Hassan Abdel Salam is a newbie when it comes to grassroots American politics, but he is no stranger to persecution. In 2022, Salam's research into the strategies of Palestinian youth activities in their peaceful protests led him straight to the front lines in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank where he ran into trouble.
Salam originally started working directly with Palestinian youth, helping to inspire the 2018 Great March of Return protests in Gaza and the 2011 Tahrir Square protests in Egypt that led to then-President Hosni Mubarak resigning. When Salam first stepped foot in Jerusalem while trying to enter the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque is when he says he realized first-hand the severity of the Israeli occupation and its impact on the Palestinian people who live in the fray of all the fighting.
"They're often feeling a lot of contradictory emotions because they see the disaster all around them, and they want to do something, but they're constantly being made impotent because they're met by detention, attack, the possibility of injury," Salam told Middle East Eye (MEE) about some of the conversations he had with Palestinian people whose family and friends have succumbed to Israeli abuse.
"Their homes are being demolished, which I saw with my own two eyes."
(Related: Have you read the open letter from Kim Dotcom to the worldwide Jewish community petitioning Jews everywhere to condemn Israel's actions in Gaza?)
Israel targets Salam over peace proposal
Salam's original plan was simply to protest at the sites where Palestinians are suffering most. He tried to rally peace activists and others as part of a "liberation of Palestine" movement, which quickly fell apart on Dec. 1, 2022, when Salam's research assistant was arrested while traveling into the occupied West Bank from Jordan.
Salam went to Al-Aqsa that very same day to pray, only to soon find himself in handcuffs. Israeli soldiers stripped him of his clothes and forced him into detention.
"There was one guy who really hated me," Salam recalled. "I'd seen him many times before. As I was approaching the gate around a little bit after 6pm, he really excitedly came at me while tripping over himself – sort of thrilled now – and he started scrolling down his phone."
"I could see there was a photo of me on it, and the intelligence or the government of Israel was calling for the capture of me and my research assistant. I hadn't known by then that my research assistant was already captured."
Salam, an American professor, mind you, was detained by Israel and sent to Moscobiyeh prison in West Jerusalem, a facility that, according to the prisoners' rights organization Addameer, is known for torturing its detainees.
"They blindfolded me in a claustrophobic experience and guided me as I humbly tiptoed to my dungeon cell – a poorly lit, windowless cell where I spent 23 days behind two metallic doors," Salam recalled.
"My company was this toilet hole, which was disgusting, and I engaged in 12 days of hunger strike."
Salam was eventually released and deported back to the United States, this being a common way that Israel punishes American peace activists who go there to defy the violent Zionist agenda.
"They were pleased to get rid of me, although they kept threatening that I would stay for my whole life," Salam explained to MEE about the conclusion of his time of persecution, which ultimately inspired him to start the Abandon Harris movement.
"The United States was fully aware that I was imprisoned, fully aware that my company was a toilet hole with its dense interrogations again and again, the torture, the 12 days of hunger strike, they did nothing. The United States did nothing, and that's exactly symbolic of how they approach the state of Israel."
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