Looking at the goals and rhetoric of SJPs nationally, the ceasefire reached between Israel and Hamas on Oct. 9 should have been met with celebration. Instead, the Mizzou Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Missouri have continued their pattern of perpetrating hatred toward the pro-Israel and Zionist students on campus, forcing the question of whether or not this really was the end they were hoping for.
It’s because of these realities that the members of this organization and the campus community must take a serious look at the actions of this group. MSJP showed that they’re not interested in protecting Palestinians, but instead share the ideals and goals of Hamas. The fact that my campus and the wider community are not outraged by their continued legitimacy is concerning.
The day the ceasefire was announced was when millions of people released a breath they had been holding for two years. Finally, our 48 remaining hostages were to be returned to us and there would be peace in the region once more.
Mainstream pro-Palestinian outlets didn’t take long to revert back to claiming Israel was the perpetrator of actions it didn’t commit. This trend was seen throughout the world, even on my university campus in Columbia, Missouri.
MSJP, through their actions over the last two months, have proved that they are not the activist group they claim to be. Rather, they’re a hate group perpetrating actions against Jewish and Zionist students.
Beginning on Oct. 7, MSJP began a barrage of chalking incidents in the free speech area on campus, Speaker’s Circle. These demonstrations continued throughout the next three weeks, with the last incident on Oct. 27.
Almost every day, their members would pick different erroneous claims to write, blaming Israel for “violating the ceasefire 47 times” or claiming one child is killed by Israel every 52 minutes.
Knowing Hamas was the one to violate the ceasefire through their refusal to return all hostages in the time allotted, and the fact that the death toll is known to be inflated by Hamas leaders themselves, these lies are easily debunked.
On Oct. 9, the day the ceasefire was announced, MSJP wrote “from the river to the sea,” in Speaker’s Circle, calling for the removal of the people between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea – the entirety of Israel.
Having violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act due to discrimination based on national origin, the university removed this section.
The main reason these incidents are important is because they finally prove that the self-styled “pro-Palestinian” movement was not pro-anything, but actually just anti-Israel.
Instead of celebrating what was their goal for the past two years, MSJP took a different route. They tried to once again blame Israel, and wrote genocidal messages in the center of our college campus.
In the last decade of being a recognized student organization, MSJP has proved their place on campus. There have been 14 incidents of antisemitism since 2015, ranging from bringing in speakers to delegitimize Zionist students, to drawing swastikas and genocidal messages.
If there were any other group of students who had experienced over a dozen incidents against them in a 10-year period, there would be outrage. Why is it that when the hate is directed towards Jewish students it’s somehow okay?
Seeing MSJP’s actions, the question remains: why do my peers see a group which perpetrates hatred and not be outraged, simply because it may not target them specifically?
To bring the question even further, why do the members themselves not see what they are truly doing on our campus? Their need to feel righteous blinds them to the realities of the situation – that their actions break the norms of a campus community and create an environment of bullying, hatred, and hostility for the small minority of Jewish and Zionist students at Mizzou. Over the last decade, and more notably the last two months, this organization has acted in ways that the pro-Israel community has not and will not reciprocate.
The mission of MSJP needs to be reevaluated by its own members and the wider community. What they stand for must be restated: is it pro-Palestinian or antizionist? If the reality is that they are just antizionists hiding behind a pro-Palestinian facade, their legitimacy as a recognized organization on campus should be questioned.
Until the time they decide to join us in genuine dialogue and a path towards peace, this group should be treated as the violent hate group their actions reveal them to be.
Now that MSJP has shown the realities of who they are, it’s time the administration, students, and community take a good look at them. To scrutinize their actions is just the beginning. The time to denounce and delegitimize this organization on college campuses has come.
This article was originally published in The Times of Israel Blogs
