A report on campus antisemitism revealed a disturbing connection between campus groups and terrorist organizations. One expert suggested that some groups may have been informed in advance of the Hamas massacre of Israelis on October 7 in order to sow misinformation and pro-Hamas propaganda.

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) recently published a study titled “Jihad on Campus unmasked”. The study began with an article written by Dr. Dan Diker, the president of the JCPA, who noted that despite being recorded on body cams and cell phones in real time and broadcast on social media, the Hamas atrocities were, unlike past international atrocities, “greeted by a disconcerting display of public support across U.S cities and university campuses”.  Diker then noted the sharp rise in campus antisemitism that coincided with the cheering of Hamas atrocities that took place on the other side of the globe. 

The study placed the blame on anti-Israel student organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). SJP has over 200 chapters at American and Canadian universities. 

Diker stated that “SJP has platformed Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, since SJP’s founding in the early 1990s.”

SJP activists are encouraged to cover their faces using masks or keffiyehs when protesting, and to avoid using their real names and photos on social media, to avoid identification. A 2016 report by the pro-Israel AMCHA Initiative found that antisemitism was “eight times more likely to occur on campuses with at least one active anti-Zionist student group such as SJP”.

“The October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre in Israel energized this genocidal libel that has metastasized across U.S. university campuses,” Diker wrote.

SJP called Hamas’s October 7 attack “a historic victory for the Palestinian resistance” and advocated a “day of resistance”. On October 25, the Anti-Defamation League sent an open letter, in collaboration with the Brandeis Center, to over 200 colleges, urging them to investigate SJP chapters for support of Hamas. The ADL claims that many SJP chapters endorsed Hamas’s attack on Israel, potentially violating laws against material support for terror groups. 

“The study’s broad assessment of SJP also reveals how this student organization helped pave a pathway to Hamas’ October 7, 2023 massacre by establishing an environment of campus legitimacy for Palestinian disinformation and terrorism,” Diker wrote. “In short, SJP’s nationwide aggressive actions, initiatives, and programming have signaled to Hamas and other colluding terror organizations that they could carry out the mass murder of Israelis with limited repercussions in the West.”

In the next section of the report, Irina Tsukerman, a human rights and national security attorney,  claimed that since SJP was ready with relevant material for dissemination immediately after October 7, the organization clearly had some advance warning. 

“SJP chapters were made ready for a rapid propaganda response to any anticipated Hamas action,” Tsukerman wrote. “If any of the SJP chapters or the national center had an advance warning of an impending attack and had agreed to facilitate the consequent information campaign, they could be considered accessories after the fact or co-conspirators in planning the attack. This means that the organization and any of its constituent members who were privy to that information and took any part in relevant, coordinated activities could be subject to a criminal investigation.” 

The next section of the report, titled The end of ”the useful idiots:” The left, islam, and Palestine”, written by Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, explored the counterintuitive alliance between campus liberals and fundamental Islamists. 

“For most, the convergence of Islamist movements like Hamas and the international left represents a significant ideological paradox,” Mansour wrote. “ Islamism, with its conservative, religious roots, seems inherently at odds with what is perceived to be the secular, progressive values of the left. This alignment around the Palestinian Cause is often seen as a byproduct of the shared opposition to mutual adversaries, such as perceived Western imperialism and Zionism. For long, the alliance between the left and Islamist groups like Hamas was seen as a complex marriage of convenience in which figures of the Western left were dismissed as ‘useful idiots’.”

Mansour suggested that the alliance was much deeper than a short-term marriage of convenience, framing it as a result of the relationship between the Palestinian Cause and the international left that began in the 1950s by way of Arab Nationalism, or even communist intervention in the 1930s as opposition to Zionism, which was perceived as an offshoot of Western imperialism in the Middle East. 

“There are no useful idiots here but complex political activism webs with objectives different from what many assume,” Mansour concluded. “While one cannot deny that many who identify as progressive merely want better lives, more rights for minorities, and better care of the environment, no informed observer should ignore the entire intellectual and philosophical legacy of the International Left in which the Palestinian Cause is now an inalienable component and the main point of contact with hundreds of millions in the Third World. The Jewish people, once again, are facing off against the poisonous hydra of the times.”

In the final section of the report, Khaled Abu Toameh states that the slogan “From the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea, Palestine will be free!” that has been chanted by anti-Israel students on Western campuses for years was taken directly from the Hamas charter. By adopting this slogan, the students, like Hamas, are rejecting any solution that falls short of total annihilation of the Jews. 

“The students, in other words, are saying they prefer Hamas over the PLO which, in their eyes, ‘betrayed’ the Palestinians by abandoning plans to destroy Israel,” Toamen wrote.

He also cited the chant by US students calling for “Intifada”. Many attempt to deflect criticism noting that the word literally means ‘uprising’. 

“For Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups, the term Intifada has always been associated with violence against Israel,” Toameh noted. “This includes suicide bombings, drive-by shootings, stabbings, and car-ramming attacks, as well as the indiscriminate firing of rockets into Israel.”

Toameh also explained the ideological basis for the Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement as an attempt to prevent normalizing relations with Israel as a means of genocide.

“When Hamas talks about boycotting Israel, it is not necessarily referring to Israeli products and companies,” he explained. “For Hamas, the idea of boycotting Israel extends far beyond not purchasing Israeli-made products. Hamas wants Arabs and Muslims to boycott Israel because it is opposed to any form of 20 normalization. Hamas wants the rest of the world to boycott Israel because it is hoping that this will weaken the Jewish state and facilitate the mission of eliminating it.”