Anti-Israel College Protesters Push For Amnesty
College protesters seek amnesty to keep arrests and suspensions from trailing them
BY: JOCELYN GECKER | PUBLISHED: April 27, 2024
From: apnews.com
Maryam Alwan figured the worst was over after New York City police in riot gear arrested her and other protesters on the Columbia University campus, loaded them onto buses and held them in custody for hours.
But the next evening, the college junior received an email from the university. Alwan and other students were being suspended after their arrests at the “ Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” a tactic colleges across the country have deployed to calm growing campus protests against the Israel-Hamas war.
The students’ plight has become a central part of protests, with students and a growing number of faculty demanding their amnesty. At issue is whether universities and law enforcement will clear the charges and withhold other consequences, or whether the suspensions and legal records will follow students into their adult lives.
Full Article: https://apnews.com/article/student-protest-gaza-war-arrest-amnesty-ae235703d6a9b99114078fca13a530a0
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COMMENT/ANALYSIS: Accountability seems to be missing from the mindset of many of the protestors and unfortunately, many of the colleges have taken the role of enablers. The above article reports …
Barnard, a women’s liberal arts college at Columbia, suspended more than 50 students who were arrested April 18 and evicted them from campus housing, according to interviews with students and reporting from the Columbia Spectator campus newspaper, which obtained internal campus documents.
On Friday, Barnard announced it had reached agreements restoring campus access to “nearly all” of them. A statement from the college did not specify the number but said all students who had their suspensions lifted have agreed to follow college rules and, in some cases, were put on probation.
Additionally …
The students have demanded the school cuts ties with Israel-linked companies and ensure amnesty for students and faculty arrested or disciplined in connection with the protests.
US Muslim Brotherhood To Hold Education Forum in Chicago
On May 10 – 12, 2024, the 25th Islamic Society of North American (ISNA) Educational Forum will be held at the Marriott Chicago O’Hare, in Chicago, IL. According to information found on the ISNA website, several notable US Muslim Brotherhood speakers will be featured:
Abdalla Idris Ali – former president of ISNA and executive director of ISNA Canada. ISNA is the largest Muslim organization in North America and was established in 1981 by U.S-based members of the Muslim Students Association (MSA). As documented in a Hudson Institute report: ISNA has a “long record of fighting hate, extremism, and bigotry, including anti-Semitism”. During the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial, ISNA was named as an unindicted co-conspirator.
Magda Saleh – daughter of former U.S. Muslim Brotherhood leader, Ahmed Elkadi. She has been involved in the administration of Islamic schools since 1992, serving as Vice Principal and then Principal at Universal Academy of Florida (UAF) from 1992 – 2003. Saleh was the founding Principal of the Muslim children’s school, American Youth Academy (AYA), and was with AYA from 2004 to 2015*. Saleh is the current head of Bayaan Academy with 2 locations in Florida and president of Radiant Hands, a non-profit with a mission “To empower women and families in the North-Central Florida”.
Safaa Zarzour – President of ISNA and the Superintendent of Universal Schools in Illinois and Indiana, served as the Secretary General of ISNA, General Counsel and Chief Operations Officer of Zakat Foundation, Chief Executive Officer of IQRA International Foundation. The Investigative Project on Terrorism reported that “behind the Zakat Foundation’s outward humanitarian façade lie longstanding terror ties that include support for Hamas- and al-Qaida-tied charities, a joint investigation by the Investigative Project of Terrorism and the Middle East Forum finds.”
Sponsors of the Educational Forum include:
ICNA Relief – ICNA’s main charitable apparatus. As reported by Discover the Networks, The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) was founded in September 1968 as the American affiliate of Jamaat-e-Islami, South Asia’s largest Islamist group. Jamaat’s militant wing, Hizbul Mujahideen — aka Hizb-ul Mujahideen — owned the Pakistani compound where Osama bin Laden was living at the time of his death. In August 2006, ICNA Relief was the top donor and partner to the Pakistani charity Al Khidmat Foundation (AKF), at the same time that AKF took a delegation to Damascus, Syria to hand-deliver nearly $100,000 to Hamas global leader Khaled Mashal at his residence. Mashal thanked the group and said that Hamas would continue to wage “jihad” against the “Zionist yoke” (Israel).
COMMENTS/ANALYSIS:
*As a side note, prior to 2004, AYA was incorporated as the Islamic Academy of Florida (IAF), founded by then-Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader Sami al-Arian who was named by the US government in a 50-count indictment, as being a party to the raising of funds for PIJ.
