As the pro-Palestinian protests at college campuses across the country become larger and more organized, an investigator with a non-profit watchdog group claims to have uncovered links between the campus protesters and pro-Hamas organizations.
Anti-Israel protests began to spring up at college campuses across the United States almost immediately after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas terrorists, during which at least 1,200 Israelis were killed and hundreds more were taken hostage. In the following months, emerging evidence has fueled growing speculation that these protests are being funded by pro-Hamas organizations.
Posts on social media have drawn attention to how identical tents are seen in encampments at campuses in different states. Others note how the same pre-printed signs are showing up at different college campuses.
A lawsuit, filed in a Virginia-based federal court on May 5 alleges that national campus organizations American Muslims for Palestine and National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) are partially responsible for the Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis because “Hamas’s propaganda directed at American audiences is instrumental to its strategy.”A soon-to-be-released analysis by the Capital Research Center (CRC) found that an overwhelming majority of the groups behind the ongoing protests on college campuses are operating as proxies for Hamas.
CRC, established in 1984, investigates non-profit and activist organizations that involve themselves in political advocacy.
In an interview with The Epoch Times, CRC investigator Ryan Mauro spoke about his findings, admitting that he was “shocked” by what he found.
When he initiated his research, investigating the activities of over 100 organizations involved in the campus protests, Mr. Mauro said he began with the assumption that pro-Hamas and Hamas-tied elements were involved. However, he also believed that the majority of those groups weren’t aware of that connection.
“But it became clear to me that the vast majority of the groups are supporters of Hamas, and I can prove it,” he said. “These are groups that supported the Oct. 7 attacks and supported Hamas. Some more blatantly than others, but still clearly in all cases.”
As Mr. Mauro explained, the protests at college campuses across the country are at the least an operation organized by Hamas supporters.
More likely, he believes, is that they are being encouraged by Hamas itself to further its goal of destroying Israel and eliminating its Jewish population.
“It’s not simply a political cause that some bad guys infiltrated or teamed up with,” Mr. Mauro insisted. “It was launched, conceived of, and implemented to assist Hamas.”
An example of the deeper ties between Hamas and the college protests from his forthcoming report, shared exclusively with The Epoch Times, is Florida’s decision to shut down two student chapters of the National SJP in response to its celebration of the Oct. 7 attack and its declaration that it is a part of Hamas.
A memorandum issued by the State University System of Florida stated that the SJP organization released a “toolkit,” referring to Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, as “the resistance” and clearly declaring that “Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement.”
Al-Aqsa Flood is the name given to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. In the 18-page manifesto released by the Hamas Media Office, the terrorist organization justifies the Oct. 7 attack by claiming it “only targeted the occupation soldiers” and those who were armed against them. They said the civilian casualties “happened accidently.”Under Florida statute, it is a first-degree felony to provide “material support and resources” to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
Hamas was designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. Department of State in October 1997.The definition of “material support and resources,” includes providing “personnel.”
Providing personnel is defined to mean someone who “knowingly provides, attempts to provide, or conspires to provide himself or herself or another person to … work under the direction and control of a designated foreign terrorist organization.”
Mr. Mauro said the statute appears to not only justify Florida’s deactivation of the SJP chapters, but it also indicates the possibility that the SJP leaders who dedicated the group as “part of” Hamas can face possible first-degree felony charges, which carry a fine of up to $15,000. Those found guilty face life in prison, and in the worst cases, the death penalty.
The Protesters
Data published by the United Nations in April showed 34,012 Palestinian fatalities, including 33 children, in the 196 days of the conflict that erupted between Israel and Palestinian terror groups in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. The U.N. notes that the data was provided by the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health and Government Media Office in Gaza.They claim to “stand resolutely” with the struggle of Palestinians, whom they identify as their “counterparts,” as they face the destruction of their homes, the seizure of their land and the “assassination of their professors, peers, and families.”
