Fayyad Sbaihat
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Fayyad Sbaihat (Arabic: فياض صبيحات) (born 1980) in Jenin, Palestine, is a Palestinian writer and student activist in the US.
Fayyad graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2005 with a B.S. in chemical engineering. While at Wisconsin, Fayyad became a prominent Palestinian activist focusing on divestment from Israel, a movement modeled after the anti-apartheid campaign directed at Apartheid South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. He became one of the leaders of and the national spokesperson of the Palestine Solidarity Movement, the umbrella organization that coordinates the divestment campaign across the US colleges. Fayyad later wrote a divestment handbook titled "Fighting the New Apartheid," which was primarily based on his experience organizing with the University of Wisconsin Divestment From Israel Campaign.
The campaign was among the most successful divestment from Israel efforts to date, where Fayyad and other UW activists successfully lobbied to get the endorsement of TAUWP, the university's largest union of instructors and professionals.
While in college, Fayyad contributed a regular column to the student newspaper The Badger Herald, covering a variety of political issues, but focusing on the Middle East. Fayyad's by-line in his columns read "Fayyad Sbaihat is a senior majoring in chemical engineering." the fact that this by-line appeared in three different years, solicited many comments from his critics and detractors, often in the comment section of the newspaper's website, complaining "when is Fayyad Sbaihat going to graduate?"
He was profiled in Salon.com in an article titled "The hacky sac intifada,"[1] and in Madison, Wi's weekly, The Isthmus, in the cover story "The Activist: UW Student Fayyad Sbaihat brings struggle for Palestinian rights to Madison." He also was the target of several defamatory articles in Frontpage Magazine and other conservative and Zionist blogs and publications falsely accusing him of links to militant organizations.
Today, Fayyad delivers speeches at numerous colleges and conferences across the US and continues being politically active.
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