The Telegraph
Pro-Palestine university groups are ‘radicalising’ US students
Rozina Sabur Sat, May 4, 2024
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 thatsome 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.
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”.
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”…
https://news.yahoo.com/pro-palestine-university-groups-radicalising-172101700.html
(Where’s the IC agencies in US, UK etc releasing info on these groups?)