, without becoming the targets of terrorist aggression.
On April 15, 2016, the Doctoral Students Council of the City University of New York (CUNY), of which Brooklyn College is a subsidiary, voted 42-19-9 in favor of a resolution calling for a boycott of “Israeli academic institutions for as long as the Israeli state continues to violate Palestinian rights under international law,” thereby endorsing the Hamas-sponsored BDS movement and its false claims that Israel violates Palestinian rights. In fact, the million plus Arabs who are Israeli citizens have more rights than the Arabs of any other Middle Eastern state, including the territories of the West Bank and Gaza.
On April 03, 2016, Brooklyn College SJP posted an article defending terrorism and the BDS movement.
On February 17, 2016, a gang of approximately 10 anti-Israel activists stormed a campus faculty meeting, calling one faculty member a “Zionist pig” and issuing demands for “Zionists off campus” and for an end to supposedly “racist” course offerings. Some of the faculty present applauded the student demands.
On November 26, 2015, Brooklyn College SJP shared a video link on its Facebook page purporting to show the “loss of land” that occurred through a series of maps as Jews allegedly colonized Palestine. These fraudulent maps which begin with a map showing a non-existent “Palestine” in 1947, were created by Hamas to justify its terrorist war against the Jewish state.
On November 18, 2015, Brooklyn College SJP invited students to attend an event held at the CUNY graduate center titled: “Against Apartheid: The Case for Boycotting Israeli Universities.” The event advertisement promises it will be a “vital discussion on the importance—and challenges—of boycotting Israeli universities.”
On November 17, 2015, SJP held a “Normalization Workshop” to discuss why SJP refuses to dialogue with pro-Israel students and groups on campus. This refusal to allow any discussion with groups supporting Israel is in line with the policies of Hamas and in direct conflict with the aims of a liberal arts university.
On November 12, 2015, Brooklyn College SJP endorsed a statement from the SJP contingent of the “Million Student March” which describes CUNY’s leadership as “the Zionist administration” and uses Hamas terminology to claim that it “reproduces settler-colonial ideology throughout CUNY through Zionist content of education.” The statement also refers to Israel as “occupied Palestine.” The reference to “Palestine” is to a political entity that has never existed in the fourteen hundred year history of the Middle East from the time of Mohammed. It is a Hamas fabrication.
On November 04, 2015, Brooklyn College SJP sponsored an event featuring Canadian-Israeli journalist David Sheen gave a talk on “Israel & Palestine: The Bullet, the Ballot and the Boycott,” during which he repeatedcommon Hamas libels attacking Israel as a racist state and “theocracy” that is attempting to start a “race war” through “burning babies” and other acts of violence against Arabs and blacks.
On November 02, 2015, Brooklyn College SJP co-sponsored a vigil at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City in support of the “Holy Land Five,” high level employees of the Holy Land Foundation who were convicted of funneling millions to Hamas.
On October 08, 2015, Brooklyn College SJP posted an online poster labeled “The Third Intifada” on its Facebook page. While “Intifada” literally means “shaking off,” it is the name assigned by terrorists to their suicide bombing and stabbing attacks against Jewish civilians in Israel.
On October 07, 2015, Brooklyn College SJP held a “die-in” on campus to accuse Israel of murdering Palestinian civilians as part of an international “Day of Rage.” The fake corpses were covered in fake blood with signs around their necks accusing Israel of various crimes. One sign read “This is just a fraction of life under Israeli Apartheid.” The protest was accompanied by numerous chalked slogans, including some endorsing the Hamas-funded BDS movement such as “Boycott Israel.”
On March 25, 2015, anti-Semitic graffiti reading “Jews – root of all evil” was found in a men’s bathroom stall in the Brooklyn College library.
Over the past few years, Brooklyn College SJP members and their supporters at Brooklyn College expressed vehement Jew hatred and support for anti-Israel terrorism on social media. SJP member Ayah Aly tweeted such sentiments as “Anyone supporting Israel is living in a constant state of delusion. Exterminate yourselves” and “If you’re a zionist, you israeli the lowest piece of scum on earth.” She also tweeted that “Jews” are one of the “top10thingsIhate” and claimed that the United States government was behind the 9/11 attacks, stating on twitter “Never Forget this day, 14 years ago, when the U.S Government conspired against its’ own Country and blamed it on Islam.”
Brooklyn College graduate student Raja Abdulhaqwrote on Facebook that “It’s very important to always remember that Western colonial powers are as guilty as Israel in the mass-murder of Palestinians, especially the USA.” He also condoned anti-Israel terrorism, sharing on Facebook that “If you preach about popular resistance by calling it ‘non-violent’ resistance in the international arena and indirectly condemn other forms of resistance, mainly armed, then you don’t represent Palestine.”
DePaul University
For several years now, DePaul University, which bills itself as the largest Catholic University in America, has been at the forefront of the Hamas-inspired and funded movement to push universities to divest their funds from Israel. A coalition calling itself DePaul Divest formed on campus in 2014 and rapidly succeeded in passing a student referendum calling for BDS against Israel. DePaul’s chapter of SJP has also held events demonstrating their allegiance to anti-Israel terrorists including a fundraiser for convicted anti-Israel terrorist Rasmeah Odeh and demonstrations on campus that echoed Hamas propaganda accusing Israel of “occupying” Palestine and deliberately targeting Palestinian children. In a vicious display of Hamas’s policy of attempting to undermine Jewish history and art, DePaul SJP called for the removal of an art display on campus that depicted the Pope’s visit to Jerusalem, claiming that it “ultimately normalizes the brutal military occupation and colonization of Palestine by the Israeli state.”
Supporting Evidence:
On May 11, 2017, SJP at DePaul held a demonstration on campus that included a banner which echoed Hamas’s attempts to delegitimize Israel by claiming that “Arresting activists & children, forcing confessions, and physical sexual abuse in prison is what Israeli apartheid looks like.”
On May 8, 2017, DePaul SJP held a demonstration titled “Wall to Wall: Life Under Israeli Apartheid” on the campus quad. The event featured the display of a mock apartheid wall which included a Hamas propaganda timeline and illustration of maps purporting to show the alleged colonization of Arab Palestine (which never existed as a political entity) by Jews over the past 70 years. Israel’s “apartheid wall” is a security fence which has saved thousands of Jewish lives by preventing Palestinian terrorists from entry.
During May 16-18, 2016, DePaul SJP hosted Israeli Apartheid Week on campus, an anti-Israel hatefest designed to attack and weaken the Jewish state and ultimately fulfill Hamas’s goal of its destruction.
On May 18, 2016, DePaul SJP put out a press release that was endorsed by several other student groups on campus, vehemently objecting to the university’s decision to allow the Midwest Consulate of Israel to sponsor an exhibit of art depicting the Pope’s visit to Israel. SJP’s release demonizes and delegitimizes Israel, using Hamas tropes to claim that this portrayal of the Jewish state in a positive light “disguises the active apartheid settler colonial state of Israel as one of concordance and peace in our student library.” It further accuses the exhibit of “turn[ing] a blind eye to the violence and racism prevalent in the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian people” and ignoring “the many discriminatory laws, illegal settlements and human rights violations against Palestinians,” claiming that it “ultimately normalizes the brutal military occupation and colonization of Palestine by the Israeli state.” The release concludes by demanding “DePaul University to stop welcoming zionism to our institutions and to decolonize student spaces that are suppose [sic] to be safe for all.”
On October 14, 2015, DePaul SJP participated in an International Day of Action for Palestine and held a rally on campus. Facebook notices about the event echo Hamas propaganda by protesting the alleged “Israeli occupation of Palestine.”
On February 3, 2015, DePaul SJP held a large fundraiser to support convicted anti-Israel terrorist Rasmeah Odeh. A news report of the event described how “Speaker after speaker rose to declare their support” for Odeh.
On May 23, 2014, the DePaul Divest coalition succeeded in passing a pro-divestment student referendum on campus. The resolution accused a dozen multinational corporations of profiting from “Israel’s discrimination and human rights violations.”
In Spring 2014, a coalition calling itself DePaul Divest formed on campus to push a divestment resolution in student government and pressure the university to divest its funds from Israel. Sixteen student groups declared their support for the coalition. The BDS movement which DePaul Divest was formed to promote, was inspired and funded by the anti-Israel terror group Hamas.
San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University (SFSU) has the distinction of being singled out by Jewish students and community members with a lawsuit in U.S. district court charging that “it has systematically supported these departments and student groups as they have doggedly organized their efforts to target, threaten, and intimidate Jewish students on campus and deprive them of their civil rights and their ability to feel safe and secure as they pursue their education.” This claim is borne out by SFSU’s record of enabling the anti-Semitism and threatening behavior of the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS), an SJP surrogate group which has repeatedly terrorized pro-Israel speakers and students—including Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat—by shouting exhortations to terrorist violence and succeeded in curtailing his address. At Barkat’s speech, demonstrators shouted “Intifada,” a call for terrorism against Israel, and chanted “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” a call for the obliteration of the Jewish state. The former president of GUPS wrote dozens of social media posts threatening violence to pro-Israel students, Israelis, the IDF and others. He also praised Hamas and the violent Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). While he was eventually kicked off campus, GUPS continues to propagandize for Hamas and harass Jewish students at SFSU.
