UC Berkeley's Secretive "Bears for Palestine" Student Group

Inside UC Berkeley's secretive Bears for Palestine student group that supports Hamas terrorists while hiding their identities

• UC-Berkeley's Bears for Palestine expressed their support for Hamas just hours after their attack on Israel
• Students for Justice in Palestine, called Bears for Palestine in Berkeley, was founded in 2001 by Hatem Bazian, a controversial lecturer at the school
• The group has held Israeli Apartheid Week, a gala for an intifada (uprising), and displayed images of convicted terrorists as Palestinian heroes

The University of California's Berkeley's Bears for Palestine this week expressed their support for Hamas just hours after the terror group's attack on Israel left more than 1,000 dead.

But this was just the latest shocking display of support for the Islamist group since its inception in 2001.

The group was founded by Hatem Bazian, a controversial lecturer in Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies who has repeatedly justified terror attacks against Israel and Intifada (uprising) in the US.

Bears For Palestine (BFP), named after the notoriously leftist school's mascot, is the founding chapter of SJP, a network of pro-Palestinian student groups across the US that has been accused of demonizing Jewish students. 

Shortly after Hamas' attack left thousands of Israelis dead, the group issued a statement saying it supports 'the resistance, the liberation movement, and indisputably supports the Uprising.' They also held a a vigil for 'martyrs in Palestine' on Friday. 

SJP, called BPS in Berkeley, was founded in 2001 by Hatem Bazian, a controversial lecturer in Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies at the school 

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, poses with his wife, left, and Dr Swee Ang, centre right, who shared a video made by Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, and Hatem Bazian, right, head of Students for Justice in Palestine which a study said created 'a hostile climate toward Israel and Jews' on campus

The University of California at Berkeley's Bear for Palestine hosted a vigil for 'martyrs in Palestine' after Hamas killed over 1,000 Israelis on Saturday

Student members often keep their identity anonymous and cover their faces, as they see themselves as freedom fighters targeted for their beliefs

On Friday, the group's founder Bazian shared a video titled: 'Here's why Hamas says its attack on Israel wasn't unprovoked.'

The Detroit Free Press once quoted him as saying: 'The Day of Judgment will not happen until the trees and stones will say, "Oh Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him."'

Bazian also once apologized after sharing a cartoon of a stereotypical Orthodox Jewish man celebrating the murder and rape of Palestinians and another of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un wearing a kippah and demanding money from the U.S.

SJP student members often keep their identity anonymous - with pictures of their faces covered or turned from the camera posted on social media and hard-to-find lists of it members. They frequently use images of Islamist fighters to promote their events, as they see themselves as freedom fighters targeted for their beliefs.

In 2020, BFP displayed images of convicted terrorists Fatima Bernawi, Rasmea Odeh and Leila Khaled, a plane hijacker, calling them 'Palestinian leaders.' Calling the display a glorification of terrorism, Jewish students demanded it be taken down, but Berkeley's student government voted down a resolution condemning the display. 

'It just never ceases to amaze me the trivialization of Jewish death on this campus,' said Shelby Weiss, who is Jewish and was the only student senator who voted to condemn the display. 

In 2022, the group held a gala 'in honor of the unity intifada,' an uprising that saw Palestinian leaders call for riots and attacks against Jews and Hamas launching thousands of rockets into populated areas in Israel amid tensions in Jerusalem over a property dispute. 

Every year, BFP hosts an event it calls 'Israel Apartheid Week' with the Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine, a group that often joins and co-signs its activities, including the letter supporting Hamas. 

Both groups repeatedly use the phrase, 'From the River to the Sea', demanding the land from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea, meaning the end of the State of Israel.

This year's Apartheid Week, held in March, included events such as 'Apartheid: The Matrix of Control'. 

A representative who asked to remain anonymous 'for security reasons' told The Daily Californian the event was important for Palestinians 'directly affected by the occupation.'

'As Palestinians, we're always attacked when we try to speak about our injustices. The truth is hard to hear, and many choose to be ignorant,' the student said. 

