Dr. Osama Abuirshaid is the executive director of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and its lobby arm Americans for Justice in Palestine Action (AJP Action). He is a former employee and board member of the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), an organization accused of raising money in the United States for Hamas. He is also a virulent antisemite (but I guess I had you at AMP).
Abuirshaid recently uploaded this video of himself in Israel, boasting how he “took advantage” of Israel’s eased entry rules ahead of its upcoming admission into the United States Visa Waiver Program (VWP), which will permit visa-free entry for Israelis to the US.
And here’s the kicker: While Abuirshaid enjoyed the relaxed entry requirements for his own benefit, both AMP & AJP Action have continued to relentlessly campaign against Israel’s admission into the Visa Waiver Program!
- In October 2022, one of the session topics during AJP Action’s Virtual Palestine Advocacy Days was “Visa Waiver Program: Continued discrimination against American citizens of Palestinian, Arab & Muslim backgrounds.”
- In July, AJP Action published a statement headlined “A call for accountability,” in which it asserted that “the Israeli government, currently under scrutiny for growing human rights violations, does not meet the eligibility criteria for the U.S.’s Visa Waiver Program (VWP) due to its longstanding and systematic discrimination against U.S. citizens of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim descent, but also for it’s [sic] sliding authoritarianism.”
- On August 1st, AMP circulated an online petition addressed to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, calling on them to deny Israel’s admission into the program.
- On August 2nd, AMP and AJP Action held an event headlined, “Legitimizing Apartheid: Why Israel is Not Eligible for the Visa Waiver Program.”
- On August 4th, AJP Action and CAIR published a press release stating that they “do not believe that the Israeli government qualifies to enter the U.S. Visa Waiver Program because it is an apartheid government that has maintained a track record of systematically discriminating against American citizens of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim backgrounds for decades.”
- On August 25th, AJP Action published a blog post calling on supporters to call the White House Hotline and voice opposition to Israel’s admission into the VWP.
If they got their way and Israel were not to be in the Visa Waiver Program, we would cease with our relaxed rules.
But as long as Abuirshaid got to visit, right?
This is peak palestinian: do as I say, not as I do.
Also peak palestinian: bite off your nose to spite your face.