Supporting Evidence:
In June 2017, Jewish students at SFSU together with members of the local community filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against SFSU and the trustees of California State University charging that SFSU has fostered a hostile environment for Jewish students on campus who are “often afraid to wear Stars of David or yarmulkes on campus, and regularly text their friends to describe potential safety issues.” The lawsuit was prompted in part by an incident in April 2016 when a speech by the mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, was disrupted by anti-Israel protestors who chanted “Intifada” (a call for violence and terrorism against Israel) and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” (a statement urging the genocide of Israel’s Jews). During this incident, university administrators told campus police to “stand down” and allowed the protest to continue.
The suit filed against the University claims, “SFSU has not merely fostered and embraced anti-Jewish hostility — it has systematically supported these departments and student groups as they have doggedly organized their efforts to target, threaten, and intimidate Jewish students on campus and deprive them of their civil rights and their ability to feel safe and secure as they pursue their education.” The suit also specifically names SFSU professor Rabab Abdulhadi, the director of SFSU’s Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora Initiative (AMED) and the faculty advisor for SFSU’s Hamas-supporting GUPS chapter, who has a long history of supporting terrorists and their allies.
In April 2017, GUPS held a commemoration of the “Nakba,” a term used by Hamas and its allies to describe the creation of Israel as a “catastrophe.” Signs and advertisements for the event stated “Never Forget, Never Forgive,” and called for the Palestinian’s “Right of Return” which would mean the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state, one of Hamas’s chief aims.
In March 2017, GUPS again brought the anti-Israel hatefest “Israeli Apartheid Week” to campus. This year’s festivities featured a mock checkpoint and a “political discussion and film screening” at which a large bannerwas featured stating the Hamas libel that “Zionism is racism.”
SFSU GUPS held a March 2017 event on “Israeli Policies in Relation to the Trump Era” at which they attempted to smear both the Trump administration and the Jewish state. The event description claimed“Since the settler colonial project of Israel was established as a state in 1948, the Israel government has used ‘security’ as a pretext to further oppressive and racist policies and practices against the Palestinians. This include[s]... building an Apartheid Wall...a racist ID system... and torture, resulting in the policing, and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians."Israel’s “apartheid wall” is actually a security fence that has saved thousands of Jewish lives by preventing Palestinian terrorists from entering.
GUPS deliberately and maliciously excluded SFSU Hillel from a February 2017 campus fair on the topic of human rights which they helped to organize by changing the registration dates after they had been announced to the public and then claiming the fair was at capacity when in reality many empty tables remained.
In September 2016, GUPS held a campus event to commemorate “one of the hundreds of massacres committed on the Palestinian people: Sabra and Shatila.” A Facebook post about the event claimed that “we hold the United States and Israel for the continue repressions among our communities from police killing black and brown men and women to the Assad regime slaughtering Syrians. If we were to commemorate every massacre in Palestinian history, having an event every single day of the year would still not be enough.” Large signs displayed at the event falsely accused Israel of “settler colonialism” and “ethnic cleansing.” The Sabra and Shatila massacres were carried out by the Lebanese Christian Phalange party as a retaliation for the murder of the president of Lebanon, Bashir Gemayel, by Palestinian terrorists.
In April 2016, SFSU hosted a tour created by National SJP called “Right 2 Education,” featuring two speakers from Birzeit University in Palestine. Birzeit is well known for hosting Hamas rallies and Hamas recently beat out rival party Fatah in student elections there. During the event, the student speakers defended terrorism claiming that acts such as knife attacks on unarmed civilians were merely efforts to “bring attention” to the alleged plight of Palestinians. The speakers praised the genocidal BDS campaign against Israel, and attempted to delegitimize the Israeli state by falsely claiming that Jews “fabricate our history to make it look like they have a right to exist in our country” and that “Israel was built to be a racist state.”
The SFSU General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) disrupted an April 2016 speech by the Mayor of Jerusalem, NirBarkat, by shouting exhortations to terrorist violence and succeeded in curtailing his address. SFSU students involved in the protest entered the auditorium carrying Palestinian flags and wearing checkered kaffiyehs which are associated with anti-Israel terrorism. The demonstrators then proceeded to shout “Intifada,” and chanted “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” a slogan falsely claiming that Israel is Palestine (Israel is bounded by the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea) and should be destroyed.
When SFSU President Wong called for an investigation into the protestors who shut down Barkat’s speech, GUPS responded by calling Wong’s request an “attack on pro-Palestine protestors” that “criminalize[s] anti-racist speech on campus.”
In Februry 2016, GUPS at SFSU held a rally in solidarity with Mohammed Al-Qeeq, a Palestinian journalist who was arrested and detained by Israel. According to the Associated Press, “Israel’s Shin Bet security service says al-Qeeq is involved in terrorism activities linked to the militant Hamas movement.”
In October 2015, GUPS at SFSU promoted a community protest on its Facebook page supporting terrorism and the Hamas goal of destroying Israel. GUPS’s endorsement stated in part: “The General Union of Palestine Students – GUPS-SFSU supports the uprisings in Palestine! We Stand with our Brothers and Sisters in the streets, and we will find victory! ... End to the Zionist State! End to the killings of our Men, Women and Children in cold blood! End to the colonist empire! We will not be silenced!”
In September 2015, GUPS at SFSU held a protest and die-in called “From Sabra to Syria: My Homeland is not a Suitcase.” One student lay on the ground holding a mock Israeli flag with “Stop Settler Colonialism” scrawled across it, an echo of the Hamas claim that the Jews have “colonized” Palestine, a blatant historical falsehood, since the land on which Israel was created belonged to the Turks (who are neither Arabs nor Palestinians) for 400 years previously.
GUPS at SFSU held an event in May 2015 to commemorate the “Nakba,” an Arabic word meaning “catastrophe” that Hamas and its supporters use to describe the creation of Israel. A poster for the event stated “67 years later al-nakba continues. Join GUPS in honoring Palestinian resilience.”
In April 2015, GUPS at SFSU held “Israeli Apartheid Week” on campus. The poster for the event stated, “Together we rise against colonialism,” repeating Hamas’s propaganda lie that the (non-existent) Arab nation of “Palestine” was colonized by Jews. The event included the display of a mock “apartheid wall” painted with anti-Israel propaganda.
In the Fall of 2014, SFSU Professor Rabab Abdulhadi, faculty advisor to GUPS, who had previously taken a university-sponsored trip to the Middle East where she met with terrorists Leila Khaled and Sheikh Raed Salah, posted on her Facebook page, “Today San Francisco State University’s All University Committee on International Programs unanimously voted to recommend that SF State formally collaborate with An-Najah National University in Nablus, Palestine. This is the first time that SFSU will collaborate with any university in a Palestinian, Arab or Muslim community.” The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has written of An-Najah University, “Today the student council of An-Najah is known for its advocacy of anti-Israel violence and its recruitment of Palestinian college students into terrorist groups. The council, almost completely controlled by factions loyal to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah, glorifies suicide bombings and propagandizes for jihad against Israel. Hamas has described An-Najah as a ‘greenhouse for martyrs.’”
In November 2014, GUPS at SFSU held the 7th Annual Edward Said Mural Celebration. Among the event’s speakers was UC Berkeley professor and Hamas agent, Hatem Bazian, former leader of GUPS, and co-founder of Students for Justice in Palestine. Bazian, during a speech at an anti-war rally in San Francisco in 2004, called for an “Intifada” in America: “Well, we’ve been watching [an] Intifada in Palestine, we’ve been watching an uprising in Iraq [against the United States], and the question is what are we doing? How come we don’t have an Intifada in this country? Because it seem[s] to me, that we are comfortable in where we are, watching CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox, and all these mainstream ... giving us a window to the world while the world is being managed from Washington, from New York, from every other place in here in San Francisco: Chevron, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Halliburton; every one of those lying, cheating, stealing, deceiving individuals are in our country and we’re sitting here and watching the world pass by, people being bombed, and it’s about time that we have an Intifada in this country that changes fundamentally the political dynamics in here. And we know ... they’re gonna say some Palestinian [is] being too radical. Well, you haven’t seen radicalism yet!”
In February 2014, SFSU General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) President Mohammad G. Hammad was exposed as having written a number of threatening social media posts describing his wish to attack students, teachers and Israeli soldiers and to ally himself with anti-Israel terrorists including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Hammad’s posts include: A photo of himself holding a large knife with the caption: “I seriously cannot get over how much I love this blade. It is the sharpest thing I own and cuts through everything like butter and just holding it makes me want to stab an Israeli soldier...” “I think about killing a lot. And some of you are usually the targets of my daydreams J.” “You know what? Israelis ARE colonizers, there is literally no way around it. And you know what else? My heroes have always killed colonizers. I literally see nothing wrong with this. And my only regret is that not all colonizers were killed.”