Every year, BFP hosts an event it calls 'Israel Apartheid Week' with the Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine

This year's Apartheid Week , held in March, included events such as 'Apartheid: The Matrix of Control' an 'apartheid wall assemble'

BFP has remained unapologetic of their explicit support of what the see as Palestinian's right to defend themselves from 'Israeli occupation.'

'We invariably reject Israel's framing as a victim. Whereas to demonize and condemn indigenous resistance is to overshadow the decades of oppression, ethnic cleaning, and destruction of the Palestinian people,' their letter, signed by 50 other groups, read.

'We echo the call to action for all Arabs and Palestinians in the diaspora to rise up to support the liberation of our occupied people. From the River to the Sea, we will continue to support resistance until we are able to return home to a unified Palestine. Glory to Palestine, glory to the resistance, and glory to our martyrs.'

The statement was signed by 51 students organizations in total, from colleges across the country, including several other groups in the notoriously leftist campus, like Koreans for Decolonization, Jewish Students for Palestine, the Iraqi Student Union and Central Americans for Empowerment.

Organizations from other schools in the state that also signed the letter include various groups at UCLA, such as the Arab Student Union and the Asian Pacific Coalition.

Various SJP chapters from other schools in California and other states also supported the statement. 

UC-Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ sent a letter saying on Wednesday saying she was 'heartbroken by the terrible violence and suffering in Israel and Gaza,' as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.

'As a moral matter, we condemn all terrorism and mass atrocities. This includes the deliberate attack on civilians this weekend by Hamas,' she wrote.

Bears for Palestine , named after the school's mascot, issued the statement on Saturday

Organizations from other schools in the state that also signed the letter include various groups at UCLA

The statement was signed by several other groups in the notoriously leftist campus, including Koreans for Decolonization and Central Americans for Empowerment

DailyMail.com has reached out to UC Berkeley for comment about the group's plans.

American elite universities have found themselves in hot water after Hamas' horrific attack on Israeli civilians was met with praise by various student groups, particularly by SJP chapters.

Tufts' Students for Justice in Palestine group called the terrorists 'liberation fighters paragliding into occupied territory,' adding they had 'especially shown the creativity necessary to take back stolen land.'

Harvard University faced massive backlash after 31 of its student societies issued a joint statement 'holding the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.'

In their statement on Sunday the groups said the attack, which left more than 1,000 dead 'did not happen in a vacuum', and claimed the Israeli government has forced Palestinians to live in 'an open-air prison for over two decades'.

Columbia University's Students for Justice in Palestine also released a statement blaming Israel for the terrorist attacks, claiming that Hamas' actions were a 'counter-offensive against their settler-colonial oppressor.' 

The group's statement was first shared on Tuesday by the Anti-Defamation League New England chapter, who called it 'obscene'

The first space of the statement released by the Students for Justice in Palestine and a Jewish Voice for Peace out of Columbia University 

The Ivy League schools were also joined by a group from Northwestern University named Justice in Palestine who said that they 'stand unwavering in our commitment to highlighting the profound injustices faced by the Palestinian people.' 

Meanwhile, the president of New York University's Law School Bar Association president had a job offer from a pro-LGBTQ+ law firm rescinded after she stated that Hamas' slaughter of children in Israel was 'necessary.'

Ryna Workman, 24, a non-binary student at NYU's School of Law sent a weekly newsletter saying the murder of innocent Israeli children, women, and citizens this past week was is Israel's 'full responsibility.'

On Tuesday, the law firm Winston & Strawn - which regularly highlights its legal work representing the LGBTQ + community - told DailyMail.com in a statement that their offer of employment to Workman has been rescinded.

NYU Law School Bar Association voted to oust their president Ryna Workman after she sparked fury by claiming Hamas atrocities were 'necessary'

DailyMail.com has reached out to Bazian for comment on this story. 

Why do the Arabs hate the Palestinians so much?

Why do the Arabs hate the Palestinians so?

The Arab world, for many reasons, is not at all interested in giving the Palestinian Arabs a state. The Palestinian Arabs don't really want one either, because why kill the "refugee" goose that lays the golden eggs?

