College grad delivers ‘sick’ speech accusing Israel of ‘killing and torturing Palestinians’
Another college student at a publicly funded school spewed antisemitic hate during her recent commencement speech, critics say — and the university even touted part of her talk on Twitter.
El Camino Community College student Jana Abulaban, 18, accused Israel of “killing and torturing Palestinians as we speak’’ during her address at the school’s graduation in Torrance, Calif., on Friday.
Abulaban told The Post on Monday that she felt “inspired” by the speech of CUNY Law School student commencement speaker Fatima Mousa Mohammed, who infamously claimed Israel was guilty of indiscriminately killing Palestinians during her address in New York City last month.
“I gift my graduation to all Palestinians who have lost their life and those who continue to lose their lives every day due to the oppressive apartheid state of Israel killing and torturing Palestinians as we speak,’’ said Abulaban in her own speech at El Camino as head of the college’s Associated Students Organization.
The line garnered a smattering of hand claps at the event, although Abulaban had been loudly applauded when she took the podium a few minutes earlier.
The college, which describes its graduates as “Warriors!’’ on its website, later tweeted out a photo touting Abulaban speaking at the graduation — but included a much more mild quote from her address.
“If I was told 7 years ago, as a Palestinian refugee stepping foot for the first time in this country, that one day I’ll be standing on this stage — I would not have believed it. I’m extremely thankful to have gotten to this point,’’ said the tweet quoting Abulaban.
The student was never actually a Palestinian refugee, although her grandmother was, and Abulaban “identifies as a Palestinian woman,” according to an article in the school’s newspaper, The Union, posted Friday.
The teen was born in Jordan and emigrated to the US from there with her family in 2016 at age 12, the article said.
“It’s sick — it’s really sick,’’ former CUNY board Trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld told The Post on Monday of Abulaban’s speech at El Camino, which boasts enrolling 33,000 students per semester.
“It’s apparent American universities are increasing the number of semi-literate and illiterate students. The jihadism in their minds doesn’t come from Jews. It comes from their own,” he said.
The group stopantisemitism.org tweeted Sunday, “Yet another graduation speech is hijacked with false antisemitic rhetoric, this time at El Camino Community College, CA.
“El Camino received approx. $150 million in federal, state, and local tax dollars for the 2022-2023 school year according to its budget,’’ the tweet added.
Another disgusted tweeter said, “Don’t worry El Camino Community College. Just reach out to @JCRCNY. They’ll help show you how to propagandize this as ‘not antisemitic.’”
But Abulaban insisted to The Post, “I have absolutely no hate in my heart.
“I felt the need to really shed light on the atrocities that Israel as an apartheid state is committing,” she said.
“I’m not talking about Jewish people torturing and killing Palestinians. … It’s the Israeli government that is killing and torturing Palestinians.”
As for Mohammed’s widely condemned address, Abulaban said, “I heard snippets of her speech.
“And I honestly feel inspired by her courage to speak up. We are only trying to speak up against what this oppressive government is doing.
“I don’t believe her speech – or mine – was trying to incite violence or hatred against a specific religion.
“This is very far away from being antisemitic. I would never disrespect a religion,” the California teen said.
“I prepared a speech … to fight for justice worldwide through my voice and advocacy work. It was really just a peaceful message that I was trying to get out there.”
She said she sent a copy of her speech to a college director involved in El Camino’s commencement two days before graduation and that “he basically backed me up on it.
“He said that obviously my voice is my speech. So I would be able to voice whatever I needed to say,” the student said, declining to name the official.
Abulaban — who is set to transfer to UCLA in the fall to study psychology, according to The Union — told the paper she hopes to become a lawyer.
Mohammed, a budding lawyer from CUNY Law School, said in her own inflammatory commencement address that “Israel continues to indiscriminately rain bullets and bombs on worshippers, murdering the old, the young and even attacking funerals and graveyards, as it encourages lynch mobs to target Palestinians homes and businesses.
“As it imprisons its children, as it continues its project of settler colonialism, expelling Palestinians from their homes. Silence is no longer acceptable,” she said to cheers from the crowd — which included the school’s dean clapping.
Foes have called on CUNY to be stripped of its public funding.
Abulaban’s brother, Osaid Abulaban, 25, told The Post that his sister’s address at the college south of Los Angeles was “wonderful … puts the dots on the letters, right to the point’’ and that “everyone, even friends, are proud.
“She said what everyone wants to say but [is] not given a chance to,’’ Osaid claimed of his sibling, who is one of five children in the family.
“Showing what’s going on exactly … showing [Israelis] try to be the good ones all the time. But they’re actually an occupation, like she said, killing people over there.”
El Camino did not respond to Post requests for comment Monday.
But Liora Rez, executive director of StopAntisemismnow.org, which first tweeted about the speech, told The Post that a Jewish student at the graduation was shocked at Jana Abulaban’s rhetoric.
“His jaw was on the floor in disbelief,” said Rez, adding that the student was also stunned no one interrupted her or yanked her off the stage.
Such a college atmosphere fosters “carte blance” hateful sentiments with impunity, Rez said.
“Without consequences, this inflammatory and dangerous rhetoric, which endangers jewish students, will never stop,” Rez said.
Brooke Goldstein, a human-rights lawyer and founder of The Lawfare Project, said, “This is yet one more example of the systemic Jew-hatred we’re seeing on our college campuses.
“When a student gives a commencement speech targeting Jews, trafficking in modern tropes of antisemitism, it’s clear that there has been a complete failure in that school to promote social justice for the Jewish people. If any other minority group were targeted like this, there would be consequences for the bigot. The Jewish community deserves no less.”