In response to a poster that asked “how can I help actively support Palestine,” Hammad responded “Buy a keffieyh. Learn to tie it around your head...get in touch with some PFLP militants or arms dealers in the West Bank. Learn IDF patrol routes...BOOM.” “Let’s play a game. Objective: Kill U.S. Soldiers. Goal: world peace.” “The number of times I have legitimately considered flying back to the Middle East and joining the armed wing of the PFLP or something is surprisingly high.” “I think about the time I tried to be - moderate - and advocate for non-violence and honestly I just want to go back in time and slit my own throat/and then the throats of all my enemies before they grow up into the shits they are today.” “Oh/And tomorrow is [hopefully] the day that I find out if I will be the President of the General Union of Palestine at my school/...Hopefully I’ll be able to radicalize half of our population and bring them back with me as fighters.”
After Jewish groups and the media exposed his postings, Hammad eventually left campus and was placed under investigation by the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the FBI.
During a December 2013 “emergency rally” held by GUPS at SFSU, the phrase “My Heroes Have Always Killed Colonizers” was written with chalk on the concrete stage at Malcolm X Plaza. The same phrase, referring to the Hamas assertion that Jews have colonized Arab Palestine and must be exterminated, was also written on a sign at a display table during the “Edward Said Mural Celebration.” Said was a Columbia professor who was a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s Palestinian National Council until 1991 when he resigned because he thought the terrorist Yasser Arafat’s policies were too moderate towards Israel.
University of California-Berkeley:
UC-Berkeley, the academic home of Hamas agent and SJP co-founder Hatem Bazian, has long been known as a hub for anti-Israel extremism. This reputation was proven to be well-deserved by the offering of a course in Fall 2016 on “Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis.” The course syllabus explained that the course would explore “the possibility of decolonization,” meaning the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state. The course was briefly suspended by the campus administration but it was reinstated after only minor changes to the syllabus.
Berkeley also boasts a highly active SJP chapter that holds regular protests and die-ins which parrot Hamas propaganda claims that Israel deliberately targets Palestinian children. During a recent campus rally, students supporting the BDS movement chanted pro-terrorist slogans including “Let it be known that we here at Berkeley support the Intifada” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” – calls to kill Jews in Israel and destroy the Jewish state. The Berkeley campus has hosted numerous pro-BDS speakers including Omar Barghouti, founder of the Hamas-inspired and funded boycott movement.
Supporting Evidence:
During March 2017, Berkeley SJP held “Palestine Solidarity Week” on campus featuring the display of a mock apartheid wall, meant to symbolize Israel’s security fence which has saved thousands of Jewish lives by keeping Palestinian terrorists out. The Week also featured a “die-in” designed to showcase the Hamas propaganda lie that Israel commits indiscriminate violence against Palestinians, and a mock checkpoint on campus. At the die-in, students held signs proclaiming “Zionism is racism” and “Stop Israeli Occupation Forces From Killing Palestinian Children in Cold Blood.”
During November 2016, the Berkeley Law chapter of SJP posted an open letter on social media asking students to pledge not to participate in trips to Israel sponsored by “Israel & Co.” The open letter repeated Hamas propaganda lies, claiming that “This trip is part of a broader effort to normalize the occupation of Palestinian people by drawing attention away from a settler-colonial state’s systemic violations of human rights.” The chapter also tabled on campus in an effort to encourage students to sign the pledge. One student held a sign stating, “I pledge not to go on the Israel trip because: white supremacy here looks a lot like white supremacy there.” The Facebook page of the Berkeley Law chapter of SJP carries a banner which compares illegal immigrants in America to Palestinians with the slogan “we didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us.”
On October 27, 2016, SJP at Berkeleyheld the “3rd Annual International Day of Action on University Campuses for Palestine.” Speakers at the event which promoted the Hamas-inspired and funded BDS movement against Israel included Hatem Bazian and SFSU professor Rabab Abdulhadi who has used university funds to meet with anti-Israel terrorists. Social media promotions for the event stated, “Make this call of action part of campus education by holding teach-ins, rallies, sit-ins, civil disobedience, and push for BDS activities. No to Academic Complicity with Israeli Occupation, No to Study Abroad Programs in Israel, No Investments in Apartheid and Occupation Supporting Companies, No to University Presidents’ Visits to Israel, No Campus Police Training or Cooperation with Israeli Security, No Joint Research or Conferences with Israeli Institutions, No Cooperation with Hasbara Networks on College Campuses, No to Targeting Faculty for Speaking Against Israeli Crimes, No to Administrative Limits on Free Speech Rights of Palestine Activists, No to University Coordination and Strategizing with the ADL, JCRC, AJC, Stand With US, ZOA, Israeli Consulate to Limit Students Pro-Palestine Constitutionally Protected Activities.”
On September 22, 2016, anti-Semitic posters appeared on Berkeley’s campus which stated, “Jewish bullies smash free speech at Cal and are pledged $58 billion. Attention Non-Jews: PAY UP AND SHUT UP!”
A course offered at Berkeley during the Fall 2016 semester was titled “Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis.” The course facilitator was Paul Hadweh and the faculty sponsor was Hatem Bazian. The course syllabus included generous doses of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic literature and claimed that the course would be “exploring the possibility of decolonization,” meaning the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state. The course was briefly suspended by the campus administration but it was reinstated after only minor and cosmetic changes to the course syllabus. Course facilitator Hadweh promoted the course on social media by stating that it would explore “the history and present of Zionist settler colonialism in Palestine” and by posting a series of infamous Hamas propaganda maps that falsely show Israel colonizing Arab Palestine. Of course the actual Arab colonization of the Middle East outside the Arabian peninsula - a historical fact - was absent from the syllabus which focused solely on the fictional colonization of an entity – Palestine – which has never existed.
In June 2016, UC Berkeley’s Center for Race & Gender offered a “Palestine De-Colonial Summer School” in Istanbul, Turkey. The program reinforced the Hamas narrative that Jews colonized a non-existent state called Palestine. Among the themes examined in the program were “Colonialism: settler colonialism and the meaning of de-colonization,” “Understanding Zionism, as a colonial, racial and Euro-centric Project,” and “The Palestinian Nakba and the dispossession.” A compendium of Hamas libels against the Jews.
During May 2016, UC Berkeley SJP shared several posts on Facebook commemorating the “Nakba,” an Arabic term meaning catastrophe that Hamas and its supporters use to refer to the creation of Israel and to commemorate the unprovoked aggressive war five Arab dictatorships launched against the tiny state on that day and have continued ever since.
On March 31, 2016, Berkeley SJP held a “Die-in, March, and Speakout for Palestine” on campus. The Facebook notice for the event read, “We are dying-in and marching in solidarity with all Palestinians subjected to Israeli violence. Our action seeks to represent visually the people who have shed blood and tears at Israel’s hands in the West Bank, in Jerusalem, in Gaza, and worldwide.” The rally included the display of a large mock “apartheid wall” which featured anti-Israel slogans and pro-terrorist propaganda. One panel of the “apartheid wall” depicted all of Israel replaced with a Palestinian flag, implying that Israel should be replaced by an Arab state of Palestine and should no longer exist.
On March 29, 2016, Berkeley SJP created a “mock checkpoint” on campus to demonize Israel and intimidate students as they attempted to cross the campus. The actual checkpoints have cut the number of Israeli civilians killed by Palestinian terrorists to near zero – a fact suppressed by SJP. During the demonstration, students impersonating Israeli soldiers with “IDF” written on the backs of their shirts, and armed with mock assault rifles, arrested those representing Palestinians, as though the IDF’s efforts were about oppressing Palestinians instead of defending innocent civilians.
Over March 8-10, 2016, UC Berkeley SJP held “Palestine Awareness Week” on campus, although events actually continued throughout the month of March. This week featured all the key propaganda points Hamas uses to justify its war of extermination against Israel’s Jews.
In March 2015, three Berkeley professors--Rutie Adler, Hatem Bazian, and Samera Esmeir--were among the signatories to an op-ed printed in the Daily Californian supporting BDS resolutions on UC campuses and the Hamas-inspired effort to destroy the Jewish state.
On February 19, 2016, Berkeley SJP shared an article on its Facebook page defending Palestinian terrorism against Israel. The article focused on a Fatah activist who spent 23 years in prison for killing an Israeli. The activist is quoted as saying “Call Me a Terrorist, but I’m No Different From Israeli Troops Defending Their Homeland.” The inability to distinguish between a defender and an aggressor is characteristic of Hamas-SJP propaganda.
On February 18, 2016, UC Berkeley hosted Dr. Jeff Halper for a talk on “War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians, and Global Pacification.” The Facebook notice for the event repeated the Hamas libel that Israelis are using the “occupied territories” to test their experimental weapons: “Drawing on firsthand research, the author shows how the integration of militarized systems - databases, tracking civilian activity, automated targeting systems and unmanned drones – is perfected to sustain fear among the populace and how the Occupied Territories are used by Israel as a veritable weapon laboratory.” No mention was made by Halper of the fact that every time Israel withdraws its forces, as in Gaza, the vacuum is filled with Hamas terrorists firing rockets into Israeli schoolyards and digging multimillion dollar terror tunnels to carry out attacks in Israel.