Why do the Arabs hate the Palestinians so?

Author: Mordechai Kedar

In Israel, and in much of the Western world, we tend to think that the Arab world is united in support of the Palestinians, that it  wants nothing so much as to solve the Palestinian problem by giving them a state, and that all the Arabs and Muslims love the Palestinians and hate Israel.  This, however, is a simplistic and partial point of view, because while It is true that many, perhaps even the majority of Arabs and Muslims hate Israel, there are a good many who hate the Palestinians just as much.

Their hatred of Israel stems from Israel's success in surviving despite wars, terror, boycotts and the enmity aimed at the Jewish state; it stems from  the fact that there is an existing Jewish state even though Judaism has been superseded by Islam, the 'true religion.' It is exacerbated by Israel's being a democracy while they live under  dictatorships, because Israel is rich and they are poor, because Israel is Paradise compared to Arab countries, many of which resemble nothing so much as the last train stop before Hell (see Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Sudan – and the list goes on) …and most importantly, because Israel has succeeded in areas in which they have failed, and their jealousy drives them up a wall.

But why should they hate the 'unfortunate' Palestinian Arabs? After all, the Arab narrative says that the Palestinian Arabs' land was stolen and they were forced to become refugees. The answer to this question is complex and is a function of  Middle Eastern culture, which we in Israel and most Westerners neither understand nor recognize.

One of the worst things in Arab eyes is being cheated, fooled or taken advantage of. When someone attempts to cheat an Arab - and even more so, if that person succeeds – an Arab is overcome by furious anger, even if the person involved is his cousin. He will call on his brother to take revenge on that cousin, in line with the Arab adage: "My brother and I against my cousin - and my brother, my cousin and I against a stranger."

Regarding the Palestinian Arabs, first of all,  many are not originally Palestinians at all. They are immigrants who came to the Land of Israel from all over the Arab world during the British Mandate in order to find employment in the cities and on the farms the Jews had built.  These immigrants still have names such as "Al Hurani (from Huran in southern Syria)", "Al Tzurani (from Tyre in Southern Lebanon)", "Al  Zrakawi (from Mazraka in Jordan)," "Al Maztri (the Egyptian)" and many other names that point to the actual, geographically varied origins of the so-called Palestinians. Why, ask the other Arabs, should they get preferential treatment compared to those who remained in their original countries?

Starting with the end of the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, the politics in the Arab world began to center on Israel and the "Palestinian problem" whose solution was to be achieved only by eliminating Israel. In order to help succeed in that mission, the Arab refugees were kept in camps, with explicit instructions from the Arab League to  keep them there and not to absorb them in other  Arab countries.

UNRWA ensured that they were provided with food, education and medical care without charge – that is to say, the nations of the world footed the bill, while the Arab neighbors of these eternal "refugees" had to work and provide food, education and medical care for their families by the sweat of their brow.  Refugees who were supplied with free foodstuffs, such as rice, flour, sugar and oil, for the use of their families, would often sell some  of it to their non-refugee neighbors and make a tidy profit.

Those living in the refugee camps do not pay municipal taxes, leading to a significant number of "refugees" who rent their homes to others and  collect exorbitant sums in comparison with those renting apartments in nearby cities, thanks to this tax exemption. In other  words, the world subsidizes the taxes and the refugees line their own pockets .

In Lebanon, several refugee camps were built near Beirut, but were incorporated into the expanding city, then turned into high class neighborhoods with imposing high rise apartment buildings. Someone has profited from this change, and it is not the man in the  street, who has every reason to feel cheated.

The Palestinian "refugee" camps located in Lebanon have been taken over by armed organizations, from the PLO to ISIS, including Hamas, the Popular Front, the Democratic Front and organizations of Salafist Jihadists. These organizations act viciously towards surrounding Lebanese citizens and in 1975 brought on a civil war that  lasted for 14 long  years of bloodshed, destruction and saw the emigration of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese from their villages to lives of horrible suffering in tent camps all over the country' Many took  refuge in Palestinian "refugee" camps, but the Lebanese refugees received less than 10 per cent of what  Palestinian Arabs received, causing much internecine jealousy  and hatred.

