Shaima Dallali labeled a Jordanian-Emirati preacher a”dirty Zionist” after he criticized Hamas for firing rockets at Israeli civilians.
By Pesach Benson, United With Israel
Shaima Dallali was confirmed as the next president of Britain’s National Union of Students in March and is already in hot water over antisemitic social media posts.
The National Union of Students is a confederation of 600 British student unions representing seven million students. Dallali, who is currently President of City, University of London Students’ Union, begins her two-year term atop the NUS on July 1.
In the bio line at the top of her now-closed Twitter page, which goes by the twitter handle, @TunisianRose, Dallali wrote in Arabic, “death for the sake of Allah is our most exalted wish,” a Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood slogan. Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The slogan appears in the Hamas’s 1988 charter and is an integral component of jihadist ideology.
The rest of her bio said in English, “One day I’m going to pray in Al-Aqsa.”
Dr. Paul Stott, head of the security and terrorism unit at the London-based Policy Exchange think tank told the Daily Mail, “It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry that a student activist, opposed to Government counter-extremism policies, used an online slogan on her social media profile that is taken from the Muslim Brotherhood, and means ”death for the sake of Allah is our most exalted wish”.
He added, “Her leadership of the National Union of Students will discredit every campaign the NUS touches.”
Dallali has a separate, active Twitter handle, @ShaimaDallali.
Jews denounced Dallali over another recently-surfaced tweet. In 2012, she tweeted in Arabic, “Khaybar Khaybar O Jews … Muhammad’s army will return #Gaza.”
The tweet referred to the Battle of Khayber in 628 C.E. An army of Muslims led by Mohammed overran an the Khayber oasis in the Arabian peninsula inhabited by Jews and defended by a network of forts.
Scholars suggest that the terms of surrender set a precedent in Islamic law for the status of dhimmis, or non-Muslims living under Muslim rule.
Dallali apologized for that tweet and removed it, calling it “wrong” and “unacceptable.” She said she posted it as a teenager.
Other contentious tweets cited in British media reports include:
• Labeling Jordanian-Emirati preacher Waseem Yousef a “dirty Zionist” after he criticized Hamas for firing rockets at Israeli civilians.
• Praising firebrand Islamic preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi as a “moral compass” even though he is banned from entering the US, Britain, France and Germany for incitement.
• A prayer for the soul of Hamas commander Ahmed Jabari on the day he was killed in an IDF targeted assassination in 2012. Jabari was connected to several suicide bombings in the 90s and masterminded the 2006 kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
• Tweets saying former UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn should never have been suspended over antisemitism in his party.
• Tweets criticizing Britain’s Union of Jewish Students for “bullying” pro-Palestinian student leaders.
(Twitter/Screenshot via Jewish News)
David Collier, a British blogger and researcher on antisemitism and anti-Zionism tweeted of Dallali, “The apple does not fall far from the tree. On the night she was winning the election – her father- (management at Al Jazeera) was posting ‘from the river to the sea’ messages on Facebook.”
In response to Dallali’s election as NUS President, the Union of Jewish Students said on Twitter that “Attacking the Jewish community, UJS, and supporting speakers with extremely challenging views” and called on her to “come to the table, work with UJS and understand how to support Jewish students.”
Dallali responded by saying she’s willing to meet with the UJS when she’s in office.