[News] October 7 Survivors Sue Campus Protesters, Say Students Are “Hamas’s Propaganda Division”

[Anti-Imperialist News]

theintercept.com
<https://theintercept.com/2024/05/10/october-7-survivors-lawsuit-palestine-hamas-sjp-protests/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=The%20Intercept%20Newsletter>
October 7 Survivors Sue Campus Protesters, Say Students Are “Hamas’s
Propaganda Division”
Akela Lacy
May 10, 2024
------------------------------

*Survivors of the* October 7 attacks filed a lawsuit
<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24655997-amp-sjp-suit> in U.S.
federal court last week alleging links between Hamas and the
pro-Palestinian student groups leading nationwide protests against Israel’s
war on Gaza. The survivors claim the student groups are liable for monetary
damages because of the purported terrorism links.

“When someone tells you they are aiding and abetting terrorists —* believe
them*.” That’s the opening line the suit filed Wednesday against the
Palestinian advocacy groups American Muslims for Palestine and National
Students for Justice in Palestine, the umbrella group supporting student
organizers for Palestine, which supports more than 350 Palestine solidarity
groups, including more than 200 campus organizations across the country.

The lawsuit is part of a nationwide crackdown on pro-Palestine activism,
especially on campus. It was filed a day after police
<https://theintercept.com/2024/05/03/nyc-eric-adams-columbia-outside-agitator-al-arian/>
in New York City deployed
<https://theintercept.com/2024/05/07/columbia-protest-gaza-nypd-overtime-cost/>
militarized forces
<https://theintercept.com/2024/05/01/nyc-gaza-college-protests-police-outside-agitators/>to
remove students from campus encampments protesting the war on Gaza and
arrested
<https://theintercept.com/2024/05/06/columbia-student-protests-nypd-jail/>
hundreds.

Some or all of the nine plaintiffs in the suit are involved in a raft of
other civil suits related to the October 7 attacks. Among the defendants
they’ve pursued in court are major media organizations and United Nations
agencies.

The survivors of the October 7 attack alleged that American Muslims for
Palestine “serves as Hamas’s propaganda division in the United States.”

“Through NSJP, AMP uses propaganda to intimidate, convince, and recruit
uninformed, misguided, and impressionable college students to serve as foot
soldiers for Hamas on campus and beyond,” the October 7 survivors wrote in
their suit.

The lawsuits rely on anti-terrorism laws that made it possible to bring
civil cases for acts of international terrorism, including provisions
around bans on material support to terrorism that have long been
controversially applied. At the time of their passage, members of Congress
who pushed the anti-terror laws linked them directly to crackdowns on
pro-Palestine activities, according to a recent white paper
<https://ccrjustice.org/anti-palestinian-core-origins-and-growing-dangers-us-antiterrorism-law>
from the Center for Constitutional Rights and Palestine Legal.

“The goal is to isolate Palestinians.”

“For years, CCR and others have been warning of the abuse of broad
‘material support’ laws to shrink the space for Palestinian rights,” said
Diala Shamas, staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.

The group represented another Palestinian rights organization in what
Shamas said was “years-long, meritless litigation” brought by the Jewish
National Fund, a group that funds
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2016-09-22/ty-article/.premium/jnf-finally-releases-list-of-grantees-in-settlements/0000017f-e60f-dc7e-adff-f6af7c0e0000>
Israeli
settlements
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210218-jewish-national-fund-expands-settlement-influence-towards-west-bank/>
.

“The law’s provision of civil damages means that private actors — including
those with seemingly endless resources — can bog you down in costly and
distracting litigation,” Shamas said. “This means that Palestinians and
those who support their rights become ‘high risk’ — and those who they rely
on — charities, funders, banks or social media companies — are chilled from
further engagement. The goal is to isolate Palestinians.”
Four Survivor Lawsuits

The nine plaintiffs include six survivors of the October 7 Hamas attacks.
Five people attended the Supernova music festival, and another was attacked
at Zikim Beach, where 19 civilians were killed as Hamas militants tried to
overrun nearby military outposts.

Two other plaintiffs who were not home on October 7 had homes in Kibbutz
Holit, the site of additional Hamas attacks. Another plaintiff’s brother
was killed at the festival. (Lawyers for the plaintiffs, AMP, and SJP did
not respond to requests for comment.)

The AMP suit is the fourth federal suit filed this year by members of the
group.

Last month, eight of the same plaintiffs sued the cryptocurrency exchange
Binance, claiming that it gave material support to Hamas by allowing the
militant group to fundraise on the platform. In November, the Treasury
Department said <https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1925>
Hamas and “a range of illicit actors” had used Binance to funnel money to
their groups. Binance lawyers asked for an extension to reply to the
complaint and have until August
<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24657482-binance-extension> to do
so. In April, the company’s former chief executive was sentenced to four
months in prison after pleading guilty
<https://www.reuters.com/legal/binances-ceo-zhao-faces-sentencing-over-money-laundering-violations-2024-04-30/>
to money laundering violations.

Five of the plaintiffs in the American Muslims for Palestine suit also sued
<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24630671-ap-suit> the news agency
The Associated Press in February. The plaintiffs alleged that the AP used
photographs from “known Hamas associates who were gleefully embedded with
the Hamas terrorists during the October 7th attacks.” Lawyers for the AP
moved to dismiss
<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24657484-ap-motion-to-dismiss> the
complaint for failing to state a claim and asked to stay discovery
<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24657485-ap-motion-to-stay-discovery>
pending adjudication of the motion to dismiss.

