The Trump administration is poised to deny visas to Palestinian individuals with terrorist affiliations who are scheduled to attend the People's Conference for Palestine in Detroit, Michigan, later this month.
This conference is set to host several radical Palestinian activists, a senior State Department official disclosed to The Washington Free Beacon.
"Considering the public invitation lists appear to comprise numerous sympathizers of terrorism, we are meticulously reviewing and ensuring all international speakers scheduled to participate in the conference are being placed on a 'look out' status for visa applications. This way, we are notified if a request is submitted and can guarantee they are suitably processed," the senior official informed The Washington Free Beacon.
The official did not disclose which of the approximately 40 speakers would be assigned this special "look out" status. However, it is known that some of these individuals are Palestinians who have served lengthy prison terms in Israel for plotting to murder Jews.
Among these individuals is Hussam Shaheen, who served 27 years in prison for attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Shaheen was released from prison only a few months ago, on February 1, as part of a deal that swapped Israeli hostages for Palestinian terrorists.
Omar Assaf, a former member of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), as reported by the Middle East Media Research Institute, is also expected to attend, along with Lama Ghosheh, a Palestinian journalist from East Jerusalem. Assaf served eight years in prison for his involvement in the DFLP terror groupa constituent group of the Palestine Liberation Organizationand Ghosheh was sentenced to three years by an Israeli court in 2023 for inciting violence and glorifying terrorism in the West Bank and Gaza.
Another speaker scheduled for the conference is Gaza-based poet Mosab Abu Toha, a Pulitzer Prize laureate for his writings on the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. However, his extremist anti-Israel social media posts surfaced shortly after his award.
Abu Toha wrote on Facebook, "How on earth is this girl called a hostage? (And this is the case of most 'hostages')," referring to Emily Damari, a 28-year-old UK-Israeli soldier detained by Hamas. "This soldier who was close to the border with a city that she and her country have been occupying is called a 'hostage.'"
Eliana Johnson, editor in chief of the Free Beacon, who served on the jury for a different Pulitzer Prize, brought Abu Toha's rhetoric to the attention of the awarding organization. The Pulitzer board, which includes acting Columbia University president Claire Shipman as a board member, falsely accused Johnson of violating a confidentiality agreement instead of clarifying whether it was aware of Abu Toha's social media activity.
Several U.S.-based speakers at the conference have strong connections to the global anti-Israel movement and protests on American college campuses. These include Hatem Bazian, a University of California, Berkeley professor and a leading figure in the Students for Justice in Palestine movement, which has been involved in violent and anti-Semitic campus protests.
Bazian asserted after Hamas's October 7 terror spree that Israel "is a creation of Western powers and they collectively fund and support the destruction that have [sic] befallen Palestine and its people."
Notorious anti-Semite Linda Sarsour, who has equated Zionism with "white supremacy in America" and publicly endorsed terrorism, is also set to give a speech. Attendees will also hear from anti-Israel campus activist Mahmoud Khalil, an Algerian national whose leadership role in the violent protests at Columbia University led to his detention by the Trump administration until a federal judge ordered his release in June of this year.
The conference, scheduled to run from August 29 to 31, is advertised as a platform for people from across North America to unite and strengthen the movement for Palestinian liberation. Several organizations leading the pro-Hamas movement on college campuses have endorsed the event, including National Students for Justice in Palestine, the Palestinian Youth Movement, Al-Awda: the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, the Palestinian Feminist Collective, and the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, among others.
The conference's plenary sessions will focus on efforts to enforce a global embargo on weapons sales to Israel and address "Zionism, imperialism, and the shifting battlefield," as per the organization's website.
The panel on the Israel arms embargo will bring together speakers from various regions to discuss the momentum behind grassroots arms embargo campaigns and the strategic role of labor, civil society, and state forces. The panel will also explore how a people's arms embargo can be enacted.
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