Grad student leads protest calls for attacks on Israel: Report
A graduate student at Harvard Extension School reportedly led calls for the terrorist organization Hamas to launch an attack against Israel during a protest in New York City.
'Abu Ubaida, our beloved. Strike, Strike Tel Aviv,' was chanted during the 'Land Day' pro-Palestine rally on March 30.
On March 30, a graduate student at Harvard Extension School in Cambridge, Massachusetts reportedly led calls for the terrorist organization Hamas to launch an attack against Israel during a protest in New York City.
According to The Washington Free Beacon, Abdullah Akl is a graduate student at the Extension School pursuing a master’s degree in government. An organizer for the pro-Palestine group Within Our Lifetime, Akl reportedly led the crowd as it chanted, “Abu Ubaida, our beloved. Strike, Strike Tel Aviv,” during a “Land Day” protest.
Protesters also shouted, “There is only one solution: Intifada revolution!” as seen in a video that was posted to X by the pro-Palestine group, Within Our Lifetime, on March 31.
Intifada, Revolution! From yesterday’s Land Day protest in NYC pic.twitter.com/c4yWZCoee9
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) April 1, 2024
According to the Free Beacon, Akl previously posted to social media that “there is no state called Israel” and that people ought to “teach your children that the Zionist entity is an enemy.”
Within Our Lifetime also promoted the protest on X several days before it ultimately took place.
“Honoring our ceaseless anti-colonial struggle, we affirm on Land Day that the fight for Palestinian Liberation is a fight to free every inch of the land from the river to the sea,” the group wrote.
“As we chant: Whose streets? Our streets! Whose land? Our land!,” it continued.
Honoring our ceaseless anti-colonial struggle, we affirm on Land Day that the fight for Palestinian Liberation is a fight to free every inch of the land from the river to the sea. As we chant: Whose streets? Our streets! Whose land? Our land!
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) March 25, 2024
Within Our Lifetime describes itself as a “Palestinian-led community organization that has been building the movement for Palestine in NYC since 2015.”
“We are anti-zionists,” the group declares on its description page. “Zionism is a settler-colonial white supremacist ideology built on the genocide and dispossession of the Palestinian people.”
The organization also calls for the “anti-normalization” of “zionist organizations,” and the “abolition of zionism.”
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“We defend the right of Palestinians as colonized people to resist the zionist occupation by any means necessary,” the group writes. “[W]e believe the liberation of Palestine will be achieved through the initiative and strategy of all forms of Palestinian resistance.”
The group is also openly anti-American.
“We have a responsibility as those living within the United States to resist the violence of the U.S. empire at home and abroad,” Within Our Lifetime also notes. “As Internationalists, we believe that all people have the right to self-determination, and we stand in solidarity with all national liberation struggles across the globe resisting U.S. imperialism.”
Campus Reform has contacted Harvard Extension School and Within Our Lifetime for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.