On November 16, 2015, Berkeley SJP hosted anti-Israel poet Remi Kanazi on campus. Kanazi has called Israel “a racist state built on stolen Palestinian land” that is “maintained through ethnic cleansing, occupation, bombing campaigns, draconian laws, settlements, outposts, colonizer roads, siege, blockade, chemical warfare, an apartheid wall, home demolitions, control of borders/imports/exports/water aquifers/air/sea/taxes/currency, the denial of family reunification, jailing of children, night raids, administrative detention, uprooting olive groves, restriction on movement, denying refugees the ability to return, and much more.”
On October 14, 2015, UC Berkeley’s SJP chapter held a rally to support the “International Day of Action” for Palestine and the BDS movement against Israel at Sproul Plaza on campus. The Muslim Students Association co-sponsored the event. Featured speakers included SJP co-founder, Berkeley professor and Hamas-supporter Hatem Bazian. Speakers and participants at the event chanted pro-terrorist slogans including “Let it be known that we here at Berkeley support the Intifada” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” The Intifada refers to unprovoked attacks on Jews, and “from the river to the sea” means the obliteration of the Jewish state and its replacement by an Islamic totalitarian regime identical to the one that now exists in Gaza. A mock “apartheid wall” plastered with anti-Israel propaganda was displayed at the event, including the malicious and false accusation that “Israel massacred over 500 kids in Gaza.”
On September 18, 2015, Omar Barghouti, the founder of the Hamas-inspired and funded BDS movement against Israel, spoke at Berkeley. His talk was co-sponsored by SJP and by eight university departments including the Center for Race and Gender, Asian American Studies, Native American Studies, Ethnic Studies, English, Chicano Studies, Near Eastern Studies, and African American Studies. Barghouti’s speech was titled, “BDS: Academia’s Role in the Struggle for Freedom and Justice in Palestine,” and promoted the academic boycott of Israel.
On February 4, 2015, a swastika was found on a “university-owned building on University Avenue.”
On March 2, 2015, genocidal graffiti was found in a campus restroom reading: “Zionists should be sent to the gas chamber.”
On February 22, 2015, Berkeley SJP violated campus rules by distributing over 600 fake eviction notices to students in campus housing. SJP made clear that the campaign was in support of the Hamas-inspired BDS movement against Israel, stating in a press release that “With this action, we are calling on the UC Regents to honor the consensus in favor of divestment.”
On January 30, 2015, UC Berkeley’s office for Equity, Inclusion and Diversity posted an article on its website titled “Rhetoric of racism, from Ferguson to Palestine” that defended Hamas terrorism, claiming that “Hamas is a political party that has been under siege, along with the entirety of the Gaza Strip, for the last seven years and under Israeli military occupation since 1967.” The article, which ignored the 7 years of unprovoked Gaza aggression against Israel, the three aggressive wars conducted by the Arab states against Israel from its birth, and the 70 years of unprovoked terror attacks by Arabs and Palestinians against Jewish civilians, condemned Israel claiming that it “was founded after a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian population that continues until today.” Thus it merely repeated the genocidal lie created by Arab dictators and terrorists to justify their aggressive war against the Jews. The only ethnic cleansing proposed in the Middle East is the Arab plan to purge the region of Jews – and in so many words.
University of California-Irvine
Over the past decade, the University of California Irvine has earned a well-deserved reputation as a base for supporters of anti-Israel terrorism and hostility towards Jews. At several events over the past few years, members of UCI SJP have entirely disrupted pro-Israel events, chanting slogans promoting terrorism such as “Intifada, Intifada/long live the Intifada” and “when people are occupied/resistance is justified,” forcing Jewish students to disperse under the watch of campus police. Irvine hosts an annual Israeli Apartheid Week which has been variously called “Anti-Zionism Week” and “Resisting Zionism Week.” A mock “apartheid wall” displayed during the week has glorified convicted hijacker Leila Khaled a member of the murderous terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and also depicted a map of Israel with the entire nation labeled as “occupied territory.” It has also contained incitements to terrorism such as the statement “When people are occupied, resistance is justified.”
Speakers invited to Irvine by the campus chapter of the Muslim Student Union include BDS movement founder Omar Barghouti and infamous terrorist-supporting anti-Semite, Amir Abdel Malik Ali, who has openly stated his allegiance to Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad. Irvine’s student senate was one of the first in the nation to pass a resolution in support of the Hamas-backed and funded BDS campaign against Israel. Irvine students even met with a prominent Hamas leader during a secret trip to the Middle East in 2009.
Supporting Evidence:
An event hosted by UCI’s chapter of Students Supporting Israel (SSI) featuring a panel of Israeli Defense Reservists in May 2017 was disrupted by a contingent of approximately 40 protestors from UCI SJP—some clothed in t-shirts stating “UC Intifada,” a call to terrorist violence—who shouted slogans urging violence and the destruction of the Jewish state. SJP’s chants included: “Israel, Israel what do you say, how many kids have you killed today?” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” A woman identified as a former president of SJP yelled, “These people are occupiers, they’re colonizers; you should not be allowed on our f–ing campus!” The head of SSI also reported that assistance from campus police was inadequate. Despite every expectation that SJP would attempt to disrupt the event, campus police showed up late and then proceeded to lead the Israel supporters out through a crowd of protestors, increasing the risk of attack against them. The next day, one of SJP’s student leaders bragged that the organization had gone “to disrupt the event” in order “to let them (the panelists) know that we refuse to allow the normalization of their presence here.”
In May 2017, UCI SJP held “Anti-Zionism Week 2017: On This Land.” The week included the erection of a mock “apartheid wall” threatening terrorist violence against Israel. Panels included in the wall declared “When people are occupied, resistance is justified” and the quote “The colonizer brings pure violence in the homes and minds of the colonized.” Other panels advocated for the Hamas-backed BDS movement against Israel and accused Israel of genocide.
An anti-Trump rally held on campus in January 2017 morphed into a denial of Jewish self-determinationwhen a student speaker declared to the crowd, “I want you guys to be about anti-Islamophobia; I want you guys to be anti-Zionism; and I want you guys to be anti-Israel because Trump didn’t come up with these things on his own, he got the idea of the wall from Israel.” The student then led the crowd in a chant of, “from Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have got to go.”
On May 18, 2016, Irvine SJP succeeded in disrupting a pro-Israel film screening that was co-sponsored by the campus chapters of Students Supporting Israel (SSI) and Hillel. SSI reported on its Facebook page that, “Tonight one of our events was disrupted by certain student organizations. They were in violation of UC Regents Hate Speech policy and were shouting various anti-Semitic statements. The police had to escort attendees out of the event for their own safety.” Video of the event reveals students shouting their support for anti-Israel terrorism, screaming “Intifada, Intifada/long live the Intifada,” “displacing people since ’48/there’s nothing here to celebrate!” and “when people are occupied/resistance is justified.” Following this event, UCI SJP was put on probation until March 2017.
During May 2-5, 2016, Irvine’s chapters of SJP and the Muslim Students Association (MSA) collaborated with other student groups to hold an “Anti-Zionist Week” on campus. The week featured a huge mock “apartheid wall” which celebrated anti-Israel terrorism in multiple panels. One panel depicted an image of convicted hijacker Leila Khaled holding a gun with the slogan “Women Leading Resistance” below it. “Resistance” is a euphemism for anti-Israel terrorism. Another segment of the wall repeats the slogan, “Resistance is justified when people are occupied.” Another segment depicted a map of Israel with the entire nation labeled as “occupied territory,” an allusion to Hamas’s genocidal goal to rid Israel of its Jews. The wall also endorsed the Hamas-inspired Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) against Israel.
In addition to the apartheid wall, Irvine’s anti-Zionist week featured a mock funeral procession for a Palestinian “martyr.” One of the students participating in the funeral procession held a sign proclaiming “Long Live the Intifada.” Another event featured a speech by anti-Israel Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss who comes from a fringe Jewish sect. During his address, Weiss resorted to anti-Semitic caricatures, claiming that Zionism is “a Madoff scheme” and Zionists use their “billions and billions of dollars” to intimidate “the media” and “any politician who dares ...to show too much sympathy for the Palestinian cause.” He also claimed that “newspapers are conglomerates that are owned or controlled by Zionist organizations.”
On February 19, 2016, SJP held an event titled “Unlearning Zionism: A Workshop and Discussion” with the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network. The Facebook page for the event featured side-by-side photos labeled “Warsaw 1944" (an image of the Warsaw ghetto) with “Gaza 2009,” implying an equivalence between the Holocaust and the treatment of Palestinians.
On October 12, 2015, an event featuring former Israeli Chief Justice Aharon Barak at Irvine was interruptedby 20-30 anti-Israel protestors, forcing police to interrupt the event and escort Barak and the other attendees out of the event.
