Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Palestinian-American student snubs Blinken at Georgetown graduation to protest killing of Al Jazeera journalist

The student was carrying a Palestinian flag to honor Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot to death while covering an IDF raid in the West Bank

A Georgetown University student carrying a Palestinian flag refused to shake the hand of Secretary of State Antony Blinken Saturday after she received her diploma.

Video of the scene shows the graduate, identified as Nooran Alhamdan, shaking her head as Blinken reached out to shake her hand. She then shook the hand of another person on the dais. Blinken delivered the commencement address for the 2022 class of the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

@FreedomNews tweeted that Alhamdan had withheld her hand to honor Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed on May 11 while covering a raid in the occupied West Bank for Al Jazeera. Palestinian authorities say she was shot by an Israeli soldier. Israel has said that it is unclear whether the bullet came from an Israeli soldier or a Palestinian militant. The veteran journalist is now honored as a martyr to the Palestinian cause. Her funeral became a political event, and was disrupted by Israeli police.

 

Blinken spoke with the family of Abu Akleh after condemning Israel’s use of force at her funeral and offered U.S. support.

The Palestinian Authority has refused to cooperate with Israel in a joint inquiry or turn over the bullet from Abu Akleh’s body.

The student tweeted after the event that she was “proud to have refused” Blinken’s handshake “and to have reminded” him of the Palestinians’ cause.

She also posted pictures of several other students with keffiyehs draped around their shoulders and holding up posters that read: “Resistance until liberation and return. We honor martyr and journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.”

Last week, a group of 57 members of Congress, making up 25% of the House Democratic caucus, signed a letter to Blinken and FBI Director Christopher Wray urging an independent investigation into the killing of Abu Akleh.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.