Congressional testimony ties anti-Israel groups in America to Islamist terrorism and racism

By Max Samarov and Philippe Assouline

“Israelis have to be bombed… it is wrong to maintain the State of Israel. It is an illegitimate creation” — Taher Herzallah, American Muslims for Palestine National Campus Coordinator

On April 19th Jonathan Schanzer, a former US Treasury Department official, testified in Congress regarding the activities of the anti-Israel boycott movement (BDS) in the United States. In his remarks, he revealed shocking details about how a number of former leaders of organizations with close ties to terrorism, “have pivoted to leadership positions within the American BDS campaign.” In particular, he established clear links between the terrorist organization Hamas and leaders of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) — a politico-religious lobby group which boasts of being “the driving force behind activism for Palestine” in the US. But Schanzer’s testimony revealed only the tip of the iceberg. At the core of this story is not only the shadowy network of religious supremacists behind AMP, but a manipulative campaign to incite hatred among the future leaders of American society.

One of the most prominent faces of BDS in America is Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) — a self-titled “grassroots, human rights organization” with branches at dozens of US campuses. But while it claims to be “resisting racism,” SJP’s 2014 national conference featured a keynote speaker infamous for defending public calls to “shoot the Jew!” This discrepancy between SJP’s stated principles and its conduct is no exception: funded and closely guided by AMP and other political interest groups, SJP systematically exploits the language of social justice to promote a bigoted agenda.

In private SJP denies Israel’s right to exist, while in public they claim to support justice and peace. SJP’s ties to AMP run deep, and SJP itself has admitted that, “NGO employees are in powerful positions,” within their movement. AMP chairman and Berkeley professor Hatem Bazian co-founded SJP in 2000 and is credited with “help[ing] to construct [the] successful narrative SJP has produced over the years” (in fact, AMP supplies the infamous “wall” that SJP displays on campuses). AMP organized the first SJP national conference in 2010, and has funded the group’s national conferences ever since. AMP’s own conferences include a “Campus Track” with sessions on “How To Start an SJP”....

Perhaps unsurprisingly, SJP and AMP both routinely exploit liberal language to push an illiberal agenda. AMP invokes “American values” in press releases while at the same time hosting Mads Gilbert, who defended Al Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks, as a keynote speaker. Despite its embrace of sexists and homophobes, AMP had no qualms sponsoring an SJP event at UCLA titled “Feminism and Queer Activism for Justice in Palestine.” SJP claims to support nonviolence, but invited Islamic Jihad spokesperson Khader Adnan — previously caught on film inciting suicide bombings — to address its 2012 national conference. While SJP tries to co-opt Armenian student groups, its sponsor AMP recently signed a statement denying the Armenian Genocide. On the one hand, SJP devotes much of its activism to generating “solidarity” with black Americans. On the other hand it ignores reports that Hamas profits from the human trafficking of black people in the Sinai Desert. Far from condemning Hamas, numerous SJP leaders have publicly supported the racist terrorist group....

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