Senior Hamas Official Voices Support for College Protesters: ‘Leaders of the Future’

A pro palestinian protester carries a palestinian flag outside the Columbia University campus in New York City, on April 24, 2024. Timothy Clary/ AFP

A Hamas official has released a statement supporting American college students who have been setting up encampments to protest against Israel’s war efforts and call on their institutions to divest from Israel.

The raging war between Israel and Hamas, though thousands of miles away, has sparked a surge of activism on college campuses across America. More than 100 pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested at Columbia University in New York last week amid an ongoing protest, prompting the Ivy League school to move classes online and religious leaders to urge Jewish students to stay at home for their personal safety.

As the so-called “Gaza solidarity encampment” persists on the Columbia lawn, similar camps have sprouted on campuses from Massachusetts to Texas to California. At the University of Texas at Austin, hundreds of city and state police, some mounted on horses and wielding riot gear, tore down the encampment and took dozens of protestors into custody at the request of university officials and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

Izzat al-Risheq, a founding member of Hamas who serves as the terrorist group’s spokesman, made a post on his Telegram channel yesterday, praising students and professors who joined the anti-Israel protests and denouncing President Joe Biden for tacitly allowing their arrests.

“The American administration, led by President Biden, violates individual rights and the right to expression, and arrests university students and faculty members because of their rejection of the genocide that our Palestinian people are subjected to in the Gaza Strip at the hands of the neo-Nazi Zionists, without the slightest sense of shame about the legal value represented by the students and university professors,” Mr. al-Risheq wrote.

“The Biden administration, which is a partner in the brutal war on our Palestinian people, does not want to acknowledge that it is before American public opinion that discovered the truth about the Nazi entity and sided with human values and decided to stand on the right side of history,” he added.

On Monday, President Biden weighed in on the anti-Israel demonstrations taking place at university campuses, condemning the participants as “anti-Semitic.”

Although the president simultaneously condemned those who didn’t empathize with the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, Mr. al-Risheq argued that failing to fully side with the pro-Palestinian youth will likely cost him at the ballot box.

“Today’s students are the leaders of the future, and their suppression today means an expensive electoral bill that the Biden administration will pay sooner or later,” the Hamas official wrote.

Biden Faces Competing Pressure

Shortly after Hamas waged a surprise attack on Israel, President Biden pledged full-throated backing for the long-term ally, declaring, “My administration’s support for Israel’s security is rock solid and unwavering.”

Months into the devastating conflict, however, President Biden finds himself navigating difficult waters, seeking to avoid alienating Democrats who urge him to put conditions on aid to Israel, while also fending off Republicans who accuse him of not doing enough to boost Israel’s defense.

In what could help alleviate blowback from Palestinian sympathizers of his party, President Biden earlier this month described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approach to the war as a “mistake.” After Iran delivered a massive drone and missile strike on Israel, he reportedly told the Israeli leader that Washington would not be supporting a counterattack.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who led the House in passing a massive foreign aid bill that includes nearly $26 billion for Israel, accused the White House of “caving” to anti-Semitism that he believes is gaining too much voice in Democratic Party.

“I mean, the White House is caving to the antisemitic—I call it the pro-Hamas wing of the party,” Mr. Johnson said in an April 24 interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt before visiting the Columbia University.

“They won’t call that out and some members, Democratic members of Congress, are even calling these anti-Semitic mobs peaceful protesters and defending the harassment, intimidation and all the rest,” he said.