During May 4-7, 2015, UC Irvine’s Muslim Student Union staged an “Anti-Zionism Week” on campus. As part of the week’s activities, SJP and MSU sold T-shirts emblazoned with “UC Intifada,” openly stating their allegiance to Jew-killing terrorists. The back of the T-shirt read “End Settler Colonialism” (a core Hamas fiction) and depicted a genocidal Hamas map which falsely alleged that an Arab nation called “Palestine” existed in 1947 and was over-run by Jews.
On April 23, 2015, a pro-Israel festival held by Anteaters for Israel (“Anteaters” is the school team name) was disrupted by anti-Israel protestors, who used their bodies and large signs to block a walkway and loudly chanted pro-terrorist slogans such as “Resistance is justified when people are occupied,” an attempt to whitewash terrorism.
In March 2015, UC-Irvine professor Rei Terada was among the signatories of an op-ed appearing in the Daily Californian urging the administrators of the UC system to support the Hamas-sponsored BDS Movement boycott of Israel.
In December 2014, UC Irvine SJP held an event in defense of terrorist Rasmeah Odeh, with law professor Marjorie Cohn, calling Odeh “our comrade and sister.” Odeh was convicted by an Israeli military court in 1970 for her involvement in a supermarket bombing which killed two Jewish students: “Join us as we host Marjorie Cohn, Professor of Law at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former President of the National Lawyer’s [sic] Guild and current Deputy Secretary of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers as she discusses the implications of the U.S.'s targeting of our comrade and sister, Rasmea Odeh. Ms. Cohn recently authored an article titled, “US Leaders Aid and Abet Israeli War Crimes, Genocide & Crimes Against Humanity.”
In July 2014, UC Irvine SJP shared on its Facebook page the following statement about Israel’s belated response to the unprovoked firing of thousands of Hamas rockets into Israel’s civilian areas (Israel’s response was called “Operation Protective Edge”): “Israel’s war on Gaza is not an attempt to strike back at Hamas, nor was it in the 2008 war on Gaza or the previous wars it has waged against Palestinians. This is an attempt to murder as many Palestinians as they can before they decide to stop. If you are shocked that Israel is killing Palestinian women and children do not be, this is their intention and the principle on which their state was created. Every couple of years Israel wages a war on defenseless populations in their quest to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people. Remember, even if the current war stops, they will come back to kill more Palestinians in the future. Do not get comfortable today, and do not ignore Palestine tomorrow. Continue to spread awareness about what is happening. It should not take more than 150 lives for us to wake up and decide to care. Palestine is under occupation all day, every day. May we all see a free Palestine. #gazaunderattack#FreePalestine“The SJP statement parroted Hamas’s war propaganda that “Operation Protective Edge” was an aggressive initiative to indiscriminately murder Palestinians.
In June 2014, UC Irvine SJP posted a statement on Operation Protective Edge, repeating Hamas lies and defending its war crimes: “718 People. 718 Palestinians. Israel is massacring Palestinians on such a mass scale, it’s a wonder why no media outlet is stating that they are targeting civilians. The lives taken speak louder than Israel propaganda.” Hamas deliberately locates its rocket launchers in civilian neighborhoods which accounts for the civilian casualties when Israel attempts to eliminate the Hamas rocket threat. SJP parrots this cynical propaganda as a loyal and uncritical ally of Hamas terrorism. UC Irvine SJP also shared a post from Holocaust-denying former professor Norman Finkelstein commenting on Operation Protective Edge and listing “the names of Palestinians that Israel has murdered.
On May 6, 2014, UC Irvine SJP crashed a pro-Israel demonstration called “IFest” with a large sign stating, “End Apartheid.” A group of SJP and MSU members pushed through a gathering of pro-Israel students to intimidate them, causing injuries to some. One student was reportedly grabbed and deliberately pushed to the ground and left with scratches and bruises. SJP proudly showcased the demonstration on their Facebook page: “This is how we welcomed Ifest (Israeli Fest) today. This is how we remember; Israel’s Independence day is our catastrophe. #IsrealiIndependenceEqualsGenocide#FreePalestine”
On November 12, 2013, UC Irvine SJP hosted an event with anti-Israel activist Ben White, author of Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide and co-author of Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy. White’s talk was titled “Israel: Apartheid, Not Democracy.” White has defended Hamas’ attempts to kill Israeli civilians, stating “Israel’s hasbara (public relations) says context for assault is rocket fire. Well, context for rocket fire is 64 years of expulsion & occupation.” This is a brazen lie. Actually several brazen lies. There has never been a “Palestine” to expel anyone from. More than one million Israeli citizens are Arabs with more rights than any of the Arabs of Gaza or the West Bank. Gaza was a staging ground for three unprovoked aggressive wars against Israel, and in 2005 Israel withdrew its security forces from Gaza in a gesture of peace which was immediately answered by thousands of Hamas rockets aimed at Jewish civilians.
On October 27, 2013, UC Irvine SJP posted on its Facebook page the series of Hamas-created maps that falsely depict a non-existent Arab nation of “Palestine” existing in 1947 and being colonized by Jews.
During May 6-9, 2013, UC Irvine’s Muslim Student Union (MSU) held a week of events on “Resisting Zionism: The Palestinian Narrative.” The week featured an enormous “apartheid wall” plastered with anti-Israel propaganda including a call for BDS and a list of the purported “Rules of Occupation” which invert the reality that Israeli security measures are necessitated by Palestinian terrorism and aggression to assert the false claim that Israel is seeking to oppress and ethnically cleanse Palestinians. In fact, the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel have more rights and protections than the Arabs of any other Middle Eastern nation. The week of anti-Jewish activities included multiple anti-Israel events including one with anti-Israel activist Miko Peled and also a discussion on “The Need for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.”
On February 4, 2013, UC Irvine SJP held an event featuring BDS Movement founder Omar Barghouti titled “All About BDS.”
In November 2012, UC Irvine’s student senate became one of the first in the nation to pass a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolution against Israel. The BDS movement is a Hamas-inspired and funded campaign to strangle the Jewish state. The vote was unanimous, 16-0.
On May 8 2012, anti-Semitic hate speaker Amir Abdel Malik Ali, a black racist “Imam” from Oakland, spokeat Irvine’s Palestinian Liberation Week which is organized by the Muslim Student Union. In addition to defending suicide bombers, Malik Ali has compared the Jews to Nazis and openly expressed support for Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.
In February 2010, UC Irvine’s Muslim Student Union disrupted a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren on campus, which resulted in the arrest of nine of its members (and another two from the UC-Riverside chapter). MSU members stood up one at a time and shouted accusations at Oren including, “Mr. Oren, propagating murder is not an expression of free speech” and “Israel is guilty of 101 war crimes.” The MSU members refused to cease their disruption, even after an administrator repeatedly begged for civility and ultimately scolded the students: “Shame on all of you!” The tactics used by the MSU are in keeping with Hamas’ prohibition on the “normalization” of relations with Israel and supporters of Israel. For its violation of campus rules of civility, the MSU received a one-year suspension, which was ultimately shortened to only one semester after the organization and its lawyer appealed.
In September 2009, UCI students participated in a campus program called the Olive Tree Initiative and met with prominent Hamas leader Aziz Duwaik during a trip to Israel and the West Bank. The students were told to keep the meeting a secret to avoid being prevented from re-entering Israel from the West Bank and to avoid a conflict with Jewish community leaders and others who would have disapproved of the meeting.
University of Chicago:
The University of Chicago is home to a highly active SJP chapter that hosts frequent events and speakers to promote the Hamas-supported and funded BDS movement against Israel. These speakers include BDS movement founder Omar Barghouti who condoned anti-Israel terrorism in his address to students. SJP also hosts a yearly “Nakba Week” during which they commemorate the “catastrophe” that was the founding of Israel. UC’s SJP chapter is also known for disrupting pro-Israel events and speakers and recently threatened Palestinian human rights activist Bassam Eid who came to speak on U. Chicago’s campus about the oppression of Palestinians by the theocratic terrorist regimes in the West Bank and Gaza
In recent years, a coalition callings itself U of C Divest has formed on campus and gained widespread support among other student organizations. The coalition succeeded in passing a BDS resolution in Chicago’s student government. During the debate over the measure, an amendment supporting the continued self-determination of the Jewish people and the existence of Israel was proposed and rejected. The coalition has also pressured UC’s trustees to divest the university’s investments from Israel by delivering over 300 signed letters to the Investment Committee and making its case in the campus paper, the Chicago Maroon.
Supporting Evidence:
In June 2017, the U. Of C. Divest coalition proudly announced that they had delivered 300 signed letters to the Investment Committee of the U. Chicago Board of Trustees that demanded that the university divest from “Israeli apartheid"—thus promoting the Hamas supported and funded BDS movement against Israel. The coalition also demanded that the Board create a “Socially Responsible Investment Committee.”
