Students for Justice in Palestine, an anti-Israel group on college campuses throughout North America, has been conducting events in support of Hamas following the terror organization’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel that have left more than 1,300 dead, thousands wounded, and as many as 150 civilians taken captive and brought to the Gaza Strip.
SPJ says protests took place at participating chapters at Arizona State University; Butler University in Indianapolis; the University of Louisville; the University of Binghamton, a State University of New York; and the University of Virginia.
A toolkit the group distributed to its student activists states that “liberating colonized land is a real process that requires confrontation by any means necessary.” It has been urging sit-ins, flier distribution, rallies, disrupting activities and holding so-called “educational” events.
The Israel on Campus Coalition shared with JNS the names of other schools with anti-Israel events on Oct. 13. These include Columbia University, Kalamazoo College, Kent State University, Purdue University, University of California-San Diego, University of Florida, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of South Florida, George Mason University, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, New York City’s Hunter College, California State University-Sacramento, University of Georgia and University of North Carolina.
SJP CSU-Sacramento posted a video of its protests, featuring drum beats and a young woman with a bullhorn, wearing a keffiyeh leading chants of “free, free, free Palestine.” She then calls for “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “one, two, three, four, occupation no more, five, six, seven, eight, Israel is a terror state!”
She concluded with, “We don’t want no two states, we want all the 48,” as a man took over leading the march.A planned protest today at Rutgers University moved to Zoom after intervention from the university’s president, Jonathan Holloway. The school’s SJP chapter wrote on Instagram that it could not “confidently and safely hold our event originally scheduled for today.”
Holloway released a statement on Wednesday in which he wrote: “What Hamas did in brutally murdering, torturing and holding hostage innocent Israeli victims of all ages was unconscionable and an act of terrorism. That Hamas has reportedly threatened to murder the hostages one by one and show them on film, only reinforces their brutality and terrorism.”
He wrote that the school was in touch with Rutgers police and the New Jersey state police to prevent potential disturbances.The University of Arizona’s SJP chapter also chose to stop its event after a letter from their school’s president, claiming that “we no longer feel safe holding our rally on campus” and announcing its postponement.
