Pro-Palestine university groups are ‘radicalising’ US students

Students gather to march and rally at Columbia University in New York – Caitlin Ochs/Reuters

Some pro-Palestine US university groups are co-opting the nationwide campus protests and “radicalising” America’s students, it has been claimed.

New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, this week warned the country’s young people were at risk from outside agitators who are “co-opting” the demonstrations to “create chaos”.

“This is a global problem that young people are being influenced by those who are professionals at radicalising our children,” he said.

US-based groups monitoring the demonstrations have also cautioned that some of the organisers of the campus protests have been found to be “celebrating terrorism”.

Campus protests at US universities such as Columbia and UCLA have become a flashpoint in the debate over Israel’s war against Hamas, which has seen around 35,000 people killed, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry. Half of those are believed to be children.

Thousands of students spanning America’s east and west coasts have brought their institutions to a standstill with the demonstrations, which at times have escalated into violent clashes with hundreds of arrests.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which describes itself as the world’s leading anti-hate organisation, has identified Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) as a key instigator of the campus movements.

Demonstration are taking place across US universities – Andrea Renault/Cover Images

SJP has been around since the early 1990s and has more than 300 chapters across the US, many of which have helped organise the college encampments and building occupations.

According to its website, its mission is to “develop a student movement that is connected, disciplined, and equipped with the tools necessary [to] achieve Palestinian liberation” across what it describes as “occupied Turtle Island” – the US and Canada.

ADL describes SJP as a radical group with a history of engaging in anti-Semitic and pro-terror group rhetoric.

In the days following the Oct 7 attack by Hamas, which saw around 1,200 Israelis killed and 250 people taken hostage, the national leadership of SJP and many of its campus chapters “explicitly endorsed” the actions of the terror group, the ADL said.

They praised a “historic win for the Palestinian resistance” and some university chapters also “issued pro-Hamas messaging”, according to research by the ADL.

The content included using silhouettes of paragliders, interpreted as a reference to some Hamas fighters’ methods, and the promotion of Palestinian liberation by “any means necessary”.

Via their social media, the group gave advice to students on what to wear to protests – “comfortable clothes and running shoes” – what to bring – “water, an energy bar and a bandanna in case of surveillance” – and even how to respond to arrests – “don’t linger too long or pigs [the police] will kettle the march … free the comrade … and keep it moving”.

Campus protests at universities such as Columbia and UCLA have become a flashpoint in the debate over Israel’s war against Hamas – MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO/AFP

Some of the group’s campus chapters have since been suspended by universities, including at Columbia.

SJP’s national wing has “unequivocally” condemned the ADL’s “baseless allegations”, insisting neither its national wing nor its local chapters support terror groups.

In a joint statement on their websites, SJP’s national chapter, Jewish Voice for Peace and the Council on American Islamic Relations said: “The ADL’s latest intimidation campaign is based on a highly problematic definition of anti-Semitism that attempts to conflate criticism of the Israeli government or Zionism with anti-Jewish racism. This is as dangerous as it is baseless”.

Justin Finkelstein, from the ADL’s Center on Extremism, said SJP was “one of the main organisers” behind the protests that have swept the US and a factor in leading to “students becoming more radical” – but far from the only culprit.

He also pointed to “Within Our Lifetime United for Palestine”, which has been very active in the protests in New York City, as well as Palestine Action, which has both US and UK branches and focuses on “engaging in direct action”.

The national or local chapters of groups including American Muslims for Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, Palestine Action, Palestinian Youth Movement, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Samidoun, Students for Democratic Society and Young Democratic Socialists of America and have also played “key roles” in the campus protests, according to the ADL.

Mr Finkelstein also highlighted that the protests had also been co-organised or infiltrated by “other inflammatory, radical groups”, “outside agitators” and “lone vigilantes”.

He said many of those attending the rallies “might not necessarily know, or be aligned with, everything” the protest organisers have said.

Protests have erupted at campuses across the US – CAROLINE BREHMAN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock/Shutterstock

“I think they exploit the ignorance of folks,” he said. “So what happens is you have people who don’t know a lot about the subject who might feel sympathy towards Palestinians, but not justifying Hamas terrorism like SJP does… [but] because of that ignorance they get swept in.”

Some of the campus protests were the result of months of training and planning by longtime activists and left-wing groups, according to the Wall Street Journal. The newspaper reported that students at Columbia University consulted with the national wing of the SJP, veterans of campus protests and former Black Panthers.

At Chapman University in Orange, California, students from SJP helped set up a protest camp in the early hours of Thursday morning shortly after police dismantled a much larger site at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Consisting of around 15 tents, students held hand-painted signs with slogans such as “Free Palestine” and “Ceasefire Now”.

One of the organisers, Dariush, 18, said he and other organisers were members of SJP and wanted to get the college to divest from companies that did business with Israel or helped its military.

“I think that the backlash is just inevitable in a social movement,” he added. “If you’re not receiving that backlash, something’s probably going wrong.”

A Jewish SJP member and organiser, Myth, rejected any suggestion he and his colleagues were “brainwashing” other students.

“What we provide our colleagues and our peers is education. We do not push a certain viewpoint on them,” he said.

“We have educational materials and stuff they can do their own reading on. We believe that people who’re educated about it will inevitably end up on the side.”

But not everyone is convinced.

Professor Ann Licata, a lecturer in Spanish, denounced the encampment and said the students didn’t know anything about the issues they were trying to raise.

“They have no inkling of the whole history of the situation. They don’t understand that many Jews, Muslims, Catholics, and LGBT all live together. I was just in Israel in August and I saw a very different Israel than what is being portrayed in the news,” she said.

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