The president of the anti-Israel student club at Canada’s McMaster University has a years-long history of tweeting her support for terror groups, including sharing a screenshot last month of a Hamas parliamentarian’s sermon in which he called Jews “the vilest and most despicable nation in history.”
Under the handle @linapalestina, a person identifying herself as president of McMaster’s chapter of Students for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) posted on May 23 a screenshot of a videoed sermon from last year by Hamas MP Marwan Abu Ras — translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute TV Monitor Project — in which Ras said: “Palestine is occupied by the most despicable nation on the face of the Earth.” He went on to say Jews “have betrayed everybody they have known.”
In her tweet, @linapalestina shared a photo of one frame of Ras’s speech, which she posted as her response in an apparently theoretical exchange (see the post below).
person: hey
me: pic.twitter.com/fgksl3qYMh
In her Twitter biography, @linapalestina also wrote she is a Marxist-Leninist and a research assistant at the McMaster School of Labour Studies, a program focused on “social justice” issues.
During Israel’s 2014 war with Hamas in Gaza, @linapalestina tweeted, “It’s so pathetic how Israel needs to exaggerate propaganda to make it seem as if they’re living under terror.”
She later laughed at the capturing of Israeli soldier Hadar Goldin during the war, writing: “‘@Israel: From Jerusalem,we pray for the safe return of Hadar Golding, who was kidnapped today by terrorists in #Gaza.’ LOL you fucked up.” Goldin’s body continues to be held captive by Hamas.
Her Twitter feed is filled with posts hailing terror organizations like Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
She currently uses a poster of late PFLP founder George Habash as her profile picture.
Habash was described by Time magazine as the “godfather of Middle East terrorism.” His organization was behind a series of deadly attacks and hijackings in the 1960s and 1970s.
Most recently, the PFLP claimed responsibility of a 2014 attack on a Jerusalem synagogue, in which four Jewish worshipers and a Druze Israeli policeman were murdered.
The Algemeiner has emailed McMaster’s SPHR asking if @linapalestina’s views are in line with the group’s stated mission, “[t]o uphold the rights of the Palestinian people in the face of human rights violations and all forms of racism, discrimination, misinformation and misrepresentation.”
SPHR has not responded.
Aidan Fishman, campus advocacy director for B’nai Brith Canada, told The Algemeiner that the Jewish rights group was familiar with @linapalestina’s activity and had reached out earlier this week to both the McMaster administration and the McMaster Students Union (MSU), the body in charge of student clubs. B’nai Brith has yet to hear back.
Fishman encouraged university administrators and the public to educate themselves about the PFLP, and to treat expressions of support for this group as seriously as they would celebrations of ISIS.
“Replace ‘PFLP’ with Hamas or al Qaeda, and no one would allow them on campus,” said Fishman, who explained that he thinks PFLP supporters are generally seen as “more sympathetic, because they are…of the far-left, involved in social justice and bridge building.”
A McMaster representative said the university was “aware of the tweets,” and looking into the situation.
The MSU did not respond to The Algemeiner‘s requests for comment by press time.
Earlier this year, the Students for Justice in Palestine at Philadelphia’s Temple University paid to tribute to the PFLP’s Habash on the anniversary of his death.
Convicted PFLP terrorists have given speeches at universities across North America, including Leila Khaled via a video-feed at the University of British Columbia in 2013. Rasmea Odeh, who played a role in the 1970 bombing of a Jerusalem supermarket in which two Hebrew University students were murdered, has done the US campus circuit in recent years, including an appearance just last month at Northwestern.