Anti-Israel Group Increases Outreach to High School Students

American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), a Chicago-based anti-Israel organization, is planning to host a joint conference on “Palestine activism” with the High School Muslim Student Association of Southern California (HSMSA), an inter-high school network of Muslim student organizations.

The conference is scheduled to take place on June 24 at the University of California, Irvine, a center for virulently anti-Israel campus activity in recent years. It is part of AMP’s 7th annual campaign to commemorate the “Nakba,” an Arabic term that means “catastrophe” and is used by Palestinians and their supporters to describe Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

AMP organizers say the conference is designed to help “train high school, college, and non-student activists on issues pertinent to Palestine activism.” The list of speakers invited to “educate” students on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict include several anti-Israel activists known for their use of rhetoric to delegitimize Israel.

Speakers include Ali Abunimah, co-founder of the anti-Israel Electronic Intifada blog; Taher Herzallah, AMP’s National Campus Coordinator and one of the 11 students arrested for shouting down Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren during a 2010 speech at UC Irvine; and Osama Abu Irshaid, an AMP board member who has previously expressed support for Hezbollah and conspiratorially alleged that the U.S. government makes decisions based on the “influential Jewish community.”

AMP targeted high school students earlier this year when it held its first high school training session in Villa Park, Illinois. The workshop was similarly organized to the upcoming conference at UC Irvine and included workshops on subjects such as the Islamic significance of Palestine, activism, and how to utilize the media.

This year’s AMP Nakba campaign consists primarily of educational and training sessions designed to “raise awareness about the occupation” and to “help bring justice and liberty to the Holy Land.” These events will be held throughout the month of June across the Southern California region, which include the cities of Hawthorne, Corona-Narco, Anaheim, Temecula, and Lomita.

AMP has increasingly made an effort to engage in facilitating student activism on college campuses and high schools nationwide. The importance of encouraging AMP’s presence among students was the central theme of the organization’s 2011 national conference, where a number of sessions were dedicated to how students can discuss the issue of Palestine in schools and on campuses. AMP’s concerted effort to engage with students has led to increased collaboration with on campus anti-Israel groups, such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

FAU Students Latest Target of Anti-Israel Mock Eviction Tactic

The mock eviction notices taped on more than 200 dorm room doors at Florida Atlantic University last week are part of an ongoing campaign by an anti-Israel campus group to raise awareness to its cause through shock tactics.

Student leaders of FAU’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter said that the fliers are designed to show how Palestinians experience eviction from their homes by the Israeli government. The students also indicated that they had received prior approval from the Housing and Residential Life Department at the university.

SJP is a student organization with more than 75 chapters at American universities. As the primary organizer of anti-Israel activity on campus, SJP has consistently demonized Israel, describing its policies toward the Palestinians as racist and apartheid-like, and compared Israelis to Nazis.

This is not the first time SJP members have used mock eviction notices on campus. In April 2011, similar mock eviction notices were distributed in student dormitories at Yale University to criticize the “actions of the Israeli state” and to promote the group’s upcoming events. The group said in a press release that it aimed to startle Yale students and give them a sense of what evicted Palestinians must feel.

A month later, students from the University of Chicago’s SJP similarly distributed the eviction notices throughout three residence halls as part of SJP’s annual “Nakba” Commemoration Week.

During the 2011 American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) National Conference, a virulently anti-Israel organization that aids and assists SJP activities nation-wide, University of Chicago SJP president Sami Kishawi took credit for his SJP chapter’s method of activism. He also claimed that the mock eviction tactic has proven to be as effective as SJP’s use of mock-checkpoints, which Kishawi explains also helps expose daily Palestinian humiliation to a large number of students.

As was the case at the University of Chicago and at Yale, the eviction fliers at FAU were seen by some students as disrespectful and intimidating.

“Occupy AIPAC” Conference Seeks to Lambast Pro-Israel Lobby and Cast Antiwar Agenda as the “99%”

An anti-Israel conference to counter this weekend’s annual AIPAC Policy Conference will begin today and includes a variety of events, rallies and public demonstrations through March 6.

This year’s protest event, titled “Occupy AIPAC,” seeks to capitalize on the success of the Occupy Movement and foster common cause between the popular social protests and anti-Israel efforts. The event’s Twitter feed tries to paint Israel and its supporters in the U.S. as part of the proverbial “1%” and  the left-wing antiwar movement as the 99%, a repurposing of the Occupy Movement’s rhetoric. In addition, one of the conference sessions links the Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street Movement with anti-Israel efforts.