ICNA, ISNA, and USCMO: U.S. Muslim Groups Praise Osama Bin Laden Supporter
“If high-profile Americans paid tribute to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the condemnations would have been swift and unequivocal. Geelani may have done a lot that American Islamist organizations agree with. But he was a hard-line separatist with known terror ties, who considered Osama bin Laden a heroic figure. The open mourning and praising of him says a lot about those organizations.”
American Islamists Pay Tribute to Bin Laden Sympathizer
From: The Algemeiner
By: Abha Shankar, September 20, 2021
Just days before the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, American Islamists hosted a memorial ceremony for a hard-line Kashmiri separatist leader who had reportedly sympathized with the attacks’ mastermind Osama bin Laden and called him a “martyr.”
Soon after US Navy SEALS killed the Al-Qaeda leader in a 2011 raid on his Abbottabad compound in Pakistan, Syed Ali Shah Geelani called on Islamic clerics to pray for the slain terrorist.
“Muslim clergy should organise funeral prayers in their mosques for peace to the soul of Osama bin Laden,” Geelani said. “Osama [bin Laden] was not just a person but also an ideology against occupation of Muslim lands by foreigners. Western countries must realise that suppression of Muslims in their lands will result in resistance.”
Geelani, who spearheaded the Kashmir separatist movement for over three decades, died on September 1.
He was closely affiliated with the Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir (JI J&K), and his mentor was Jamaat-e-Islamic (JI) founder and Islamist ideologue Syed Abu Ala Maududi.
In addition to holding different leadership positions, Geelani, 91, also served as the organization’s “Amir-e-Jehad (Head of Jihad).”
These connections were all well known. But they didn’t give the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA)’s social justice arm pause about co-sponsoring the Geelani memorial.
ICNA described Geelani’s death as “a great loss to this Ummah [global Muslim community]” and called him “a symbol of determination and courage against illegal Indian rule in Kashmir.”
Full Article: https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/09/20/american-islamists-pay-tribute-to-bin-laden-sympathizer/
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COMMENT: The article further reports that …
The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), described as the “largest Muslim organization” in the US, issued a press release describing Geelani as “a bold and relentless leader, a visionary, an intellectual, and an advocate for justice and human rights in Kashmir and around the world.”
and …
Geelani was on the cover of ISNA’s bi-monthly flagship publication Islamic Horizons in March, describing him as “the heart of Kashmiri resolve.” The issue included several stories on Geelani, including one penned by his granddaughter Ruwa Shah.
and …
The US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) issued a statement calling Geelani “the great defender of the rights and freedoms of the Indian-besieged and -occupied Kashmiri people.” Geelani, it said, was a “‘symbol of resistance’ to the government of India’s brutal and draconian policies of oppression in Jammu and Kashmir.”
US Muslim Brotherhood groups have attempted to tone down the radical rhetoric for Western audiences using a masked PR campaign claiming to focus on civil rights, but their shared Islamist agenda and support for terror groups continues. The article was originally published by The Investigative Project on Terrorism
Pings and Musings – 9/20/2021
What’s 
on the current news radar
Random … CJ related or not
Post schedule: whenever
The Southern Poverty Law Center keeping the candle lit with the post 9-11 Muslim victimhood narrative.
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No mention of the US southern border crisis on CNN site.
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Where’s VP Harris? She showed up at a college game to do the coin toss on 9/18 but wasn’t she in charge of the southern border crisis?
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… and how the heck did 15k Haitians end up under a bridge near Del Rio, Texas?
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The market is sliding south. Do Chinese real estate holdings impact us that much?
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How much tax payer $$ for security in response to the 100 demonstrators at the US Capitol last week?
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What is going on in Australia? Serious civil liberty issues.
DHS Courts US Muslim Brotherhood
“On the eve of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Salam Al-Marayati, President of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, sat down with the top counterterrorism official at the Department of Homeland Security, John D. Cohen to reflect on our national security and counterterrorism approach over the past two decades.“
– MPAC YouTube Content Description
Salam Al-Marayati is one of the founding members of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). MPAC describes itself as, “a national public affairs nonprofit organization working to promote and strengthen American pluralism by increasing understanding and improving policies that impact American Muslims.”
John D. Cohen is listed on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) website as a Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Under Secretary, Office of Intelligence and Analysis. He has a law enforcement, security and academic background and was the counterterrorism coordinator and acting undersecretary for intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2014. He also served in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence under President George W. Bush.
