Dozens of American families who lost loved ones in the Oct. 7 attack near Gaza are pressing U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate the Students for Justice in Palestine organization. The families assert that SJP is violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), claiming that since Oct. 7, SJP members have been active across U.S. campuses, while being bankrolled by foreign entities and openly voicing support for Hamas’s deadly assault.
The families allege that SJP is violating FARA by operating as an unregistered proxy for Hamas on American college campuses. FARA legislation mandates that any entity engaged in political activities within the United States must register with American authorities and divulge the funding source for its activities.
SJP has orchestrated pro-Hamas rallies and “Apartheid Week” events. It has intensified an overt boycott against Israel, advocated for economic sanctions and established confrontational protest encampments on college grounds, among other initiatives.
In their correspondence, the families highlight that one of the most unsettling pro-Hamas actions disseminated by the organization was the “Resistance Day Toolkit,” circulated immediately following the Oct. 7 attack, offering guidelines on organizing demonstrations and distributing propaganda for Hamas.
“Students for Justice in Palestine is nothing more than an unregistered student branch of a foreign terrorist organization. They are Hamas’s agents of chaos in the United States,” stated Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, president of Shurat HaDin–Israel Law Center, who has represented hundreds of terror victims in legal actions against terror organizations and their supporters. “In blatant disregard of FARA, these radical students and propagandists have crossed every boundary and intend to persist in their illicit activities unchecked in the coming year.”
Darshan-Leitner further remarked: “The U.S. government must investigate this organization’s ties to terror groups in Gaza and their foreign funding sources in particular. Why are they covertly serving as a tool for Hamas while actively attempting to sway American public opinion and propagate incitement to violence without restraint?”
Originally appeared in Israel Hayom.
