Israel’s Channel 20 news anchor Lital Shemesh puts conservative pundit Ben Shapiro in his place after he refers to BDS activist Lara Alqasem as merely a student who wanted to study in Israel. Shemesh points out that Israel has every right to bar people like Alqasem.

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BDS activist Lara Alqasem apparently came by her hatred for the Jewish State honestly. Her father was a “raging anti-Semite,” a David Duke supporter and an anti-Israel zealot, the Canary Mission revealed.

By Adina Katz

The father of Lara Alqasem, the 2016-2017 president of the virulently anti-Israel Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Florida and an activist for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, is a “raging anti-Semite,” the Canary Mission revealed.

Lara became famous in Israel as the University of Florida student who was detained for 15 days at Ben-Gurion Airport because of her BDS activism. The Supreme Court ruled that she can remain in Israel, where she had registered to study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Rafiq Alqasem, her father, is also a BDS and SJP supporter. Furthermore, he has promoted David Duke and white nationalist propaganda, praised anti-Semite Brother Nathanael, spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Jewish power and equated Israel with Nazi Germany, according to the Canary Mission.

Alqasem has also justified terrorism against Israelis, glorified terrorists and demonized Israel.

On March 16, 2016, Alqasem shared a link on Facebook from the pro-Hitler site tomatobubble.com, titled: “THE ZIO STEAMROLLER: 30 WHO GOT CRUSHED!” The term “Zio” is a derogatory reference to Zionists and an anti-Semitic slur.

The tomatobubble.com article “listed senators, journalists, actors and academics who were purportedly ‘crushed’ for praising Hitler or being ‘critical of the … Jewish Lobby’ or denying the Holocaust,” the Canary Mission noted. It also defended virulent anti-Semites such as Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, Holocaust denier David Irving and neo-Nazi publisher, Ernst Zundel.

Rafiq Alqasem’s demonization of Israel is extreme. The Canary Mission provided many examples, one of which was a Facebook post he shared on March 10, 2016, showing an image of a young woman with blackened hands covering her mouth and forehead. On the hands were multiple Stars of David and a hook-nosed soldier with razor-sharp teeth. The image was captioned: “Israel wants your silence.”

On March 13, 2016, Alqasem shared a Facebook page honoring George Habash, founder of the terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and known as the “godfather of Middle East terrorism.” The page includes a photo of a beaming Habash with Yasser Arafat, the “father of modern terrorism.”

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People come to Israel to supplement their leftism – which is what Lara Alqasem will do.

By Akiva Bigman, JNS.org

I went over the ruling from Judge Neal Hendel in the case of BDS activist Lara Alqasem, and I think I understand his thinking. Not only is Alqasem neglecting BDS issues (and she has for some reason deleted her social-media accounts), she has also expressed interest in Judaism and the Holocaust, which is why she wants to study in Israel.

The moving discovery was encouraging, so I started looking into what the young Ms. Alqasem wanted to study here. To increase her knowledge about the history of the Jewish people, in either ancient or modern times? To delve into Hebrew literature? To familiarize herself with Jewish texts? No, no and no. She already knows enough about all that nonsense, and in any case, no one comes to Israel to study Judaism—departments of Jewish history are as common as air abroad. People come to Israel to supplement their leftism.

Alqasem is slated to begin a special master’s program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Faculty of Law that focuses on “human rights and Western justice.” Western justice, for anyone not fluent in the lexicon of the left, is a field that deals with ways of “fixing” crimes perpetrated on native peoples by the forces of colonialism. The program’s website states that it teaches legal and social methods that countries and societies seeking to create stable democracy and peace can use to confront the crimes of the past.

These techniques include committees to discover the truth, criminal trials (some in international courts), plans for compensation and reconstruction, constitutional and institutional reforms, and more. In the 13th lesson, after students have learned about conflicts such as the Rwanda genocide, civil wars in Colombia and the Balkans, apartheid in South Africa, gives special emphasis to local issues under the title “Western Justice and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” You already know what will be discussed there.

Who will be teaching Alqasem? The Hebrew University’s Faculty of Law is making its best minds available to curious students like her, who, as Hendel wrote, have “an honest desire to get to know Israeli society, culture and history.”

Let’s start with Professor Yuval Shany, who will teach her that Israel isn’t really a democracy because of “the [occupied] territories and its control of millions of people for so long,” and because of issues of religion and state, which he calls an area “in which Israel is more aligned with the norms of the Middle East.”

Alqasem can also read Shany’s articles about why legal rulings on warfare that justify IDF actions are no longer sufficient and that they need to be expanded to include “human rights law” to infuse “international law and the political and international reality with new vitality.” All in all, we need to remember that the legal questions about war in Gaza are not the main point, as he puts it: “The moral and political questions are more important: What price are we willing to pay? Why are we fighting? How will it end?”

There is also Professor Alon Harel, who can introduce Alqasem to a chapter of Israeli society. The terrorist shooting at the Barkan industrial zone, he wrote on Facebook, was “undoubtedly cold-blooded murder … and as such is very similar to the acts of murder that the IDF carried out on the southern [Gaza] border.”

That could be an excellent subject for an M.A. thesis under his supervision. Harel’s justifications for soldiers to refuse to serve in Judea and Samaria could help Alqasem fulfill her “”desire to move from a path of boycott to one of dialogue and direct exposure to Israeli academia and society,” as Judge Hendel put it.

Alqasem will also receive supplementary instruction from Professor Tomer Broude, who will tell her why even after the 2005 disengagement from Gaza, Israel has a responsibility to supply water and electricity to Gaza.

She will chat in the hallways with Professor Guy Harpaz, who will make it clear why Israel must not demolish the homes of terrorists. When she’s very bored, Alqasem can flip through the pages of Hebrew University faculty who have signed petitions in favor of Israel Defense Forces’ soldiers refusing orders, or a petition in support of the activity of the Breaking the Silence NGO.

At the end of the day, Alqasem’s sojourn in Israel will be for the best. It’s likely that even if she neglects the BDS struggle from time to time, she will be an even more dedicated activist after a year on Mount Scopus.

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Anti-BDS posters were hung at Hebrew U’s Mount Scopus campus ahead of Lara Alqasem’s arrival.

By World Israel News Staff

Dozens of anti-terror posters directed at BDS activist Lara Alqasem were distributed on Sunday on Hebrew University’s Mount Scopus campus ahead of the BDS advocate’s arrival.

The posters, distributed by activists of the Zionist organization Im Tirtzu in English and Hebrew, included messages like “Lara, have you no shame?” and “Keep your BDS off my campus.”

The posters also called attention to Alqasem’s support of Rasmea Odeh, a convicted terrorist who played a key role in a 1969 bombing attack that murdered two Hebrew University students.

“You support a terrorist who murdered two Hebrew University students, and now you want to study here? We don’t want you here!” read the posters.

The posters also suggest for Alqasem to study in Gaza, Syria or Iran: “Lara, if you despise Israel so much, you are welcome to go to Gaza, Syria or Iran. They will welcome BDS and terrorist supporters like yourself with open arms.”

Last Thursday, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that Alqasem, who previously faced deportation for her BDS activism, could remain in Israel, where she is slated to participate in a program on “human rights” at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The 22-year-old Arab-American graduate student served as president of the University of Florida’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which supports the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) movement and has been accused of serving as a front for Islamic terror groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

SJP members have been caught on a number of occasions promulgating anti-Semitic material online. Alqasem scrubbed her social media accounts prior to arriving in the Jewish state.

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