Many students and university administrations have treated Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) as a pro-Palestinian equivalent to pro-Israel student groups such as StandWithUs, The Israel on Campus Coalition or Hillel, says a new report (Students for Justice in Palestine Unmasked, by Dan Diker with Jamie Berk, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs). But SJP is an extremist organization that maintains affiliations with Arab and Islamic terror groups, is overtly anti-Semitic, incites hatred and violence against Jewish students, and rejects the existence of the state of Israel in any borders.
SJP is not as they claim, a “grassroots” student organization; it is a terror affiliated anti-Semitic network that currently operates with autonomy and impunity at colleges and universities across the United States, according to the report. “SJP does not maintain transparent donors and fundraising efforts. Instead, it operates under mysterious auspices and receives monetary and material support from organizations and individuals connected to Palestinian terror groups and associates.”
SJP also regularly intimidates and harasses Jewish and pro-Israel students, says the report, noting that “documented incidents of anti-Semitism involving SJP members make the commonalities between this organization and Palestinian extremists and terrorists more apparent.” Indeed, Northeastern University’s SJP faculty adviser, Professor M. Shahid Alam, has told SJP members that they should be proud to be called anti-Semites, and should wear the title as a “badge of honor.”
Exposing the intensifying activity of Students for Justice in Palestine at over nearly 200 American campuses is necessary to neutralize SJP’s support for terror and political warfare against Israel, the new report recommends. Combatting SJP is also important to counter the spread of anti-Semitic and Nazi propaganda, incitement to terror, and the climate of fear and hate speech, which are drivers of domestic terrorism in the United States.
Here are a few more findings from the Diker and Berk report:
• Students for Justice in Palestine is a byproduct of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), an organization whose leaders were former members of Palestinian and Islamist terror organizations. AMP was founded in 2005 by the former leaders of three organizations; Kindhearts, the Islamic Association for Palestine, and the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. All three organizations were implicated by the U.S. government between 2001 and 2011 for financing Hamas.
• SJP has adopted a policy of “anti-normalization” of relations with Zionist groups and most Jewish organizations with the exception of the equally radical, anti-Zionist and pro-BDS Jewish Voice for Peace. Students for Justice in Palestine advances their proprietary view of Palestinian justice by undertaking initiatives to isolate, demonize, and ultimately destroy the state of Israel.
• SJP has been linked to terror groups. Some have defined SJP as a campus front for Hamas at University of California, Berkeley. Principal backers of SJP include founders, financial patrons and ideological supporters who have been connected to Islamist terror organizations such as Hamas, Hizbullah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Finally, the report concludes, there are means to stop SJP’s violence, harassment, intimidation, and linkages to terror groups. There are also strategies and initiatives to expose SJP’s boycott of Jews, Israelis, and Zionists on campus, extremist propaganda regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as its illegitimate funding. However, without constant monitoring and diligence, SJP will continue to operate unabated. Therefore, university donors and alumni would be advised to remain well-informed and vigilant, and demand that campus communities and state governments unmask, expose, investigate, prosecute, and sanction SJP to reign in their extremist and anti-Semitic actions on U.S. campuses.