If you haven’t already, please click here to sign a petition calling for San Francisco State University (SFSU) to end its Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with An-Najah University in the West Bank. If you’ve already signed, please share the petition with others.
Oscar Lopez Rivera |
How is San Francisco State University (SFSU)'s Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with radical An-Najah University in the West Bank connected to the controversy over New York City’s Puerto Rican Day Parade honoring Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN) terrorist leader Oscar Lopez Rivera?The first event facilitated by the MOU was the 2016 “Freedom Behind Bars Workshop” organized by MOU architect and SFSU professor Rabab Abdulhadi. As noted by Campus Watch, it involved sending Americans who served time in prison for crimes that included bombing the United States Senate and conspiracy to commit murder to meet with fellow self-described “political prisoners” at Najah.
Claude Daniel Marks |
Among them was Claude Daniel Marks, who was was on the FBI’s Ten Most-Wanted list for his role in a conspiracy to break Oscar Lopez Rivera out of prison. The improbable plan involved blowing up the the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, landing a helicopter in the confusion, and freeing Rivera. Marks surrendered to the FBI in 1994 after nearly a decade living under an assumed identity. Once linked to the Weather Underground and other domestic terrorist groups, Marks signed a 2008 statement of “solidarity” with former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. Given such sympathies, it is little surprise that Marks was an ally of Lopez, who served 35 years in prison for his leadership of FALN -- a group that perpetrated more than 100 bombings in New York, Chicago, Washington, and Puerto Rico during the 1970s and 1980s -- before having his sentence commuted by President Barack Obama earlier this year.
That a radical like Marks was chosen to participate in SFSU’s “delegation” to Najah speaks volumes about what we can expect going forward from the University’s MOU with this terrorist hotbed. It is more important than ever that the Middle East Forum’s campaign to end the dangerous and morally reprehensible MOU with An-Najah succeed. Please sign our petition calling on SFSU President Leslie Wong to terminate the MOU immediately.
Cinnamon Stillwell is the West Coast representative for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum. She can be reached at stillwell@meforum.org.