The Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at George Mason University recently posted a terrorist-style recruitment video to its Instagram account after the public research institution in Fairfax, Va., reinstated the anti-Israel group following a suspension.
In the video published on Aug. 24, a masked, keffiyeh-wearing activist using a voice modifier parrots Hamas talking points, saying into the camera that, “Over the past two years, the genocidal Zionist state of Israel has systematically bombarded, assaulted and starved the noble people of Gaza in an attempt to break their very spirit. Gazans are now in abject famine, with the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation weaponizing hunger and subjecting men and women to endless cruelty.”
The SJP member refers to the United States as the “belly of the beast” and “occupied Turtle Island,” an indigenous term for North America. He accuses academic institutions, including GMU, of “serving the U.S. war machine” and repressing pro-Palestinian student activism.
The video announces the group’s return just before the start of the fall semester at GMU, whose main campus is located about 20 miles west of Washington, D.C.
Call to action and messaging
“We call upon the students of George Mason University to join us in continuing the fight for Palestinian liberation. We have a moral obligation to carry on the legacy of our noble people, our steadfast prisoners and honorable martyrs,” the SJP member said.
“The spirit of resistance will not be quenched until we see full liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, with steadfastness and confrontation,” he stated.
The phrase “from the (Jordan) River to the (Mediterranean) Sea” is widely interpreted as a call to replace Israel in its entirety with Palestine. The video makes no mention of the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which saw the murder of 1,200 people and the kidnapping of 251 more and started the Jewish state’s war against the terror organization in the Gaza Strip.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, the song accompanying the video praises Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’s terrorist army, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza on July 13, 2024.
Hamas is a proscribed foreign terrorist organization in the United States.
Previous suspension and campus incidents
GMU confirmed to the Free Beacon on Aug. 26 that the SJP chapter has been reinstated following a suspension last year.
The suspension came after police found weapons and the flags of terrorist groups at the home of two student members of the university’s SJP chapter, sisters Jena and Noor Chanaa. The search of the sisters’ family home on Nov. 7, 2024, followed investigations into a vandalism incident on Aug. 28, 2024. The sisters are suspected of leading a group of student radicals in defacing Wilkins Plaza outside the GMU’s student center, spray-painting messages warning of an impending “student intifada.” The group caused thousands of dollars in damage, according to the Free Beacon.
The university suspended the SJP chapter and issued a trespass order on Nov. 8, barring the Chanaa sisters from campus for four years. The suspension terms allowed SJP to re-register as a student organization for the fall 2025 semester, and a GMU spokesperson confirmed that SJP is now a registered student group.
University and legal response
“The student organization Students for Justice in Palestine served out its university-imposed suspension after having been found responsible for violating university policy,” spokesman John Hollis told the Free Beacon. “The organization has since regained status as a registered student organization and, like all registered student organizations, is subject to all university and student conduct policies.”
Hollis told the conservative news outlet that the university is aware of the recruitment video and has referred it to Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares’s office, stating that school officials will meet with the SJP chapter.
“The university has been made aware of the newly posted SJP video and is requesting an evaluation from the Virginia AG’s office on whether the video is protected speech,” Hollis said. “University officials are meeting with the student organization to reinforce university policy and communicate a zero-tolerance enforcement approach.”
The video is the latest challenge for the largest public research university in Virginia, which has an enrollment of nearly 40,000 students.
Additional security and federal investigations
An Egyptian national, who is a GMU freshman with reported ties to ISIS, was arrested on Dec. 17, 2024, in Falls Church, Va., and charged with planning a terror attack on the Israeli Consulate General in New York. The university reportedly banned Abdullah Ezzeldin Taha Mohamed Hassan from campus. The case is unrelated to that of the Chanaa sisters.
The Trump administration has also targeted GMU, opening several investigations into hiring practices and potential discrimination. The U.S. Department of Education opened a Title VI investigation into the university on July 10 for alleged discrimination based on race in its hiring practices. The department opened a separate Title VI investigation into the university on July 1 amid allegations it failed to respond to antisemitic discrimination and allowed a hostile environment toward Jewish students and faculty after Oct.7—an environment that continued through the 2024-2025 school year.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced on July 22 that it is investigating the university over admissions practices, examining whether the university discriminated against students based on race or national origin in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
University president’s response to antisemitism
The Free Beacon revealed in July that Gregory Washington, president of GMU, refused to condemn antisemitism after the Oct. 7 attacks, as requested by a group of faculty members, and did not publicly denounce SJP’s use of the term “from the river to the sea” because Miyares told him it is protected speech. This was despite speaking out against Islamophobia after three Palestinian college students were shot in Vermont on Nov. 25, 2023, in an incident that did not result in hate crime charges.