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COMMENTS/ANALYSIS: During the opening segment, Al-Marayati recounts his memory of the 9/11 attacks but fails to mention that he created a bit of a news item when he called a Los Angeles radio program and said:
If we are going to look at suspects, we should look at groups that benefit the most from these kinds of incidents, and I think we should put the State of Israel on the suspect list…
The Investigative Project on Terrorism’s profile of Al-Marayati reports on his frequent defense of known terror groups. Despite this, in 2012 the Obama administration picked him to represent the U.S. government at the annual Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe human-rights conference, known as the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting.
MPAC is best described as the political arm of the US Muslim Brotherhood and strives for an appearance of moderation The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch states that MPAC …
… has opposed almost every counterterrorism action proposed or carried out by the U.S. government, often suggesting that the efforts were aimed at the U.S. Muslim community. MPAC has also acted to support a variety of Palestinian terrorist organizations as well as facilitating a wider range of terrorism by defending or justifying violence carried out by Islamic groups. Nevertheless, MPAC has developed particularly extensive relationships with agencies of the U.S. government including meetings with the Department of Justice and the FBI.
MPAC and its leaders have made anti-Semitic statements that assert or imply an organized Jewish effort to defame and exclude U.S. Muslims from U.S. political life and has engaged in frequent and virulent demonization of Israel including describing Israeli actions at the Al-Aqsa Mosque as a “rape of the soul of the Islamic people”, asserting that the objective of Israeli actions in Gaza was “gross killings of Palestinian civilians, including women and children”, and accusing supporters of Israel of using tactics similar to Hitler’s. In December 2009, MPAC reported that “Israeli doctors had extracted human organs from dead Palestinians during the 1988 intifada and into the 1990s.”
We covered MPAC in MPAC’s Safe Spaces: the Trojan Horse Continues, highlighting how they continually operate influence operations to subvert and compromise government legislative bodies and agencies.
John D. Cohen promotes a main agenda that seems to be a continuation from what was embraced by the Obama administration – the greatest US terror threat comes from extremism from within – especially from white supremacists. He mentions this several times during the above video. At other venues, he has stated that DHS officials are very concerned about other right-wing extremists, including the possibility of violence against Afghan refugees by domestic extremists. Very valid points.
A second Obama agenda Cohen seems to push is what is troubling – an emphasis on appeasement towards the Muslim communities and Islamist groups in the US. While serving under Janet Napolitano to head her agency’s program on countering violent extremism, the Huffington Post interviewed him and in Nov 2011 reported:
Cohen said that in his briefings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill he tries to raise questions about the right approach. “Should we be using terms like’ jihadist’ or ‘Islamist?’” he asks. “What I do is talk in a very concrete operational way. Words are often interpreted differently by different people.”
*NOTE: CAIR’s 2021 Media Guide (page 4) makes mention of how “jihadist” and “Islamist” are frequently misused terms. It’s good to know that a DHS official made an early attempt to follow CAIR’s guidelines.
This type of video discussion risks elevating the legitimacy of Islamist groups like MPAC. At about the 15:27 mark, Al-Marayati starts a discussion of how to dilute the image of Islamic terrorism to “a terrorist is a terrorist”. Cohen replies in depth … risking the weeds and trying to be politically correct. He brings up white supremacy twice, completing the response that we face different terrorist threats today than we did on 9/11. The rest of the discussion touches on Muslim victimization and the benefits of faith-group outreach.
It is quite clear that Cohen is a big supporter of community outreach programs and places civil liberty/rights issues high on his priority list. The flip-side is that DHS has apparently not learned anything from the experiences of the FBI interacting with CAIR.
Pings and Musings – 9/15/2021
What’s on the current news radar
Random … CJ related or not
Post schedule: whenever
General Milley’s alleged actions while Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Pres Trump. Need to blow the smoke out of the way and confirm. This is all based on what is in a book, “Peril” by Bob Woodward.
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Guess all is well in Afghanistan and all Americans have been evacuated and safe (cough) … no front page news coverage saying otherwise. Same goes for the southern US “Border Crisis“.
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Lawrence Brooks, oldest surviving WWII vet celebrates 112th birthday!
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Is there any end to the CAIR and MPAC 9/11 Muslim victimhood campaign?
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PA Billboards, “Making the Taliban Great Again“
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Where’s Durham?
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Where’s Hunter?
US Muslim Brotherhood Linked School Board Member Opposes Honoring 9/11 Victims
“While 9/11 was jarring and a historic turning point in our nation’s history, the resolution failed to address state-sponsored traumas to Muslims.”
School Board Member Whose Father Led 9/11 Hijackers’ Mosque Opposes Resolution Honoring Victims
By Luke Rosiak
From DailyWire.com, September 10, 2021
A school board member whose father was on the board of the mosque attended by 9/11 hijackers and hired as imam a top Al-Qaeda operative on Wednesday forcefully opposed a resolution honoring the victims of the attacks.