On May 18, 2017, the Chicago Maroon published an op-ed by a Ph.D. student urging the campus administration to take action against David Horowitz and the David Horowitz Freedom Center for placing posters on campus that exposed the links between SJP and the anti-Israel terror group Hamas. The op-ed urged the administration to silence Horowitz, stating “In comments to The Maroon last year, David Horowitz said that the University should hold him personally responsible for the posters. So why haven’t they? In an era when mosques are being burned down across the United States week after week and where students who wear hijabs are spat on and yelled at every day across the city, shouldn’t confronting anti-Muslim bigotry be a priority? If the University is serious about protecting its students and employees, shouldn’t it address the David Horowitz Freedom Center and demand the group cease and desist from its repeated attacks on University students and employees?” The op-ed did not consider the view that the Freedom Center’s posters presented important facts and information and that universities should be open to a diversity of viewpoints. Or that in America we are governed by a Bill of Rights that guarantees our right to express opinions that terrorist sympathizers and activists might not agree with.
During May 2017, UC SJP again celebrated “Nakba Week” on campus. “Nakba” is the Arabic word for “catastrophe” which Hamas and its allies use to refer to the creation of Israel. Social media advertisements for the Week stated, “The 1948 expulsion of over 700,000 natives from Palestine is referred to by Palestinians as “al-Nakba” (“the catastrophe”). Understanding the Nakba as an ongoing process inherent to settler colonialism is crucial in understanding everything from the illegal occupation to the refugee crisis to the fight for equal rights within modern-day Israel.” But the only actual “settler colonialism” in the Middle East is the historic conquest of the region by the Arabs.
In April 2017, the U. of C. Divest coalition held an event to promote the BDS boycott against Israel and to encourage university trustees to divest from Israeli companies titled “BDS 101: #TelltheTrustees.” The coalition also created and posted a “fact sheet” on social media that promotes Hamas propaganda and misinformation about Israel. One claim states, “In Gaza, Palestinians live with the threat of regular Israeli bombing and ground invasions, which often have civilian casualty rates as high as 70% according to the UN. In the West Bank, Palestinians are constantly harassed and attacked at checkpoints by the Israeli military, who face practical immunity for killing innocent Palestinians.”
The Chicago Maroon, the independent campus newspaper, published a letter to the editor in April 2017 promoting the genocidal and Hamas-inspired and funded BDS movement against Israel. The letter repeated Hamas propaganda lies, asserting that Israel is “a system of rule fully comparable to South African Apartheid” and accused Israel of “steal[ing] Palestinian land, bomb[ing] Palestinian homes, kidnap[ping] Palestinian children, deny[ing] Palestinians access to resources, harass[ing] Palestinians at checkpoints, and imprison[ing] Palestinians without charge.”
On January 25, 2017, SJP at the University of Chicago hosted an event titled BDS 101: Trump and Palestinian Human Rights. The event promoted the Hamas-supported BDS movement against Israel.
In October 2016, University of Chicago spokesperson Mariell Sainvilus condemned posters placed on campus by the David Horowitz Freedom Center which exposed the links between SJP and Hamas as “defamatory and inconsistent with our values and policies.” The University did not similarly condemn the false Hamas libels against Israel placed on campus by SJP and its allies.
On June 02, 2016, U. Chicago-SJP shared a post on its Facebook page from the Boycott Tel Aviv Pride campaign urging people to boycott gay pride events in Tel Aviv because “any cultural event organized with money from the Israeli state should be boycotted... Gay tourism financial revenues do not only stimulate Israel’s economy, they are considered a direct investment in Israel’s war machine.” No other Middle Eastern state tolerates gays let alone features gay pride parades. The SJP leftists are willing to subordinate their support for gay rights to serve Hamas and its terror campaign to destroy the Jewish state.
During May 23-28, 2016, SJP held “Palestinian Nakba Week” on campus. The “Nakba” is an Arabic term meaning “catastrophe” which Hamas uses to refer to the day of Israel’s founding and to spread the lie that Israel was created on land belonging to the Arabs. Israel was created by the United Nations on land that had belonged to the Turks – who are not Arabs – for 400 years previously. Events during the week included a talk on “Disrupting Israeli Apartheid: Civil Disobedience in Palestine” and “Nakba 101: A discussion.”
On May 15, 2016, U. Chicago SJP posted a video purporting to show facts about the creation of Israel on its Facebook page, while drawing the conclusion that Israel has no right to exist. The video repeats the Hamas propaganda lie that Israel colonized Palestine, displacing its existing citizens. In truth, there was no nation of Palestine at the time of Israel’s creation, and the land on which Israel was created belonged to the Turks who are not Arabs for 400 years previously. The video claims that Israel “occupied the rest of historic Palestine during the Six Day War,” but fails to mention that Israel was the victim of a war of unprovoked aggression by five Arab dictatorships whose expressed goal was to “push the Jews into the sea.” It also fails to mention that for fifty years the Arabs have refused to sign a peace with Israel, recognizing its right to exist, which was Israel’s condition for withdrawal of its forces.
On May 12, 2016, U. Chicago SJP disrupted a celebration of Israeli Independence Day on campus by holding a protest of the “Palestinian Nakba,” a term meaning “catastrophe” that is used by Hamas to deplore the creation of Israel, and spread the lie that Israel was created on Arab land. SJP’s description of the event read: “SJP at the University of Chicago today marked the 68th anniversary of the beginning of the Palestinian Nakba by protesting Israeli Independence Day, which was organized by a Zionist student group with most of the free goodies passed out donated by Stand With Us and Birthright. Under the Israeli Independence tent, American students discussed their ‘Birthright’ to Israel while on the other side Palestinian students shared their families’ stories of being forced from their homes and turned into stateless refugees.” In point of fact, virtually all of the Arab refugees fled of their own free will, while nearly one million stayed. Moreover, the Palestinian refugees are stateless because no Arab state will grant them citizenship, while the terrorist regimes in the West Bank and Gaza refuse to re-settle them.
Protest signs displayed by SJP parroted Hamas war propaganda. One read “Come enjoy ‘Israeli’ food and settler colonialism,” and “Displacing lives since ’48, there’s nothing here to celebrate,” while another condemned Israel for “Ethnic cleansing” and “Cultural appropriation” – lies designed to delegitimize and destroy the Jewish state.
On April 12, 2016, the student government at the University of Chicago passed a resolution calling on the University to divest from companies which aid or profit from Israel’s “violation of human rights and international law in Palestine.” The motion passed by a vote of 8-4 with 3 abstentions and was supported by 20 leftwing student organizations on campus and organized by a coalition calling itself U of C Divest. During the debate over the measure, an amendment supporting the continued self-determination of the Jewish people and the existence of Israel was proposed and rejected.
On April 07, 2016, in preparation for a vote on a BDS resolution, the U of Chicago Divest Coalition published an open letter in The Chicago Maroon, a campus newspaper, labeling Israel an apartheid state and urging the university community to endorse the Hamas-inspired and funded BDS campaign to strangle the Jewish state. The letter – a tissue of lies – claimed: “Palestinians today face a comprehensive system of occupation, dispossession, and segregation—in short, apartheid. Their cities are bombed, resources stolen, children kidnapped, and movement restricted... Our resolution, while targeted, supports the full demands of the BDS call: an end to the occupation, equality for all people in Palestine/Israel, and the right of all Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.”
On March 28, 2016, the U of C Divest coalition held a large rally on campus featuring a 70 foot Palestinian flag with students displaying banners and chanting propaganda slogans to support the Hamas-inspired and funded BDS movement. The chants included: “Brick by brick, wall by wall, Israeli apartheid has to fall,” “Free free Palestine, viva viva Palestina,” and “Hey hey, ho ho, Israeli apartheid’s got to go.” Banners displayed on campus read: “End Apartheid,” “Free Palestine,” and “Divest Now.” Israel is not only the most tolerant society in the Middle East. It is the only tolerant society in the Middle East.
On February 18, 2016, angry protestors interrupted and threatened a Palestinian human rights activist, Bassam Eid, who came to speak on U. Chicago’s campus about the oppression of Palestinians by the theocratic terrorist regimes in the West Bank and Gaza. SJP activists were upset that Eid’s remarks were critical of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and failed to condemn Israel for its alleged “occupation” of Palestine. In the video of Eid’s speech a young man can be seen screaming in Arabic: “I’m going to destroy this place!” and “I’m going to kill this motherf*****!” and “Wait until you go to your car!” Eid later declared himself to be “terrified” by the ordeal.
On October 29, 2015, UC-SJP hosted BDS movement founder Omar Barghouti for a speech on “BDS and the Ethical Obligation to End Complicity in Oppression.” During his address, Barghouti labeled Israel “a regime of oppression” and a “savage unrepairable society” that conducts “ethnic cleansing.” Barghouti also praised terrorism against Israel’s Jews, stating that “resistance” is a legitimate response to “the violence of an oppressive system.” Several UC organizations and departments co-sponsored Barghouti’s address including the Global Voices Program – University of Chicago International House, the Pozen Center for Human Rights, the Department of Political Science, and the Department of International Studies.