The conference session that is likely to feature the most egregious rhetoric is titled “AIPAC: What it is, who its allies are, why it’s dangerous and how to stop it.” It will feature, among others, Hatem Bazian, the leader of the extreme anti-Israel organization American Muslims for Palestine; Jeffrey Blankfort, an anti-Israel journalist who claims that the “Israel lobby” controls U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East; and Alison Weir, the director of the Council for the National Interest. Weir’s writings and comments have at times crossed the line into anti-Semitism, including accusing Israelis of harvesting Palestinians’ organs. According to descriptions provided on the conference Web site, the session will include a segment on how AIPAC “promotes Muslim otherness.”

Conference attendees will have the opportunity to participate in several rallies and demonstrations against AIPAC events, including protests outside the White House during President Obama’s and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speeches.

Occupy AIPAC’s Twitter feed accuses AIPAC of excessive control over U.S. policy, including posts reading “We want our country back” and “End big money lobbyist control of MidEast Policy.”

The conference has already attracted at least one anti-Semitic attendee, Charles Carlson. Carlson is the co-founder and director of “We Hold These Truths,” an Arizona-based Christian anti-Semitic group that regularly protests outside Christian Zionist churches. In a message to his members inviting people to join him at “Occupy AIPAC,” Carlson wrote:

"Every political candidate for president is bowing and scraping to the state of Israel...they are not appealing for Israeli votes,  but for the tens of millions of American Christian Zionist votes…Thousands of mistaken and opportunistic Pastors also fear the truth because they have mislead their congregations.  Knowledge of Christian Zionism can drive a stake through it, to be someday buried in the graveyard of apostate, religious acts of war."

American Muslims for Palestine Takes Aim at High Schools

The virulently anti-Israel organization, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), held its first high school educational training session of 2012 at the Islamic Foundation School in Villa Park, Illinois.

The training session was attended by some 200 students from grades 10 to 12 and consisted of a half-day workshop on a variety of topics, including the Islamic significance of Palestine, according to AMP’s Web site. One session was led by AMP Director of Media and Communications Kristin Szremski on steps students can take to utilize the media in their activism. Szremski was a featured speaker at the University of Pennsylvania BDS conference earlier this month.

AMP promotes its extreme anti-Israel views through various public events designed for students and non-students alike. For example, during its session at the December 2009 MAS-ICNA convention, speakers called on “all Muslims to liberate all of Palestine from the North to the South from Al Quds to the sea” and described Jews as “the worst kind of people.” 

AMP has announced that it will embark on similar events for high schools in Chicago and Milwaukee. Facilitating student activism was the central theme of AMP’s 2011 national conference, where a number of sessions were dedicated to ways students can discuss the issue of Palestine in schools.

AMP has also made a concerted effort to engage in advocacy on college campuses and facilitate increased collaboration among anti-Israel students, in particular the activity of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a student organization that’s a primary organizer of anti-Israel events on campus.

Three Days to the Penn BDS Conference

In advance of this weekend’s BDS conference at the University of Pennsylvania, we are highlighting five of the most anti-Israel individuals scheduled to speak at the conference.

Today we profile Kristin Szremski, the media director of American Muslims for Palestine, an extreme anti-Israel group based in Chicago that spends significant resources on organizing and coordinating anti-Israel activity on college campuses.

Szremski will speak on the topic of “Talking to Beginners about BDS, Israel and Zionism.”

During a presentation in Washington DC in September 2011 with a fellow activist from the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Szremski spoke about “legal and popular approaches to challenging Zionist organizations” and advocated against interfaith dialogue with Jewish groups because it leads to “creeping normalcy” with Jews who may be Zionists.

On her Twitter page, Szremski has described Illinois Senator Mark Kirk as an “Israel-firster,” alleging that he has more loyalty to Israel than the United States.

She has also stated that Israel controls the American media, a typical anti-Israel conspiracy theory. Speaking at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign several years ago about the Gaza War, Szremski cryptically alleged: “The media that is supposed to be in the position of power is [subjecting] itself to censorship…It’s impossible to get fair coverage from one source who controls all that power.”  

Number 5: J Kehaulani Kauanui

Number 4: Helena Cobban