Abrar Omeish is on the school board of Fairfax County Public Schools, near the Pentagon. She lives with her father Esam, who was a director of the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, and hired as its imam Anwar al-Awlaki, who President Barack Obama later ordered killed by drone strike. The mosque was attended by two of the 9/11 hijackers as well as the shooter in the 2009 attack on Fort Hood, Texas.
She said a school board resolution calling for a moment of silence marking the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 was not “anti-racist.”
While 9/11 was “jarring” and a “historic turning point in our nation’s history,” she said, the resolution failed to address “state-sponsored traumas” to Muslims. “Just two years ago, even I was profiled as a threat, in one of the most traumatic experiences of my life,” she said.
That refers to an incident in which she was pulled over by the police for running a red light, then removed from her car for repeatedly refusing to show her license. Video shows an obvious traffic infraction and that the officer could not see her appearance when he pulled her over.
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COMMENT/ANALYSIS: Abrar Omeish is a past president of the Muslim Students Association at Yale University, a Muslim Brotherhood front organization. The Islamic Institute of Thought (IIIT) has featured her in podcasts and she is listed as a guest columnist for the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, founded by Omar Suleiman. The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch reported that Suleiman is a frequent speaker at US Muslim Brotherhood events.
Abrar Omeish is the daughter of Dr. Esam Omeish, former head of the Muslim Brotherhood-created Muslim American Society. He had resigned from his position on a Virginia state immigration commission in 2007, after former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine became aware of a 2000 video where Omeish glorified violent Jihad, telling Muslims in Washington, D.C “that the jihad way is the way to liberate your land.” The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) notes that in 2000, Dr. Omeish personally hired the late al Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki to be the imam of the Falls Church, VA, Dar al-Hijrah mosque. According to an IPT analysis, more terrorists have been linked to Dar al-Hijrah since 9/11 than to any other mosque in America.
MPAC – Continuing Efforts Capitalize on the 9/11 Attacks
… focusing on Muslim victimhood tied to the Anniversary of the 9/11 Islamic terror attacks, is disgusting.
On September 14, 2021, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) will be hosting a forum entitled, “State of the American Muslim Civic Life: 20 Years after 9/11. MPAC describes it as:
… a timely discussion with Suhail A. Khan and Hamid M. Khan as we examine the reactive measures taken in the post-9/11 climate and their unintended consequences for American Muslims.
Suhail Khan is described by Discover the Networks as a “Covert Islamist who has infiltrated the conservative movement”. He has a long history of working within Republican Congressional offices and held several positions in the President George W. Bush’s administration. Khan is the son of Mahboob Khan, an early founder of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). According to a ISNA news item, Suhail Khan has served as an ISNA committee member. In 1999, Suhail Khan spoke at the ISNA conference praising his father, dedicating his life’s work to his father’s legacy and also pushing an Islamist agenda with frequent references to “The Ummah” – political Islam.
From The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch, regarding MPAC:
The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) was established originally in 1986 as the Political Action Committee of the Islamic Center of Southern California whose leaders had backgrounds suggesting they were associated with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. A 1989 US Muslim Brotherhood document introduced as evidence in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial refers to the last name of one of the MPAC leaders, Mather Hathout, in a list of “Islamic Centers and Groups in the field.”
MPAC has since developed into the political lobby arm of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and has opposed almost every counterterrorism action proposed or carried out by the U.S. government, often suggesting that the efforts were aimed at the U.S. Muslim community. MPAC has also acted to support a variety of Palestinian terrorist organizations as well as facilitating a wider range of terrorism by defending or justifying violence carried out by Islamic groups. Nevertheless, MPAC has developed particularly extensive relationships with agencies of the U.S. government including meetings with the Department of Justice and the FBI.
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COMMENT: The continued media events by groups such as MPAC and CAIR, focusing on Muslim victimhood tied to the Anniversary of the 9/11 Islamic terror attacks, is disgusting. To hijack the memory of almost 3,000 souls that were murdered, speaks volumes of the cold and calculated agenda behind these campaigns.
20 Years Later … Anger and Disgust
The original essay below is from 2013, 12 years after the 9/11/2001 Islamic terror attack. It focused on the anger I felt. I republished it again a year later. I was still angry. I’m writing this on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Islamic terror attacks on America. My anger is still there but it is accompanied by a growing disgust.
