BUZZ
Terrorist thanks students for spreading ‘call to liberate Palestinian prisoners’
University of California Berkeley student groups had a failed Palestinian suicide bomber speak at their event this week.
In 2015, Israa Jaabis was convicted for attempting a car bombing in Jerusalem. Now she is addressing students in a Berkeley Law School classroom via video call, according to The Jerusalem Post.
Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine and UC Berkeley Students for Justice in Palestine organized the event called “Palestinian Political Prisoners Day.”
The groups described the event as a chance for students “to hear experiences of Palestinian torture survivors and prisoners of conscience.”
In a clip of the event posted on the student groups’ instagram accounts, Jaabis said, “Your attendance, in particular— as law students— makes us hopeful that there remains some humanity [in the world]; that there is someone to support us in the future.”
She thanked the students for spreading her “message to the international community” and “amplifying” the “call to liberate Palestinian prisoners.”
The video also shows the students breaking into applause.
Jaabis wounded herself and a police officer in Jerusalem in 2015 when she allegedly used flammable materials to ignite her car’s gas tank, according to The Jerusalem Post.
“She reportedly yelled ‘allahu akbar’ during the incident, and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) said that it found handwritten notes in her possession that detailed support for ‘martyrs,’” the outlet reported. Jaabis has denied these claims.
In November 2023, Jaabis was freed as part of a prisoner exchange involving 26 hostages taken by Gazans during the October 7 massacre.
The Lawfare Project, which provides legal services to the Jewish community, condemned the event in a post on X.
“This is the institutional normalization of terrorism and the consequences must be met with the full force,” the group wrote.
“Academic freedom does not include platforming terrorists,” it wrote.
UC Berkeley’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter displays a symbol commonly used by Hamas to designate Israeli targets as part of its logo on the group’s official university webpage, as previously reported by The College Fix.
The Free Press editor Mark Gimein commented on the logo in a post on X, writing, “Sure, let them use it … It accurately portrays their position, and instantly disproves any claims that SJP doesn’t support terrorism.”
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