Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:
The ZOA strongly condemns Barnard College for hosting on campus an extreme, defamatory, anti-Israel event tonight, organized by a cabal of virulent Jew-hating, Israel-hating, BDS and even terror-related groups, including: PFLP-linked Addameer; so-called “Jewish Voice for Peace” (which recently honored convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh); and convicted terrorist/bomber Laura Whitehorn’s RAPP.
Addameer is reportedly really a front group for terrorist organization the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). See Dan Diker report. NGO Monitor has documented that numerous Addameer leaders, including its chair and other officials, double as PFLP officials, are linked to the PFLP, and have been arrested and incarcerated for PFLP terrorism-related activities. Addameer board member Yousef Habash is apparently the nephew of PFLP founder George Habbash. The U.S. State Department has consistently designated the PFLP as a foreign terrorist organization since such designations commenced in 1997. The PFLP is also designated as a terrorist organization in the EU, Canada, and Israel.
PFLP terrorists committed numerous infamous bloody attacks, including: PFLP-member Rasmea Odeh’s bombing that killed two Hebrew University students in 1969; multiple airplane hijackings in the 1970s including the hijacking of the Air France plane to Entebbe, Uganda in 1976; invading and taking babies and toddlers hostage at Kibbutz Misgav Am in northern Israel in 1980, during which the terrorists murdered a 2-year-old toddler and injured 4 other children; deadly suicide bombings during the Second Intifada (2000-2005); assassinating Israeli Tourism Minister Rahavam Zeevi in 2001; brutally stabbing to death 5 members of the Fogel family (Rabbi Ehud (Udi) Fogel, his wife Ruth, 11-year-old Yoav, four-year-old Elad and three-month-old Hadas) in the Fogel’s home in 2011; massacring with meat cleavers four Jews praying in a Jerusalem synagogue in 2014; and plotting to assassinate Israeli PM Netanyahu and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat in June 2018.
Addameer leads campaigns to demonize Israel, and to portray convicted, brutal Palestinian-Arab murderers of innocent Jews as mere “political prisoners.” The Addameer-JVP-RAPP event at Barnard tonight, entitled, “Fighting Incarceration from the U.S. to Palestine,” promises to be another such sickeningly distorted occasion. (See, e.g., “Barnard College to Host Prisoners’ Group Accused of Ties With Palestinian Terrorists,” by Shiri Moshe, Algemeiner, Aug. 1, 2018.)
A ZOA representative previously observed an Addameer event at the United Nations. We thought we had seen everything already – but ZOA’s representative was absolutely appalled at the Jew-hatred, anti-Israel lies, and purported justifications of terror attacks on innocent Jews, spewed by Addameer’s representatives.
Addameer’s defamatory events – which are a threat to the well-being and safety of Jewish and pro-Israel students – should surely not take place on U.S. college campuses.
Any other group that defamed or was linked to the murderers of other vulnerable groups (blacks, LGBT) would never be allowed on college campuses. Why does being linked to the murderers of Jews, and defaming Jews and Israel get a free pass?
ZOA’s Center for Law and Justice, headed by Susan Tuchman, does tremendous work dealing with university officials and filing civil rights claims on behalf of Jewish students, on campuses throughout the country, where the pro-Israel community is attacked, endangered, or subjected to a hostile environment.
Unfortunately, in this instance, ZOA learned of this event too late to take appropriate preemptive action.
ZOA thus wishes to remind all our friends and members “if you see something, say something.” Please let us know immediately if similar hate-fests will be occurring on your campus or elsewhere.