One of America’s elite universities became the focus of attention today as photos emerged showing students apparently engaging in support for international terrorism during the past year. The two students, identified as Fadi AbuNe’meh and Taka Yamaguchi, were apparently leading activists with the campus chapter of J Street U, an organization that describes itself, inter alia, as “pro-Peace.”
An especially vibrant part of the group’s peace activism, apparently, includes wearing T-Shirts that say “Resistance is Not Terrorism,” and sport a picture of Leila Khaled, a notorious PFLP terrorist who hijacked airplanes in 1969 and 1970, caressing an AK-47.
The allegations broke this morning when photos were discovered of the two students wearing the shirts at an event sponsored by J Street U last April. In coverage of the event, AbuNe’meh is quoted as a representative of the group. In AbuNe’meh’s Facebook postings, shown below, when asked where they acquired the shirts, he pointed to a vicious anti-Israel website called existenceisresitance.org. That website also offers shirts with a map of the entirety of Israel drawn in with a keffiyeh pattern and the caption “Un-Occupy,” calling for the elimination of Israel as a whole. The site describes the shirts explicitly as showing a picture of Leila Khaled. (See photos below.)
AbuNe’meh and Yamaguchi wearing pro-terror shirts at a J Street U event last April.
It is worth noting that another student, Elisabeth Housman, who is listed here as “liking” the pro-terror photo, is also listed on the local campus Hillel website as the official contact person for J Street U on campus.
The second student in the photo, Yamaguchi, was described as the moderator of the event. He has gone on record advocating for the “full right of return” of Palestinians to pre-1967 Israel. “In some ways,” he has written, “the essence of being Palestinian today is the right of return itself: what we lost, and what we fight to regain.”
Neither student was apparently available to respond to the accusations, as both seem to be off campus this year. As of this writing, both list “Ramallah,” in the Palestinian Authority, as their current city of residence on what appear to be their Facebook pages.
Washington University’s J Street U branch came under fire recently this week for sponsoring an event for the discredited anti-IDF group “Breaking the Silence.”
There has been increasing coverage of late of anti-Israel activism on America’s campuses, especially in support of the boycott (BDS) movement that Canadian Prime Minister recently called “a mutation of the old disease of anti-Semitism.” The ease with which boycott support slides into terror support is apparently going to deepen these concerns.
Washington University at St. Louis is ranked 14th among American universities by U.S. News & World Report.
[All photos courtesy TruthRevolt.org]
Shirts advertised explicitly condoning terrorism that match those worn by J Street U activists.