In Jordan, in 1970, the Palestinian Arabs, led by PLO head Yassir Arafat, attempted to take over the country by establishing autonomous regions of their own, complete with roadblocks and armed Palestinian Arabs in the country's north that challenged the monarchy. In September 1970, known as "Black September", King Hussein decided he had had enough and would show them who is boss in Jordan. The  war he declared against  them cost thousands of  lives on both sides.

Meanwhile, in Israel,  20% of the citizenry within the pre-1967 borders is made up of "Palestinian" Arabs who do not rebel or fight against the state. In other words, the "Palestinians" living in pre-1967 Israel enjoy life in the only democracy in the Middle East, while the Arab countries sacrifice their soldiers' blood to liberate "Palestine." Is there a worse case of feeling that you are being exploited than that of an Arab soldier putting his life in danger for this meaningless cause?

Worse still is what every Arab knows: Palestinian Arabs have been selling land to Jews for at least a century, profit immensely from the deals and then go wailing to their Arab brothers to come and free "Palestine" from the "Zionist occupation."

Over the years, the Palestinian Arabs were given many billions of euros and dollars by the nations of the world, so that the yearly per capirta income in the PA is several times greater than that of the Egyptian, Sudanese or Algerian man in the street. His life is many, many times better than that of Arabs living in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen over the past seven years.

On a political level, the Palestinians have managed to arouse the hatred of many of their Arab brethren: In 1990, Arafat supported Saddam Hussein's Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. In revenge, Kuwait, once it was freed of Iraqi conquest, expelled tens of thousands of Palestinians, most of whom had been employed in its oil fields, leaving them destitute overnight. This led to an economic crisis for their families in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, who had been receiving regular stipends from their sons in Kuwait.

Today, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad are supported by Iran, the country abhorred by many Arabs who remember that airplane hijacking and the ensuing blackmail were invented by the Palestinian Arabs who hijacked an El Al plane to Algiers in 1968, fifty years ago, beginning a period of travail still being endured by the entire world.

Despite the 1989 Taaf agreement that ended the civil war in Lebanon and was supposed to lead to the de-weaponization and dissolution of all the Lebanese militias, Syria  allowed Hezbollah to keep its arms  and to develop its military power unrestrainedly. The repeated excuse was that the weapons were meant to "liberate Palestine" and would not be aimed at the Lebanese. To anyone with a modicum of brains, it was clear that  the Palestine story was a fig leaf covering the sad truth that the weapons were going to be aimed at Hezbollah's Syrian and Lebanese enemies. "Palestine" was simply an excuse for the Shiite takeover of Lebanon.

Worst of all is the Palestinian demand that Arab countries refrain from any relations with Israel until the Palestinian problem is solved to the satisfaction of the PLO and Hamas leaders. However, a good  portion of the Arab world cannot find any commonalities that could unite the PLO and  Hamas. They have given up on achieving an internal Palestinian reconciliation, watching the endless squabbles ruin any chances of progress regarding Israel. To sum up the situation, the Arab world – that part of it which sees Israel as the only hope in dealing with Iran – is not happy at the expectation that it must  mortgage its future and  its very existence to the internal fighting between the PLO  and Hamas.

And let us not forget that Egypt and Jordan have signed peace agreements with Israel, have moved outside the circle of war for the "liberation of Palestine" and have  forsaken their Palestinian Arab "brothers," leaving them to deal with the problem on their own.

Much of the Arab and Muslim world is convinced that the "Palestinians" do not want a state of their own. After all, if that state is established, the  world will cease to donate those enormous sums, there will be no more "refugees" and the Palestinian Arabs will have to work like everyone else. How can they do that when they are all addicted  to receiving handouts without any strings attacked?

One can say with assurance, that 70 years after the creation of the "Palestinian problem," the Arab world has realized that there is no solution that  will satisfy those who have  turned "refugee-ism"  into a profession, so that the "Palestinian problem" has  become an emotional and financial scam that only serves to enrich the corrupt leaders of Ramallah and Gaza.

Source: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/350389