Why is the Zionist lobby scared of this young Yemeni law grad?

In recent weeks, Fatima Mohammed, a 25-year-old graduate from the City University of New York Law School, has faced a relentless campaign aimed at undermining her professional career.

News articles smearing her name have been published. People have been told to boycott her. Powerful pro-Israel lobbying groups are acting to stop her from becoming a lawyer.

And her crime? She has steadfastly supported the Palestinian cause.

Fatima, an American Yemeni, is among dozens of students and young professionals who have been at the receiving end of Zionist groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

But Fatima refuses to bow down to pressure, especially when Israel is carrying out a brutal assault on Gaza, and desperate Palestinians trapped there need international support.

“In Gaza today, we've witnessed fathers literally carrying their children in plastic bags. These sacrifices and consequences (we face) are merely droplets of water. To me, any sacrifice that contributes to this movement and any consequence is worth it,” she tells TRT World.

“It's the least that we can do as people living inside the belly of the beast, as the people funding this genocide (are doing so) with our tax dollars. I think the least that we can do is sort of be in solidarity.”

Along with a friend, Nerdeen Kiswani, she founded a pro-Palestinian group, Within Our Lifetime, which has been organising demonstrations around New York since October 7, when the Israel's ongoing war on Gaza broke out.

The notorious one

Fatima recently cleared the New York State Bar Examination, her life’s ambition. But she still has to go before a committee before she becomes an attorney.

SAFE CAMPUS, a Zionist campus organisation claiming to advocate for "Zionist Jews discriminated against and excluded on college campuses," has been trying to stop her from becoming an attorney.

They posted on X, encouraging individuals to file complaints against Fatima, alleging violations of the State Bar's character and ethics guidelines to prevent her from obtaining a law licence. The post was later removed by X.

The New York Post even ran a story calling Fatima and Kiswani the “NY’s most notorious anti-Israel” activists.

Fatima, a first-generation law graduate whose family immigrated to Brooklyn from Yemen and one of eight siblings, has been advocating for the Palestinian cause long before October 7. And pro-Israel groups have relentlessly targeted her for that.

On May 12 last year, she gave a commencement speech in which she criticised Israel for killing Palestinian civilians and driving them out of their homes.

Her speech drew significant attention a few weeks later when the right-wing tabloid New York Post featured her on the front cover, branding her a "stark raving grad."

Following this, she endured weeks-long severe backlash. She was accused of being anti-Semitic with accusations that she was "crazed by hatred for Israel" or that her speech was filled with "negativity and divisiveness."

This criticism came from lawmakers, politicians, and Zionist lobbies in the United States.

But none of that has dithered Fatima.

For her, support for Palestine has always been an inherent part of her life, and she says that the same holds true for any Yemeni child, whether in the diaspora or back home.

“Palestine is really sort of an indictment of our faith, an indictment of our character. Where you stand on Palestine is where you stand in life.”

She recounts attending rallies and protests advocating for freedom and justice for Palestinians. During her undergraduate years, she became actively involved in Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and later took the lead in the SJP chapter at CUNY Law School.

“The more I reckoned with how complicit the United States is in the violence Israel inflicts on Palestinians, the more I felt obliged to speak up,” she says.

For a greater cause

Studying law and becoming an attorney wasn't always a priority for Fatima.

But when the Trump administration introduced what’s known as the Muslim ban in 2017, imposing restrictions on immigrants from Muslim countries, including Yemen, she decided to pursue a career in law.

“I was still in high school, and I really was thrust into helping family and the community out. And I found myself in that role. And this inspired my decision to go to law school.”

As a Yemeni immigrant herself, she has experienced first-hand the problems Muslims can face in the United States, especially if they decide to openly support the Palestinian cause, she says.

For instance, Zionist groups target students for supporting Palestine, disrupting their studies and careers.

But Fatima isn’t bothered. Instead, she says, people should be vocal about the cause they believe in.

“We see in New York City and in the United States that silence does not protect us. It does not guarantee us success. We see what happened to Wadea al Fayoume, a child in Chicago who was stabbed over 26 times. We see it with the three Palestinian men in Vermont who were shot.”

“If all of us speak out, the Zionist lobby cannot dox all of us. If all of us speak out, they cannot fire all of us.”