Nerdeen Kiswani has called for the “one solution – Intifada revolution”; has spread antisemitic conspiracy theories about Zionists controlling the media; and has called for violence against the Jewish state and Zionism to be “wiped out.”
Her social media pages are awash with disturbing comments and imagery, including a mural of notorious plane hijacker Leila Khaled toting an AK47, which she praised as “gorgeous,” and a film of herself sparking a cigarette lighter and threatening to set a man’s Israel Defense Forces sweatshirt on fire while he was still wearing it.
Horrific – a student at @CUNY, Nerdeen Kiswani, threatens to set on fire a man wearing an #IDF sweatshirt.
“I hate your shirt, Ima setting it on fire. I’m serious” she can be heard saying.
We demand this is immediately looked into and the Ms. Kiswani face disciplinary actions! pic.twitter.com/TL1J4JrI63
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) September 22, 2020
However, such posts did not disqualify Kiswani from being selected to deliver the commencement address this month at the law school of the City University of New York (CUNY).
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Kiswani, who is the founder and head of the anti-Israel hate group Within Our Lifetime, used her time on stage to rail against the Jewish state, alleging she had faced a “campaign of Zionist harassment by well-funded organizations with ties to the Israeli government and military…”
Read More: CUNY Group Postpones BDS Vote Scheduled for Jewish Sabbath
So extreme are Kiswani’s views that she appears to have even alienated supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, which seeks to delegitimize and eventually dismantle the Jewish state.
In 2018, after calling for the controversial campus network group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) to “go beyond” the BDS campaign, Kiswani quoted Leila Khaled, saying: “BDS, of course, on the international level, is very effective. But it doesn’t liberate land.”
Following the censure by the BDS campaign, she went her own way and set up Within Our Lifetime, which she proudly states uses as an hourglass logo because “Israel’s days are numbered” and campaigns to “globalize the intifada,” a reference to the waves of Palestinian suicide bombings and knife attacks that left scores of innocent Israeli citizens dead.
A compilation of clips from the BDS leader in New York calling for war against Israel, the eradication of Israel, for violence against any Jew in America that supports Israel, and calling for Jews to be cleansed from New York.
BDS is not peaceful. BDS is violence. pic.twitter.com/SCsiuniF0g
— Ari Ingel (@OGAride) May 14, 2022
Unsurprisingly given Kiswani’s troubling past, objections about her commencement address were raised by Jewish students and faculty, including by S.A.F.E. CUNY (Students and Faculty for Equality at CUNY), which pointed out that “honoring a Jew-hating bigot who has called for violence to Jews makes Jews at CUNY unsafe.”
“CUNY bears responsibility if someone gets hurt in the wake of Kiswani’s violence-inciting antisemitic rhetoric,” the group’s statement added.
CUNY law administrators ignored their objections.
And this is not the first time the school has dismissed the concerns raised by Jewish students about their safety following displays of antisemitism by certain sections of the student body.
For example, the dean of CUNY Law School, Mary Bilek, actually defended Kiswani after the aforementioned IDF sweatshirt incident, claiming Kiswani was simply using “her First Amendment right to express her opinion,” which was her “opposition to Israel’s armed forces (or Israel’s policies toward Palestine).”
Indeed, faculty at CUNY Law officially endorsed the BDS campaign this month in a resolution that demanded the university sever ties with Israel, while accusing the Jewish state of being guilty of “apartheid, genocide, and war crimes.”
Read More: The Second Intifada: A Not So Distant Memory
And the claim by Jewish students at CUNY that Kiswani is inciting actual violence against Jews has merit: antisemitism in New York is surging.
In 2020, there was a 325% increase in antisemitic assaults on the city’s streets compared to the year before.
Nationally, the rising levels of hatred and violence toward Jews have reached such an alarming level that just days ago the US House of Representatives passed a resolution denouncing rising antisemitism. Out of 421 votes, all but one backed the resolution.
When Kiswani, who said at a 2021 rally that she hopes a “pop-pop is the last noise that some Zionists hear in their lifetime,” is awarded the honor of addressing graduating students, CUNY Law School is seemingly giving a green light to the dissemination of anti-Jewish hate speech.
Such intolerance, as the statistics attest to, has real-life consequences.
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Photo: Erik McGregor
