By: Jason Bedrick, The Daily Signal
As the civilized world mourns the first anniversary of the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust—and prays for the release of the more the 100 hostages, including four Americans, still being held by Palestinian jihadists in terrorism tunnels—American college campuses are rife with celebrations of Hamas’ atrocities.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Iran-backed Hamas militants flooded into Israel, engaging in an orgy of violence and mayhem, killing about 1,200 people, including 38 children, in their homes and at a youth music festival.
They raped women, shot children in front of their parents, and kidnapped more than 250 people, including 30 children. They even filmed and bragged about their atrocities.
But to many students on American college campuses, the Hamas militants who died while perpetrating these atrocities are not monsters to be condemned, but “martyrs” to be celebrated.
Just days after the Oct. 7 massacre, the Students for Justice in Palestine chapters nationwide called for a “Day of Resistance” on posters featuring paragliders like those the Hamas terrorists who had flown over the Israeli security barrier to rape and kill civilians used.
The Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at George Washington University projected the words “Glory to Our Martyrs” on the side of the university’s library.
Even among anti-Israel groups, Students for Justice in Palestine is particularly radical. Several chapters have openly endorsed the five-point “Thawabet” (demands on which there can be no compromise) principles, including that Arabs should “reject all normalization” with Israel, that “armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine,” and that “Palestine is Arab from the river to the sea, with Al-Quds [Jerusalem] as its capital.”
In other words, they call for genocidal violence against the world’s only Jewish state—home to about half the world’s Jews—until it is destroyed and replaced with another Arab state. Unsurprisingly, the infamous chant that is a common feature at Students for Justice in Palestine rallies—“There is only one solution: intifada revolution”—was inspired by the Nazis’ “Final Solution.”
On the anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre, Students for Justice in Palestine chapters nationwide are calling for a “week of rage,” celebrating “one year of resistance” and hosting vigils for the supposed “martyrs.”
The timing makes clear that they are celebrating the Oct. 7 atrocities as “resistance” and glorifying its perpetrators as “martyrs.” At Columbia University on Monday, hundreds of students marched, chanting “intifada” and “resistance is justified.” One protester held a sign reading “Long Live The Al-Aqsa Flood” (the jihadist name for the Hamas massacre) featuring Hamas terrorists, including a paraglider.
At Columbia University in the anniversary of Oct. 7th massacre, a student holds “Long Live The Al-Aqsa Flood” with a photo of a Hamas soldier.
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) October 7, 2024
This individual is a domestic terrorist and should be held accountable by law enforcement. pic.twitter.com/0Wa0o6BLwX
Students for Justice in Palestine chapters and their pro-terrorist protests are not confined to Ivy League or far-left campuses like Berkeley and Oberlin. They’re even popping up at private and state universities in red states. At Rice University in Texas, the group’s chapter is hosting a “Day of Rage” on the anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre, featuring a speech from a professor at Rice as well as a vigil to “honor our martyrs.”
At Duke University in North Carolina, the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter is hosting a “Vigil for Palestine” Monday, claiming that it “has been one year since Israel began its relentless genocide against the people of Gaza,” even though there is no genocide in Gaza, and Israel didn’t even send troops into Gaza to fight Hamas and attempt to rescue its captive citizens for more than a week after Hamas launched the war.
Students for Justice in Palestine chapters are also hosting a “Week of Rage” or “Week of Resistance” beginning on Oct. 7 at the University of Texas at Arlington, UNC Chapel Hill, and dozens of other universities. Likewise, the Muslim Students Association at the University of North Florida is hosting a “Gaza Week” starting Oct. 7.
Too often, the pro-terrorist rallies have the explicit support of university faculty and staff—which should be no surprise, given how many former campus radicals find employment on campus.
At Oklahoma State University, the psychology department’s diversity committee emailed students encouraging their participation in the “Week of Rage,” which includes a bake sale and the requisite vigil for “martyrs,” and will be capped off with a movie night.
Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters condemned the university for supporting the event, stating that “No school, at any level, should ever celebrate the slaughter and destruction of Israel.” Walters called on the public to demand that “OSU end this culture of hate for Israel on their campus.”
No school, at any level, should ever celebrate the slaughter and destruction of Israel. Demand OSU end this culture of hate for Israel on their campus. https://t.co/IHcn7K2d0a
— Superintendent Ryan Walters (@RyanWaltersSupt) October 6, 2024
It should be no surprise that the email came from a “diversity committee” at the university. College diversity, equity, and inclusion offices have been hotbeds of antisemitism.
As former university dean and professor Stanley Goldfarb observed in City Journal, DEI “has given [antisemites] a pseudointellectual and seemingly moral framework through which to spew their hatred.”
At the heart of DEI is a simple binary: The world is divided between oppressors and the oppressed. Proponents of DEI cast white people as oppressors and black people as the oppressed.
While they apply this frame primarily to America, they often apply it to Israel, too. Apparently, Israel is a bastion of Jewish whiteness, with a racist commitment to shattering the lives of nonwhite Palestinians.
In fact, a colleague of mine—a former collegiate DEI director, no less—was told that Jews are “white oppressors” and that it was her job to “decenter whiteness.”
Hence, why the campus groups most associated with DEI are now leading the [antisemitic] charge. A good example is White Coats for Black Lives, which I encountered at Penn’s medical school. The group, which serves effectively as the medical-student offshoot of Black Lives Matter, has as its mission to “dismantle racism and accompanying systems of oppression.”
Apparently, that means supporting terrorists who beheaded Jewish babies and raped Jewish women on [Oct. 7]. In the wake of those atrocities, White Coats for Black Lives proudly declared that it “has long supported Palestine’s struggle for liberation.”
Students have the right to speak out and support any cause they wish, including hateful ones. But they don’t have a right to taxpayer dollars.
Student groups like Students for Justice in Palestine typically get access to university funds. At public universities, that means taxpayer funding. And even at private universities, students are often subsidized though government loans and tax credits, in addition to the numerous government grants universities receive directly.
Paying for young people to be indoctrinated as hate-filled radicals is more than taxpayers should be expected to bear.
Related Story: Students at Prestigious D.C. University Call for Intifada