On October 28, 2015, UC-SJP held a panel titled “Jerusalem in Crisis: Insider Perspectives on the Violence in Palestine-Israel” as part of the “UChicago Israeli Apartheid Week.” Speakers at the event were two graduate student members of SJP. One of the speakers praised anti-Israel terrorism, stating: “Palestinian violent resistance against the violent Israeli military is always justified; it is the equivalent of biting the hand that is trying to choke you to death.”
On October 14, 2015, U. Chicago SJP held a Palestinian Day of Action, in concurrence with an international Day of Action to promote the Hamas-inspired and funded BDS campaign against Israel. The event included plastering the campus with posters falsely accusing the Israeli military of murdering Palestinian children.
On February 27, 2015, Anti-Semitic comments threatening the genocide of the Jews were posted on the social media site Yik Yak in the University of Chicago area. Some of the comments attacked individual students, while others threatened the Jewish people as a whole. One comment read, “Gas them, burn them and dismantle their power structure. Humanity cannot progress with the parasitic Jew.” This is Nazism, and all too characteristic of SJP propaganda.
University of Houston:
The University of Houston is home to an increasing radical and Hamas-promoting chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, as is shown by the choice of that campus to host SJP’s 2017 National Conference, a restricted event that spreads hatred of the Jews and teaches Hamas propaganda techniques to SJP chapters who attend from across America. UH SJP and MSA co-hosted an event featuring Sheikh Omar Suleiman who has publicly supported a “3rd Intifada” and SJP has also hosted anti-Israel poet Remi Kanazi who promotes the Hamas-backed BDS movement against Israel. UH SJP also hosts annual “Israeli Apartheid” hate weeks featuring a mock Israeli “apartheid wall” plastered with Hamas propaganda including the genocidal slogan “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” and blood libel claiming that Israel targets Palestinian children for slaughter.
Supporting evidence:
In June 2017, U. Houston SJP announced that the 2017 SJP National Conference—a highly secretive event that spreads hatred of Israel and teaches Hamas propaganda tactics to SJP members from campuses across the nation—would be hosted on their campus in the Fall. SJP National is part of the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist network and receives funding from Hamas through an intermediary Hamas front group, American Muslims for Palestine.
During an “Israel Apartheid Week 2017" that was hosted on campus in March, Students for Justice in Palestine erected a mock “Israeli Apartheid Wall” plastered with Hamas propaganda denying the legitimacy of the Jewish state. One panel of the wall contained the slogan, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” a call for the total destruction of Israel—which lies between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. This is the same goal which Hamas endorses in its charter. Another panel of the wall contains an image of the series of Hamas propaganda maps purporting to show the Jewish colonization of Arab Palestine, a nation that has never existed. A third panel states, “If you want to find a safe place in Gaza, do not stand near a child,” implying that Israel deliberately targets Palestinian children with its weapons. In fact it is Hamas that places its rocket launchers in civilian areas and uses Palestinian children as human shields for its terrorist activities. A fourth panel accuses Israel of targeting mosques, schools, and slums in an effort to kill civilians and declares “It is not war, it is murder.” These declarations are Hamas propaganda lies. In fact, Hamas takes pains to use civilian dwellings and areas to launch rocket fire against Israel so that when Israel retaliates, they can point to the resulting civilian casualties as evidence of Israel’s inhumanity.
An event co-hosted by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and SJP during Israeli Apartheid Week 2017 featured UH African-American Studies Chair and Communist Party member Dr. Gerald Horne who spoke on “The Black Radical Tradition and Palestine.” Horne endorsed the genocidal and Hamas-promoted and funded Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, stating “Just as we enlist more black organizations into the BDS movement, boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement...it would...give a direct boost to BDS if we had the Palestinian forces and their allies internationally speak out more on police terrorism.” When a group of Zionist students attempted to speak during the question-and-answer session, and to students outside the lecture hall, pro-Palestinian students surrounded them and chanted slogans such as “free, free, Palestine, occupation is a crime!” until they were forced to leave and abandon the attempt at dialogue. An article about the event proudly declared that “Zionists were driven away.”
In March 2017, UH SJP released a statement purportedly opposing anti-Semitism which in fact demonstrated several forms of anti-Semitism including denying Jews self-determination and delegitimizing the Jewish state. The statement declared, “We are committed to building a world that values justice and equality, not oppression and apartheid. That commitment also requires us to reject the conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism: we oppose Zionism and Israel’s discriminatory policies, and we condemn anti-Semitism.”
During March 2017, UH SJP hosted “BDS 101,” an event dedicated to promoting the genocidal BDS movement against Israel.
In January 2017, UH SJP shared a video from Jewish Voice for Peace on its Facebook page on “What is Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” that purports to show a timeline of Israel’s occupation of Palestine which includes “ethnic cleansing” of 750,000 Palestinians and “conquest, destruction and expulsion which has continued to the present day.” It also accuses Israel of a “brutal military occupation” and a system of “racial discrimination” that amounts to “apartheid.”
In February 2016, UH SJP hosted the anti-Israel hatefest “Israeli Apartheid Week” on campus. Advertisements for the events endorsed the genocidal and Hamas-funded Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. The event also featured an event with BDS-supporting poet Remi Kanazi.
In March 2015, UH SJP co-hosted an event with BDS Houston featuring anti-Israel poet Remi Kanazi. During the event, Kanazi promoted the Hamas-funded BDS movement against Israel, stating “F—k Zionists, Boycott Israel,” and claimed that Israel is carrying out “ethnic cleansing” against the Palestinians.
In February 2015, UH SJP announced that they were launching a campaign to push for the passage of a BDS resolution against Israel on their campus. The BDS movement is supported financially and organizationally by Hamas.
UH SJP has shared several Facebook posts in support of convicted anti-Israel terrorist Rasmeah Odeh who was convicted by an Israeli military court in 1970 for her involvement in two fatal terrorist bombings.
In August 2014, UH SJP and MSA co-hosted an event featuring Sheikh Omar Suleiman who has publicly supported a “3rd Intifada” to destroy Israel and has spread Hamas propaganda lies and blood libels about the Jewish state.
The Canary Mission, an organization dedicated to identifying Jew hatred at colleges and universities, found that 13 individuals who are either attending or are recent graduates of the University of Houston posted dozens of times on social media expressing support and praise for Hitler, mocking the Holocaust, threatening violence against Jews, and expressing Jew hatred. Several of these individuals were members of SJP or MSA at the University of Houston, while others were loosely affiliated with these chapters.
These tweets and social media postings included:
“Yahoodis [Jews] are just so disgusting.”
“Sooner of later the Yahood [Jews] wont exist.”
“FalasteenibladnawilYahoodiklabna [Palestine is our country and the Jews are our dog].”
“Palestine will be the 2nd place of the Holocaust for the Yahood [Jews].”
“Hitler loved Arabs specifically Palestinians, he even said ‘we need to get the Jews out of Palestine they don’t belong there’”
“Yall don’t understand I wanna beat a zionist bitch up so bad.”
“A Jewish rabbi has admitted to using human child meat as a filler in McDonalds meat. They allegedly drug teens and kill them, for their meat.” Radwan then doubled down, adding: “THE TRUTH ABOUT MCDONALDS & MISSING CHILDREN.”
“Baba: Jews have a big nose because breathing air is free Lmfaoooo”
“F**K THE JEWS F**K EM ALL KILL ALL THE JEWS ATTA BOY HITLER.”
“Teacher: hitler tried to exterminate the Jewish people Me: I wish he did Kid next to me: wtf is wrong with you... .”
“I am gonna throw rocks at yahood [Jews] this summer and no one is stopping me.”
“Holy crap man ma bedi a2oolha bas Hitler lazem a5ad kel el yahood [Hitler should have killed them all] when he had the chance shuklab [that dog].”
"'@DictatorHitler: Versace Versace f**k bitches bake Jews that’s the life of a Nazi’”
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
UNC-Chapel Hill has supported the Hamas inspired and funded BDS movement on its campus in multiple ways, promoting apps that help consumers boycott Israeli products and inviting BDS proponents such as disgraced former University of Illinois Professor Stephen Salaita to campus. During his address, Salaita accused Zionists of making phony claims of anti-Semitism to hide Israel’s purported war crimes. UNC’s SJP chapter has also invited Laila Al-Arian, daughter of infamous University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian, to campus. Sami Al-Arian is the number two leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, responsible for over 99 murders in the Middle East, who pled guilty to charges of terrorism. At a campus event, his daughter promoted the idea that her father was forced into a guilty plea. UNC SJP has celebrated “Israeli Apartheid Week” and has held numerous events to promote Hamas propaganda on campus including a “Vigil for Palestine” which claims to commemorate victims of the “Israeli Occupation” and screenings of films that vilify Israel such as “Occupation 101.”
