Nerdeen Mohsen Kiswani

Occupation: Student

University: CUNY
Organization(s): SJP, BDS
Close Connection(s):

Overview

Nerdeen Mohsen Kiswani is a student at Hunter College, City of New York University (CUNY) pursuing a Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies.

In July 2015, she claimed in a Facebook post that she had been banned from all borders that lead to Israel until the Israeli embassy in the U.S deems otherwise.

Alleged Assault

In October 2014, Kiswani alleged she was assaulted by Jewish basketball fans at an exhibition game between the host Nets and Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv. The event was attended by a number of pro-Palestinian protesters due to a reception held before the game to raise funds for the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces.

Kiswani's claim was that Leonard Petlakh, a Jewish history teacher at CUNY and director of Kings Bay Y, was part of a group that punched her in the stomach and stole her Palestinian flag.

Petlakh’s attorney denied that Kiswani was punched by his client or by anybody else. “There is a very clear videotape,” he said. “If you know what Leonard looks like, you can see that this alleged victim was not touched by Leonard or anybody.”

The video taken of the incident shows a flag being taken from Kiswani by a single individual, but does not show she was struck or attacked by a group.

“What the h--- is wrong with you?” Kiswani shouts. “Did you just f-----g assault me?”

“I didn’t touch you,” the man replies.

“Don’t f-----g touch me, give me my s--t back,” Kiswani yells back. ...He punched me in the stomach!”

Kiswani’s attorney, Lamis Deek, claimed the punch was inflicted by the "gang of thugs" but that it cannot be seen on the video.

The parties to the altercation were escorted out the area where Petlakh was himself assaulted. His nose was broken and he required eight stitches below his badly bruised eye. The attack was by one of the protesters at the game, Shawn Schraeder, who can be seen in the video. Schraeder was apprehended by the police and charged with assault and harassment according to the District Attorney’s Office.

Petlakh related that the protesters were shouting “Free Palestine” and “Your people are murderers,” as he left the game before being attacked in front of his children. "For my kids it was a traumatizing experience," he later commented. "Who wants to see your father with your shirt bloodied..It was quite an introduction to Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

SJP

Kiswani is President of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) Hunter College at CUNY and President of SJP College of Staten Island (CSI).

SJP was co-founded by Hatem Bazian and Snehal Shingavi in 2001 at UC Berkeley. Their intention was to advance the radical anti-Israel mission of the Muslim Students Association (MSA), but now masked as a secular organization.

SJP runs targeted and well-orchestrated campaigns against Israel including Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS)resolutions, Israel-Apartheid initiatives, drives comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, mock check-points, "die-ins" as well as rallies and protests.

SJP chapters regularly host speakers who engage in language considered anti-Semitic by the U.S. State Department. Chapter events routinely include individuals and organizations who are linked to terrorist activity and call for violence against Jews.

SJP members frequently intimidate and harass pro-Israel supporters. Members have been responsible for physically assaulting Jewish students, vandalizing communal propertyand violently disrupting pro Israel speakers and events. Protests organized by SJP chapters regularly include hate-speech and chants such as "From the River to the Sea Palestine will be Free" - calling for the destruction of the Jewish State.

SJP demonizes and defames critics, branding attacks against them as “Islamophobic” - a term popularized by co-founder Hatem Bazian.

SJP, along with the MSA, is rapidly creating a hostile andunsafe environment on US campuses for all who do not share their radical anti-Israel views. For this reason, they have been labeled by some as “Hamas on Campus.”

BDS

Kiswani is the founder and editor of the I Stand with Palestine web magazine that rallies for the "Right of Return," otherwise known as the "One State Solution," that would see the dissolution of Israel as a Jewish State. To this end, she promotes divestment, a tenet of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Her list of Israel-linked companies to boycott includes Sodastream and Ben & Jerry's and she advises to "make flyers or stickers alerting other customers about these companies’ unethical practices and distribute them (put stickers saying 'Don’t Buy Israeli Apartheid' directly on the product, but don’t get caught)."

In June 2014, Kiswani chaired a workshop panel discussion entitled "Critical Perspectives on Palestine: Revitalizing a One State Solution."

The BDS movement was founded in 2005 by Omar Barghouti. The movement is self-described as "a campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights.”

Campaigns include compelling institutions and individuals todivest from Israeli-affiliated companies, academic boycotts as well as physical rallies and protests.

The groups most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for "BDS resolutions. In these cases, backed by university anti-Israel affiliates, the university student government has been brought to vote on some sort of boycott of and divestment from Israel and Israeli-affiliated organizations. These resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.

BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It is documented that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitism on campus. In 2013, the student government of the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) debated a BDS resolution. Reports emerged of threats of violence, the spitting on a female student senator, and theft of the personal property of anti-BDS activists. As a result, the student government chose to vote via a "secret ballot" in order to ensure their own safety.

Barghouti and the BDS movement are proponents of the radical "one-state solution" that has been denounced as a scheme to dissolve Israel as the Jewish State. Barghouti has been quoted as saying, "Good riddance! The two-state solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is finally dead”, and that in a one-state “by definition, Jews will be a minority.”

The organization is affiliated with numerous anti-Israel groups worldwide, including ones that have been labeled terrorist organizations. The Jerusalem Post claims the BDS movement receives directives from Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and the movement is considered extreme even by Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas who stated his opposition to a BDS boycott of Israel in 2013.

Social Media and Web Links

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NerdeenMohsen

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nerdeenkiswani

> Videos

Anti-Israel provocation at Barclays Center

> Infamous Quotes

“BDS is a genocidal movement” - Anti-BDS proponent. Meanwhile Israel is committing actual genocide against Palestinians.”

— Nerdeen Kiswani, Twitter, Feb 25 2014

“One day the world will be “ashamed” that they stood by and watched what happened to Palestine and Gaza. The ethnic cleansing, massacre, genocide, apartheid, siege, blockade, occupation, everything needed to further Israel as a settler colonial state.”

— Nerdeen Kiswani, Facebook, Jul 20, 2014

“I blame all of you for gaza. I blame the students who didn’t care to ask their universities to divest from companies that make this occupation and expansion of settlements possible. The citizens of states who didn’t ask their government to stop sending military aid to Israel that ends up in the form of bullets in the chests of Palestinian children. Those who do not care enough to tell their government to sanction. Those who never told their favorite artists that playing Israel is like playing apartheid South Africa.”

— Nerdeen Kiswani, Facebook, Jul 20 2014