Days After Texas Synagogue Attack, Jewish Voice for Peace Hosting NYC Rally To Free Jailed Palestinian Terrorist

Malik Faisal Akram is seen in this handout photo taken at a faith based daytime outreach center in Dallas, Texas, U.S., January 2, 2022 and obtained by Reuters on January 18, 2022. Courtesy of OurCalling, LLC./Handout via REUTERS

The name Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is something of a misnomer for a group that has, among other activities, ardently campaigned in support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement — which aims to ostracize and eventually dismantle the Jewish state; promoted antisemitic canards when apportioning blame to Israel for racism and police brutality in the United States; and endorsed the malicious lie that Israel practices a system of apartheid.

Now, the US-based organization has thrown its weight behind an initiative to free Palestinian terrorist Ahmad Sa’adat, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) leader currently serving a 30-year prison sentence in Israel for ordering and directing several terror attacks.

To this end, JVP has helped coordinate a rally for Sa’adat for Saturday in New York City alongside Palestinian NGO Samidoun — which was blacklisted by Israel in February 2021 due to its links to the PFLP.

Co-sponsors of the event include Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a group that is jointly led by Nerdeen Kiswani, who recently expressed support on Instagram for an assault against a Jewish man in Brooklyn who was wearing a sweatshirt with an IDF logo. Another co-sponsor is the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), which has a history of backing terrorists, such as PFLP plane hijacker Leila Khaled.

The planned gathering is part of a series of events scheduled over next week to mark the 20th anniversary of Sa’adat’s arrest by, somewhat ironically, the Palestinian Authority, which initially jailed him in accordance with the US-brokered “Jericho Deal.”

Drumming up support on its Facebook event page, Samidoun proclaimed: “Join our collective call for the freedom of Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian prisoners. Take action to escalate the boycott of Israel, end aid and support to Israel, organize for justice in Palestine and resist imperialism and colonialism.”

Samidoun’s website adds:

Sa’adat is a leader in the Palestinian prisoners’ movement and the Palestinian national liberation movement and a Palestinian, Arab and international symbol of resistance to Zionism, capitalism, racism, apartheid and colonization. Targeted for his political role and clarity of vision, he remains unsilenced and unbroken, despite the oppression imposed upon him and 4,650 fellow Palestinian political prisoners.

Naturally, Samidoun fails to mention that Sa’adat’s so-called “resistance” took the form of “activity with the aim of killing innocent people.” He is believed to have played a role in planning the 2001 murder of then-Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi, which was carried out by four PFLP members, although prosecutors ultimately decided instead to charge Sa’adat with heading an “illegal terrorist organization.”

The timing of the rally is significant, coming exactly one week after a terrorist held four people hostage inside the Congregation Beth-Israel Synagogue, in Colleyville, Texas. During the 11-hour standoff, Malik Faisal Akram ranted that “Jews control the world,” and demanded the release of another jailed terrorist, Aafia Siddiqui, dubbed “Lady Al Qaeda,” who blamed Israel after being convicted of attempting to murder US military personnel in Afghanistan.

As HonestReporting detailed, the Council on American -Islamic Relations (CAIR) has paid special attention to Siddiqui’s case, with the group’s Dallas-Fort Worth chapter even describing the proceedings as “one of the greatest examples of injustice in US history.”

A search of CAIR’s website for Siddiqui’s name brings up multiple results, such as a press release titled, “DC: Coalition to Hold News Conference to Call for the Release of Pakistani National Dr. Aafia Siddiqui from Texas Prison.” It proceeds to claim that Siddiqui was wrongly convicted while labeling her a “victim of the war on terror.”

Apparently, however, Jewish Voice for Peace has not been dissuaded by the clear-cut evidence of the potential deadly ramifications of holding solidarity events that aim to free jailed terrorists.

Also significant is the relative lack of mainstream media coverage that this event has garnered, except for articles in a handful of Jewish and Israeli news outlets (see, for example, here and here).

HonestReporting’s own data shows that JVP was cited in press reports nearly 5,000 times over the last 12 months, including by publications such as The Washington Post, The Guardian and NBC News.

Such outlets seemingly do not believe it is newsworthy that JVP — frequently used by the media as a rent-a-quote for stories pertaining to Israel — is working hand-in-glove with Samidoun, which research has repeatedly shown is acting as a front for the PFLP terrorist group on international soil.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.