Unmasking Campus Antisemitism: A Call to Action Against Students for Justice in Palestine

On college campuses all over America, Jewish students are being harassed, threatened and attacked. This is not legitimate support for Palestinians but an explosion of violent mob rage. 

Last week, I appeared before the Ways and Means Committee of Congress to expose that this assault on Jewish students has not happened overnight or by accident. It has instead been planned, engineered, and incubated for decades by well-funded, well-organized groups with documented track records of support for U.S. designated terrorist organizations, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the PFLP.  

One of the main perpetrators of campus Jew-hatred is Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). SJP was set up and is supported by groups and individuals with well documented records supporting and fundraising for terrorist organizations. Individuals like Hatem Bazien, who founded SJP and is also the founder of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). 

Terrorist sympathizers figured out decades ago that instead of sending money to jihadist organizations, they could get more bang for their buck by warping the hearts and minds of the young and naïve, sometimes well-meaning American students. 

They use progressive buzz words like “justice” and “freedom”, but their goal is destroying the world’s only Jewish state by any means possible. And after October 7, we have seen that anything goes: Beheading babies and raping women is just fine, if it’s done to the Jews. 

For decades, these groups have lied to young Americans and convinced them that Israel is the ultimate evil, demonizing and dehumanizing Israelis. When Hamas terrorists carried out these barbaric attacks, it’s no surprise that hordes of young, educated Americans would minimize, justify and even celebrate them. 

SJP is a hate group and it is grooming American college students – grooming your children – to hate Israel, hate Jews and hate America. For years, universities have stood by and watched this brainwashing and incitement take place while doing absolutely nothing.  

SJP glorifies terrorists like notorious Palestinian plane hijacker Leila Khaled, putting her face on their t-shirts. And they hijack any campus where they operates. They have no interest in peace and you just need to listen to what they chant at rallies. 

“There is only one solution; intifada, revolution,” they chant. Those with bad intent prey on those with bad knowledge. Because we know what intifada means: it means blowing up hundreds of Jews on buses, in shopping malls or pizza parlors, or stabbing us, shooting us or running us down. Or, as on October 7^th, slaughtering as many Jews as they possibly can.

What is the impact of campus hate groups like SJP? Jewish students barricading themselves in libraries to hide from an angry, brainwashed mob.  

Universities have let down their Jewish students and now we need action. The first step is to kick SJP off campus as Columbia University has done. It is disgraceful that college fees and tax dollars are funding hate groups that cheer on the burning alive of Jewish families. Every college in this country should permanently ban SJP. We wouldn’t pay the mafia to teach business on campus. We shouldn’t pay terrorist supporters to teach political activism to our kids. We should treat SJP just as we would the KKK.

Universities that fail to kick SJP off campus, and therefore make their campuses safe spaces for antisemites but not for Jews, should be defunded themselves.  

The next step would be to launch criminal investigations against the ringleaders of the campus antisemitism pandemic. There is sufficient evidence linking SJP and AMP members with support and financing of terrorist groups including Hamas, that both state police and the FBI should investigate them immediately. We cannot any longer give free passes to supporters of organizations committed to global Jihad that currently hold over 200 Israeli, American, and other dozens of other nationals hostage in Gaza. 

Lastly, we need to stop rolling out the red carpet in Congress for hate filled groups with terrorist links. Last month, not even three weeks after Hamas were decapitating Jewish babies and raping young Jewish women and girls, AMP was lobbying Congress during their annual “Palestine Advocacy Day.” It is appalling that there are members of congress who have taken donations from this group. Given past evidence of their links to terrorists, we must ask whether there are a fringe group of congressional representatives being funded from the same pot as murderous and proscribed terror groups.  

What happens on our campuses will shape the future of the US. This organized campaign of hate is therefore not just a Jewish issue but an American one. There is a direct line between brainwashed extremists who rip down posters of kidnapped Jewish children, and those who ripped down the American flag ahead of Veterans Day in the middle of New York City. 

We must act now to stop this coordinated assault on Jewish students, on American values and on the future of the American dream before it’s too late.

Noa Tishby is the former Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism and Delegitimization of Israel.