The loud and true cries of “never forget” have become distant echoes from the past, as 9/11 is referred to with non-threatening terms. I want to shake the “woke” and ever increasing politically correct crowd and shout that 9/11/2001 was when America suffered the largest terror attack in history. It was not just a “fateful day”. On that day almost 3,000 people were murdered by Islamic terrorists. They did not just “lose their lives”.
The visions I saw 20 years ago are as clear today as they were then.
I will relive the horror tomorrow.
I will never forget,
– CJ Ed.
Twelve Years Later … anger
From: Cultural Jihad – Published on: Sep 11, 2013 @ 9:15
“… an anger in knowing that those that attacked us on September 11, 2001 are realizing success in reaching their goals.”
It has been twelve years and as I sit and watch scenes from September 11, 2001, I feel anger.
An anger towards those that attacked my country. While the media focuses on ceremonies involving wreath laying and speeches at various memorials, the live footage of people jumping to their deaths from the Twin Towers remains fresh in mind.
Anger at those that supported the attacks. Foreign Islamist organizations and, specifically, the groups and mosques in the U.S. that provided logistical support to the Islamic terrorists that hijacked the aircraft and killed the thousands of souls in the name of Islam.
Anger at those that wish to sanitize what happened and whitewash history. We were attacked that day by Islamic terrorists as part of an Islamic jihad. News coverage of the “remembrance” makes no mention of this or even Al-Qaeda – we were simply attacked by generic terrorists. The anger builds listening to the politicians giving memorial speeches that never mention those responsible for the heinous attacks that shook this great nation. Somehow these politicians feel that “looking forward” and rebuilding will make us better Americans. They are sadly mistaken.
Anger toward those that seek appeasement. Whether it is the removal of training materials that Muslim’s find offensive or the inclusion of our enemies on government advisory boards, it is an anger in knowing that those that attacked us on September 11, 2001 are realizing success in reaching their goals.
My anger serves a purpose – I will never forget what happened that day.
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Cultural Jihad 
The Hamas Issue – an open book many ignore …
It’s been just over a month since the Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7, which killed over 1,400 Israelis in a display of barbarism that the modern world has not seen in a number of years. While most of the west was shocked by what happened, the goals of Hamas have never been a secret.
Here’s a quick refresher covering some salient points …
Hamas – the origins
A good starting reference can be found at the The Council on Foreign Relations website. It notes:
Hamas’ 1988 published charter openly calls for the destruction of Israel. In 2017, a new charter was published that used modern political language, indicating they were against Zionism and not the Jewish people. In 2019 Fathi Hamad, a ranking member of Hamas, gave a speech calling on Palestinians across the globe to carry out attacks against Jews …
Also read:
Hamas – funding
The main stream media is quick to mention Iran’s funding of Hamas, but this is only a fraction of their support. The “partnership” with Iran started in the early-mid 1990s but Hamas has a number of benefactors around the world. A 2014 report by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee of Foreign Affairs notes that Hamas receives a significant amount of financial and logistic support from Sudan, Syria, Qatar and Turkey. Indirectly, Hamas has historically been supported by Muslim Brotherhood groups. In the U.S this included the now defunct Holy Land Foundation (HLF), one the largest Islamic charities to be formed in the US. Established in 1992, the US government eventually designated HLF a terrorist organization in 2001. In 2009 the founders of the organization were given sentences of between 15 and 65 years in prison for “funneling $12 million to Hamas.” HLF was based in Richardson, TX – a Dallas suburb.
We’ve posted several items in the past regarding US groups funding Hamas, that have included:
Hamas – on campus
Since last month’s terror attack in Israel by Hamas, the media has reported on the growing number of pro-Palestinian demonstrations and increased antisemitism on US college campuses. Some pundits are almost confused as to the source, with one writing …
The source is not in question. Islamist activism on US college campuses has been ongoing for many years. In 1963, the Muslim Students Association (MSA) was incorporated at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Since then, the organization has spread to locations throughout North America.
Colleges and universities have always been a central part for Muslim Brotherhood operations. For decades, the Muslim Brotherhood has found American academia to be fertile ground to push it’s agenda with the Israeli/Palestinian issue frequently in the forefront. See the following posts:
The pro-Palestinian college activist group, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) was founded at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2001 and has over 200 chapters at American and Canadian universities. It’s activities are frequently linked with MSA chapters. In October 2019, Fox news ran a story highlighting a 96-page report by The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, titled “National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) and the Promotion of Hate and Anti-Semitism on the University Campus: The Threat to Academic Freedom” focusing on the claim that SJP “is a main driver of Jew-hatred on campus”.
SJP activities are frequently promoted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). From the website, Discover the Networks:
The The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch notes:
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