New UK student president, who tweeted Islamist battle cry celebrating mass slaughter of Jews, says racism and Islamophobia are the real reasons for backlash against her election.
By Adina Katz, World Israel News Staff
The newly elected president of Britain’s largest student union has publicly supported the Gaza-based Hamas terror group and said she approved of violent Palestinian “resistance” against Israel on social media, leading hundreds of Jewish students to sign an open letter expressing their concerns.
Shaima Dallali, who is set to become the head of the UK’s National Union of Students, is an outspoken supporter of Palestinian violence, The Jewish Chronicle (JC) reported after reviewing her Twitter history.
A number of Dallali’s posts, written in Arabic, were translated by the CAMERA watchdog group for the JC.
During the Israel-Gaza clash in May 2021, Dallali wrote — just days after rockets from Gaza killed three Israeli civilians — that “Hamas did not start the aggression.”
“Palestinians have a right to resist by all means possible — even with weapons — this right is acknowledged in international law,” she wrote.
It’s unclear what “right” Dallali was referring to, as intentionally firing rockets at civilian areas, as Hamas did, is generally considered a war crime under international law..
Continuing her endorsement of armed action against the Jewish state, Dallali wrote, “Does [violence] serve the Palestinian Cause? An important question. To my point of view the answer is according to your opinion regarding the solution of the cause — but armed resistance is a right and we should accept this.”
Also in May 2021, Dallali tweeted the pro-Palestinian phrase “from the river to the sea,” which calls for the destruction of the entire State of Israel.
“Good morning to everyone except Zionists, settler colonialist and apartheid sympathisers. Free Palestine,” read another May 2021 tweet by Dallali.
In 2018, Dallali harassed Jewish students who attended a talk by a former Israeli lawmaker at King’s College London. In a video from the incident reposted by the Tab, she is seen yelling “shame” at people arriving at the lecture.
In the past, Dallali has tweeted the Islamist battle cry “Khybar, Khybar, ya Yahud,” for which she apologized — apparently under pressure. The phrase celebrates a mass slaughter of Jews in ancient Saudi Arabia at the hands of Muslims because they refused to convert to Islam, and it is often used by Islamist terror groups.
Speaking to liberal newspaper the Guardian last week, Dallali denied that she was antisemitic and claimed she is a victim of Islamophobia and racism.
She said that the real reason for outrage over her election stemmed from discrimination, not from her behavior or statements.
“Unfortunately, as a black Muslim woman, [the backlash] is something that I expected because I’ve seen it happen to other black Muslim women when they take up positions in the student union or the NUS, where they are attacked based on their political beliefs or their pro-Palestinian stance,” she said.