In March, the same group of nine plus another October 7 survivor sued
<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24630783-unrwa-suit> the U.S.
committee of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNWRA, the
largest humanitarian organization operating in Gaza. The suit against UNRWA
claims that the group “financed and aided” Hamas, a frequent refrain from
Israeli officials that has gone unsubstantiated
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/22/israel-unrwa-staff-terrorist-links-yet-to-provide-evidence-colonna-report>,
according to an independent review released in April. UNRWA lawyers were
granted an extension and have until May 28
<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24657486-unwra-extension> to
respond to the complaint.

Following Israeli officials’ allegations, major donors initially cut
funding to UNRWA, but later reversed the decisions — except for the United
States, the group’s biggest donor, where Congress blocked funding
<https://theintercept.com/2024/03/22/gaza-unrwa-funding-congress/> as part
of the budget package approved this spring.

The major corporate law firm Greenberg Traurig has taken on the latest
case. The National Jewish Advocacy Center has taken on the three other
cases. The group did not respond to a request for comment.
[image: TOPSHOT - Pro-Palestinian students stand their ground after police
breached their encampment the campus of the University of California, Los
Angeles (UCLA) in Los Angeles, California, early on May 2, 2024. Police
deployed a heavy presence on US university campuses on May 1 after forcibly
clearing away some weeks-long protests against Israel's war with Hamas.
Dozens of police cars patrolled at the University of California, Los
Angeles campus in response to violent clashes overnight when
counter-protesters attacked an encampment of pro-Palestinian students.
(Photo by Etienne LAURENT / AFP) (Photo by ETIENNE LAURENT/AFP via Getty
Images)] Pro-Palestine students stand their ground against police at UCLA
in Los Angeles, early in the morning on May 2, 2024. Photo: Etienne
Laurent/AFP via Getty Images Crackdown on Student Groups

Student advocates for Palestine have faced concerted and sometimes violent
crackdowns by school administrators and police. Mainstream media outlets
uncritically repeat unsubstantiated claims that they support Hamas
<https://theintercept.com/2023/10/27/palestine-israel-free-speech-retaliation-senate/>
.

Students for Justice in Palestine chapters, which are at the center of much
campus organizing, have faced harsh censorship since October. The group was
singled out in congressional hearings that have pressured university
administrators to further crack down
<https://theintercept.com/2024/01/13/penn-palestine-writes-liz-magill/> on
Palestinian advocacy on campus.

Columbia University suspended its SJP chapter and its chapter of Jewish
Voice for Peace in November. The New York Civil Liberties Union and
Palestine Legal sued
<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24655990-nyclu-sjp-jvp-suit> the
university over the suspension in March in the New York Supreme Court. The
case is pending.

American University placed its SJP chapter on probation
<https://www.theeagleonline.com/article/2024/04/breaking-american-university-places-students-for-justice-in-palestine-chapter-on-disciplinary-probation>
in April after the group held a silent indoor demonstration; the school
banned indoor protests in January. Rutgers University suspended the SJP
chapter on its New Brunswick campus in December and claimed that the group
had protested in “nonpublic forums” and caused disruption on campus; the
suspension was lifted in January. (I am a co-teacher of a class at Rutgers.)

George Washington University suspended its SJP chapter in November after
the group projected statements onto a library building calling for the
university to divest from Israel. The projected images said GWU had blood
on its hands and used the phrase “Glory to our martyrs,” a cultural
reference to any Palestinian killed by Israel that was interpreted by
outsiders as an endorsement of Hamas.

Brandeis was the first private university to ban its SJP chapter in
November, claiming
<https://www.brandeis.edu/president/letters/2023-11-08-free-speech-not-hate-speech.html>
that the group “openly supports Hamas.”

State-level Republican officials have also taken steps to legalize the
suppression of SJP. In March, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott
<https://theintercept.com/2019/06/01/israel-texas-government-relationship/>
issued an executive order targeting campus activism, calling on all the
state’s higher education institutions to “review and update free speech
policies” to address antisemitism. The order defined the slogan “from the
river to the sea, Palestine will be free” as antisemitic and linked the use
of the widely adopted phrase to Hamas.

And in October, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered colleges to shut down all
SJP chapters. The University of Florida SJP chapter sued DeSantis in
November and said the governor’s order was a violation of free speech. A
federal court denied
<https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/federal-court-rules-florida-officials-do-not-intend-to-deactivate-university-of-floridas-students-for-justice-in-palestine>
the chapter’s request for a preliminary injunction in January and found
that Florida officials did not intend to deactivate all SJP chapters after
comments by the Florida University System chancellor walking back
DeSantis’s order.

In October, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares opened an investigation
<https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/jason-miyares-investigation-american-muslims-for-palestine-nov-1-2023>
into AMP and said his office had reason to believe that the organization
was soliciting contributions without proper registration. Miyares, a
Republican, had also called on state law enforcement agencies to
donate tactical
gear
<https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/gideons-armor-campaign-oct-24-2023>
to Israeli citizens.

Last week, Congress adopted a resolution
<https://theintercept.com/2024/05/08/american-democracy-israel-us-arabs/>
that would further chill speech from organizations like SJP. The resolution
employs a controversial definition
<https://theintercept.com/2023/06/06/antisemitism-definition-israel-palestine/>
of antisemitism that includes any attempts to draw comparisons between the
actions of the Israeli government and Nazis. The House voted 320 to 91 to
adopt the working definition of antisemitism published in 2016 by the
International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The lead author of the
definition has said
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/13/antisemitism-executive-order-trump-chilling-effect>
it “was never intended to be a campus hate speech code.”
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