Pro-Hamas Group Behind Targeting of LA Synagogue Joins Columbia Students for Protest at Barnard College

Columbia University’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter, a group responsible for the demonstrations that roiled the campus in the final weeks of this past academic year, held on Wednesday a protest at Barnard College in New York City with a pro-Hamas group that helped organize a violent anti-Israel riot on the streets of Los Angeles this past weekend.

“We demand full amnesty for our Barnard comrades!” the group said in a social media post announcing the latest demonstration, which called on school officials to revoke expulsions meted out to students who illegally occupied or damaged school property and to halt any other disciplinary proceedings.

Only about 20 people showed up for Wednesday’s protest, according to footage of it — a far cry from the hundreds who SJP drew to the New York City area earlier in the year. Walking in circles, the group chanted, “Long live Hind’s Hall, every fascist state will fall,” a reference to the new anti-Zionist song by rap artist Macklemore, who in 2014 appeared on stage in a costume depicting an antisemitic caricature of a Jewish person wearing a beard and a large prosthetic nose. He later denied that he intended to cause harm, saying the outfit was a “random” choice. The title of his new song, “Hind’s Hall,” is a reference to Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall, the building that anti-Israel protesters broke into, occupied, and attempted to rename in April.

Earlier this week, Documenting Jew Hatred on Campus, an online group which tracks antisemitism in higher education, noted that SJP listed Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) as a “collaborator” of the event.

On Sunday, PYM’s Los Angeles chapter helped organize a demonstration which, it claimed, was an attempt to prevent a real estate auction event at the Adas Torah synagogue in the heavily-Jewish Pico-Robertson area of Los Angeles. The demonstration was based on the false premise that a local real estate agency was “marketing homes in ‘anglo neighborhoods’ in effort to further occupy Palestine.”

The demonstrators waved Palestine flags and donned keffiyehs while blocking entry into the building. Many of them also covered their faces in an apparent attempt to avoid identification, chanting “intifada revolution” and “free Palestine” in front of the synagogue while intimidating bystanders.

The scene quickly descended into complete chaos and violence. Anti-Israel activists were recorded shoving, punching, and screaming at pro-Israel counter-protesters attempting to defend the synagogue. In one instance, a Jewish woman was shoved to the ground and stomped on by pro-Palestinian activists. Another video showed two anti-Israel demonstrators cornering a woman carrying an Israeli flag, ignoring demands to “get off” her.

“Racist settler expansionists are not welcome in Los Angeles! This blatant example of land theft is operating in our own backyard,” PYM said in a social media post stating its intentions. “The Nakba is ongoing and must be confronted.”

Many Palestinians and anti-Israel activists use the term “Nakba,” or “catastrophe,” to refer to the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.

PYM’s brazen targeting of Jews alarmed Jewish leaders and lawmakers, prompting responses from leading California politicians such as Gov. Gavin Newsom as well as US President Joe Biden.

Founded — according to Influencer Watch — as a project of Westchester People’s Action Coalition (WESPAC) sometime in 2011, PYM is a pro-Hamas group which has spread anti-Zionist agitprop, lobbied members of Congress to enact anti-Israel policies, and attempted to foster insurrection in the US by rallying support for terrorism and opposing development of infrastructure projects such as the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Columbia SJP’s partnership with the group, which is planning to “shut down” Washington, DC in July, has deployed increasingly extreme rhetoric and tactics since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in October. Last month, it endorsed Hamas, calling it “the only force materially fighting back against [Israel].” The group’s behavior, which is the subject of a lawsuit filed by the StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice (SCLJ), after Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel included beating up Jewish students, chanting antisemitic slogans, and stealing missing persons posters of Israelis who were abducted by Hamas.

The SCLJ complaint alleges that after bullying Jewish students and rubbing their noses in the carnage Hamas wrought on their people, the pro-Hamas students were still unsatisfied and resulted to violence. They assaulted five Jewish students in Columbia’s Butler Library and another attacked a Jewish students with a stick, lacerating his head and breaking his finger, after being asked to return missing persons posters she had stolen.

Following the incidents, pleas for help allegedly went unanswered and administrators told Jewish students they could not guarantee their safety while SJP held its demonstrations. The school’s apparent powerlessness to prevent anti-Jewish violence was cited as the reason why Students Supporting Israel (SSI), a recognized school club, was denied permission to hold an event on self-defense. Events with “buzzwords” such as “Israel” and “Palestine” were forbidden, administrators allegedly said, but SJP continued to host events while no one explained the inconsistency.

The explosion of end-of-year protests held by SJP forced Columbia officials to shutter the campus in April and institute virtual learning. Later, the group occupied Hamilton Hall, forcing President Minouche Shafik to call on the New York City Police Department (NYPD) for help, a decision she hesitated to make. According to The Columbia Spectator, over 108 arrests were made.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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