Supporting Evidence:
In March 2016, UNC SJP hosted Laila Al-Arian, daughter of Sami Al-Arian, a former professor at the University of Southern Florida who was indicted and pled guilty in 2006 of conspiring to aid the terrorist organization, Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The event also involved a screening of the film, “USA vs Al-Arian.” The film was promoted by SJP this way: “Is Al-Arian a threat to national security or is his First Amendment right to free speech at the heart of this case? At this time of heightened anti-Muslim rhetoric and sentiment, the film USA vs. Al-Arian is a sober reminder of the vulnerability of Arab Americans and Muslims living in the US and all of our civil rights.”
In March 2016, UNC SJP re-posted a link from anti-Israel activist Noura Erakat which celebrated the GS4’s decision to divest from Israel, thereby supporting the Hamas backed and funded BDS movement:
“G4S announces plans to drop its Israeli subsidiary to extract itself from ‘reputationally damaging work’ over the next 12-24 months. Translation: they’re about to divest from Israel. They’ll also divest from juvenile detention centers in the US and UK. What a tremendous success for a 4-year campaign. Mabruk to all the fierce ones who laid these tracks! #BDS #AnotherOne #Onward”
In December 2015, UNC SJP shared a video on social media about Israel’s security fence, which reduced Jewish deaths from terrorist attacks by more than 1,000 in its first year, labeled it an “Apartheid Wall” and falsely claimed that its key purpose is not security but rather to occupy more Palestinian land.
On November 18, 2015, UNC SJP hosted a screening of the anti-Israel film “Occupation 101" which falsely claims that Israel is occupying Palestinian land. According to the Amcha Initiative, “The film contains several anti-Semitic themes, including that Israel is guilty of ‘ethnic cleansing;' that Israel’s actions against the Palestinians are a form of colonialist aggression; and that Jews in America wield excessive power over American foreign policy.”
On October 29, 2015, UNC SJP held a “Vigil for Palestine” to commemorate the Palestinians killed as a result of the “Israeli Occupation,” making clear that SJP takes the Hamas perspective that Israel is the aggressor in the Middle East rather than the victim of constant terrorist threats from the Palestinians. The event description states: “Since October 1, 52 Palestinians have been killed and over a 1,000 have been injured as a result of the Israeli occupation. Please join us in commemorating the lives of the dozens of Palestinians who have died in this month alone. This is an opportunity for students and community members to mourn and to remember the victims of this violent military occupation. The recent spike in violence exposes the ugly reality of the occupation and the incredible harm it does to those who have to endure it.” Of course there are no Palestinian deaths as a result of “Israeli occupation.” They are casualties of a terror war that Arabs have waged against Israel since 1948.
In April 2015, the co-founder of “Muslims for Justice” at UNC wrote a letter published in the campus paper, the Daily Tar Heel, which protested the fact that David Horowitz had been invited by the College Republicans to speak on campus. The letter falsely labeled Horowitz as “a prominent member of the Islamophobia network as documented by the Center for American Progress.” The “Islamophobia network” is an invention of the Muslim Brotherhood to silence critics of Islamic terror. (SJP co-founder and Brotherhood agent Hatem Bazian is also the head of UC Berkeley’s “Islamophobia Studies Program.”) The letter did state correctly that Horowitz in his address “linked Muslim Students’ Association and Students for Justice in Palestine to terrorism” but did not address any of the multitude of evidence Horowitz provided to back up this assertion.
On March 10, 2015, UNC SJP promoted “Buycott” and BDS apps on its Facebook page. These apps make it easier for consumers to boycott Israeli products, and support the Hamas promoted and funded BDS movement against Israel.
On February 5, 2015, Steven Salaita, who was fired from the University of Illinois for his numerous bigoted statements about Jews and Israelis, gave a talk at UNC on “Academic Freedom and the Corporate University.” During his address, according to the Amcha Initiative, Salaita “demonized Israel, falsely accusing it of barbarity, brutality and depravity, and of perpetrating war crimes and mass slaughter, and he delegitimized Israel by falsely accusing it of settler colonialism.” Salaita also promoted the Hamas-supported and funded BDS movement against Israel and “falsely accused Zionists of making ‘phony claims of antisemitism’ to mask Israel’s war crimes and shut down all criticism of Israel.” Salaita’s speech was co-sponsored by UNC SJP and several UNC departments including Asian Studies, anthropology and sociology.
In February 2015, UNC SJP held a “Short film night: Recent docs and dramas from and about Palestine” as part of the celebration of “Israeli Apartheid Week,” an anti-Israel hate fest meant to demonize the Jewish state.
On January 29, 2015, SJP at UNC-CH staged a mass walkout of about 70 students from a pro-Israel event hosted by Christians United for Israel which featured speaker Dumisani Washington. SJP’s refusal to engage and ask questions at a pro-Israel event echoes Hamas’s policy of anti-normalization under which they will not negotiate or agree to civil relations with groups supporting the state of Israel.
University of Wisconsin-Madison
University of Wisconsin-Madison is home to a rapidly growing student initiative in support of the Hamas-backed Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. Members of this coalition have resorted to deceptive and exclusionary tactics to pass pro-BDS resolutions in student government, including holding an important vote during Passover when many Jewish student representatives could not attend. The campus chapter of SJP has hosted pro-BDS speakers such as anti-Israel poet Remi Kanazi on campus and has posted Hamas propaganda, including a video showcasing a series of maps claiming that the Jews took over and colonized Arab Palestine, on its social media accounts. Madison’s union of graduate student teaching assistants voted overwhelmingly to support a resolution calling for the University to divest from Israel.
Supporting Evidence:
A May 2017 student op-ed published in the campus paper, the Badger-Herald, expressed shock that anyone would object to the statement that Palestinians “continue to suffer under Israeli military occupation” which was included in a recently passed student government divestment resolution which also falsely claimed that “With support from the British, Zionists founded the state of Israel in 1948, violently displacing the Palestinian people native to the area and establishing an apartheid state that persists to this day.” Israel’s creation out of land that belonged to the Turks (who are not Arabs) for 400 years previously was the work of the United Nations. Ninety percent of the so-called Palestine Mandate, administered by the British was awarded to the Arabs even though the Balfour Declaration had promised it to the Jews. The Arabs rejected the offer of the West Bank, and started a 70 year war to destroy the new Jewish state which had been created on 10% of the land that had been forfeited by the Turks.
In April 2017, UW-Madison’s student government unanimously passed a divestment bill. The proposal was initially changed to remove all statements on Israel and was instead transformed into a bill about ethical investing more generally. But prior to the bill’s passage, and after opportunities for public comments were cut off, anti-Israel statements were added back into the bill, including the false and defamatory statement that Palestinians “continue to suffer under Israeli military occupation supported by a United States $38 billion dollar military aid package which is used to purchase equipment from these arms manufacturers.” One student representative, Ariela Rivkin, stated, “This is now the second time the Jewish community has been excluded. This is because [ASM] members ... knew full well that there would be amendments and [the student body] did not know that — and that is undemocratic.” Also during this meeting, when a Jewish representative spoke out in support of Israel, the chair of the Student Council shouted, "(expletive) white supremacy.” In an unusual move, the UW-M administration released a statement objecting to the vote, stating that “We are concerned that the actions taken tonight appear to violate a ruling of the Student Judiciary; Jewish members of student government, who raised this issue with the Student Judiciary, walked out of the meeting after expressing concerns that the process was undemocratic and not transparent.”
In March 2017, UW-Madison SJP hosted anti-Israel poet and BDS supporter Remi Kanazi on campus. Kanazi urged students to “vote yes” on a divestment resolution that had been introduced in student government and then postponed.
In March 2017, the student government at UW-Madison held an “open forum” on a divestment resolutionthat singled out Israel and companies with ties to Israel for abuse. The resolution accused Israel of having “an apartheid legal system.” In a close vote, the resolution was indefinitely postponed.
At the Spring 2017 student organization fair in February, UW-Madison SJP showcased a posterboard display that featured a series of Hamas propaganda maps which falsely claim that the Jews invaded and colonized a (non-existent) Arab “Palestine.”
In May 2016, UW-Madison’s Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA/AFT Local 3220) which represents over 9,000 graduate student employees and students, voted to adopt a resolution to divest from Israel and further endorsed a call for the University of Wisconsin System and its parent union, the AFLCIO, to divest from Israel. A Facebook post from the group celebrated the fact that “81% of voting members” supported the resolution.
UW-Madison SJP shared a video from the Institute for Middle East Understanding on its Facebook page in May 2016 which purports to show “Shrinking Palestine, Expanding Israel: For nearly 7 decades, Israel has been appropriating Palestinian land and expelling Palestinians"— A brazen lie. The video repeats Hamas propaganda lies that Israel invaded and colonized Arab Palestine.
In May 2016, political activist Jeff Halper spoke on campus at an event co-sponsored by SJP. During his address, he falsely claimed that “For the sake of peace, [the Palestinians accepted] less than a quarter of the land,” and “Instead of getting credit for that, they have been demonized as terrorists and intractable hinderers of peace.” He also demonized Israel as an apartheid state.
In April 2016, UW-Madison SJP hosted a pro-BDS program titled “The Right To Education” which featured two students from Birzeit University in Palestine. Birzeit is a well-known Hamas recruitment site and has hosted pro-Hamas rallies.
