Anti-Semitism is on the rise at college campuses. From January to June 2016, 287 anti-Semitic incidents occurred on 64 campuses, an increase of 45% since the year before. Unfortunately, Stanford is no exception to this ugly trend. In Spring 2016, during an ASSU meeting, Senator Gabriel Knight spoke of “Jews controlling the media, economy, government and other societal institutions.” Disgusting centuries-old stereotypes have entered discourse at the Farm [Stanford].
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is, and will always be, divisive. Stanford students should have the right to express their opinions on either side of the issue. But one thing is clear: no student group should receive support from, or be linked to terrorism or violent actors. Support for physical aggression is unacceptable.
So Stanford should be horrified by recent revelations that chapters of the national organization Students for Justice in Palestine are coordinating with an affiliate of Hamas.
Last year, congressional testimony revealed SJP’s strong ties to American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). Several members of AMP were formerly members of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), which was dissolved after it was discovered in 2005 that the organization sent $12.4 million to Hamas. Following the dissolution of the HLF, several of the HLF’s Hamas financiers moved to AMP, which was founded in 2005.
As they have taken new positions with AMP, the Hamas-linked former members of the HLF have maintained their terrorist ties: a number of terrorist-affiliated individuals and entities appear on the AMP’s donor list. AMP is thus essentially operating as a Hamas front group here in the United States.
Alarmingly, AMP is also active on campuses throughout our country. AMP is a major source of funding and support for SJP: in 2014, it put $100,000 into campus efforts, and it routinely provides SJP with speakers, training, funds, and printed materials. Moreover, the testimony revealed that AMP “even has a campus coordinator on staff whose job it is to work directly with SJP and other pro-BDS groups across the country.” SJP’s close association with AMP, whose members are tied to terrorists, is sickening.
By collaborating with such an organization, SJP has essentially become another front group for Hamas, aiding its legitimacy by receiving funds and support from its affiliate, AMP. The BDS movement that SJP represents is, in the words of Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick, “part and parcel of the jihadist war against Israel whose goal is its annihilation.”
Hamas is evil, pure and simple. They are a genocidal terrorist organization that launches rockets into Israel, targets Israeli civilians through bombings, uses Palestinian civilians as human shields, and inspires Palestinians to kidnap and stab Israelis. They threaten the basic peace, safety, and well-being of Israelis and Palestinians alike.
It is incontrovertible that Stanford students should not fund the acts of terrorists and war criminals. Stanford’s SJP receives ASSU standard grants, meaning that students’ tuition dollars may be funding a group with terrorist ties. That possibility is intolerable.
Congressional testimony has shown that SJP groups on campuses across our country have demonstrable ties to AMP, and therefore, to Hamas. The ASSU must take serious steps to investigate the full extent of SJP’s sources of external support. Until that day, Stanford should not let Students for Justice in Palestine operate on our campus, use our buildings, or spend our students’ money.
Contributed by John Rice-Cameron, originally published at the Stanford Review