They demand that the colleges and universities divest from the “Zionist entity” and all companies “complicit in the colonization of Palestine,” and stand with their “friends, relatives, and colleagues in Palestine” as they resist the effort of Zionists “to exterminate our people.”
They also want to transform the colleges and universities from being a “fundamentally immoral economic and political system” of the United States into a system that benefits the “masses and the global community.”
“The Student Movement is mobilized, unified, and determined to achieve our demands for Palestinian liberation and an end to the genocide in Gaza,” the declaration states. “We will seize control of our institutions, campus by campus, until Palestine is free.”
The Network
Mr. Mauro explained that the anti-Israel organizations are all part of a network, but are loosely affiliated to obfuscate the connections between them.
The most obvious example of a pro-Hamas organization assisting in the cause of Hamas, he said, is SJP.
SJP, with 250 chapters across the United States, supports more than 350 pro-Palestinian “solidarity organizations“ throughout North America, according to its website.
SJP gets its funding from American Muslims for Palestine, a non-profit “with all sorts of links to Hamas,” Mr. Mauro said.
Westchester People’s Action Coalition Foundation (Wespac), another pro-Palestinian 501 (c) (3) group, also provides funds for SJP.
However, the only sign of a financial connection you will find between SJP and Wespac is a mention above the “Donate Now” button on an online donation page.
Another unregistered anti-Israel group is called Within Our Lifetime (WOL).
WOL was co-founded by Nerdeen Kiswani, a former leader of Students for Justice in Palestine, which is currently suspended at Columbia. WOL describes itself as “anti-Zionists” dedicated to the “abolition of Zionism.”
Zionism is the movement that established Israel as the Jewish homeland.
WOL also promotes its own “toolkit“ encouraging businesses and community centers to join the anti-Israel movement by boycotting stores and products associated with Israel.
That act, Mr. Mauro contends, amounts to providing “material support” for Hamas.
While unregistered groups like SJP and WOL solicit donations and share plans through social media, Mr. Mauro said the sources for the bulk of their funding are hidden.
“There’s a black hole when it comes to finding out how the nonprofits funding these protests and taking part in the criminal activity are raising money,” he said, adding that it’s impossible to find out who contributes the money and how they are spending it “because there is so little transparency in the non-profit world.”
Supporting organizations like Wespac are required to file tax returns.
However, private 501(c) (3) groups like SJP and WOL are not required to file tax returns.
Mr. Mauro said this arrangement allows groups like SJP and WOL to operate under a blanket of secrecy without facing accountability.
“It allows them to operate as a ghost,” he said. “But it’s obvious what’s happening. There is coordination.”
Neither SJP nor WOL responded to requests for comment from The Epoch Times by the time of publication.
‘The Protests are Coordinated’
Leonard Saxe is the social policy director at the Steinhardt Social Research Institute and Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.
As a social scientist, he studies people and groups. In this capacity, he has specifically studied the way SJP operates.
“There’s no question that the protests are coordinated,” Mr. Saxe told The Epoch Times, explaining that the protesters at all of the college campuses use the same “Hamas rhetoric.”
Their chant “From the river to the sea” originated in the 2017 charter by Hamas outlining its objectives.
He also rejected the claim that the creation of SJP was to help bring peace between Palestinians and Israel.
“It was just the opposite,” he said, explaining that SJP was formed in 1993 in protest of the Oslo Accords and the possibility that Israel and the Palestinians would come to a peaceful agreement.
While being surprised to see how far the protests have been allowed to go, he said it supports the idea that there is outside involvement and coordination.
“There are clearly outsiders coming in and generating some of the turmoil.”
In an interview with NPR, New York Mayor Eric Adams said 40 percent of the people arrested at protests on Columbia University and City College campuses “were not from the school, and they were outsiders.”
“The idea that SJP is a peace-seeking, loving organization looking for justice for Palestinians is belied by the history of the organization and their direct use of the same rhetoric used by Hamas,” he said. “It’s a holy war.”
