Israeli victims of Hamas’s Oct. 7th terror spree are suing two anti-Israel campus groups, alleging they are partially liable for the attack due to their role “as collaborators and propagandists for Hamas.”
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. district court Wednesday, seeks damages for nine American and Israeli victims of Hamas’s unprecedented terror assault. It targets two campus umbrella groups—American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP)—that are responsible for fomenting a tidal wave of anti-Semitic protests on college campuses across the country.
The suit marks the first time terror victims are taking aim at campus anti-Israel groups for their alleged role in bolstering Hamas propaganda on campus and driving a series of increasingly violent protests that have endangered Jewish college students across the country.
“Survivors of Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack, family members of those murdered by Hamas, civilians still under fire from Hamas’s ongoing terrorism, and persons displaced by Hamas’s ongoing terrorism have been, and continue to be, injured because AMP and NSJP knowingly provide continuous, systematic, and substantial assistance to Hamas and its affiliates’ acts of international terrorism,” the lawsuit states.
In a joint statement, the terror victims and their families said the AMP and NSJP should be held legally liable for Hamas’s terror campaign and face expulsion from the United States.
“It is time that Hamas and all of its agents, like AMP and NSJP, be held responsible for their horrific actions,” they said. “We want to go on record to expose these groups for the terrorists they are and make certain that they are stopped from operating in the United States and other countries they infiltrate.”
Branches of SJP, which is overseen by AMP, have been responsible for a series of anti-Semitic protests on college campuses across the country, many of which have been punctuated by violence against Jewish students. Campus administrators at Columbia University, Harvard University, the University of California system, and many others have struggled in recent weeks to contain these protests, prompting Congress to launch anti-Semitism investigations.
The lawsuit alleges that both campus umbrella groups serve “as Hamas’s propaganda division in the United States”—and that they have fomented protests on campuses across the country to help the terror group achieve its goal of eradicating Israel.
“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 lawsuit states.
Just a day after Hamas carried out its raid on Israel, “AMP and NSJP were prepared and responded to Hamas’s ‘call for mass mobilization’ by disseminating a manifesto and plan of attack, which includes materials that appear to have been created before the attack,” according to the lawsuit.
Propaganda materials used by both groups and cited in the lawsuit identify the campus movements as members of an alleged “unity intifada” that is “governed by Hamas’s ‘unified command’ of terrorist operations in Gaza.”
“As part of Hamas’s movement, AMP and NSJP state that they seek ‘liberation,’ which they describe as a ‘real process that requires confrontation by any means necessary,’ including ‘armed struggle’ and other acts of violence,” according to the lawsuit.
This amounts to material support for terrorism, meaning that both groups can be held liable for Hama’s violence, the suit charges.
Arsen Ostrovsky, an attorney and CEO of the International Legal Forum, one of several groups supporting the lawsuit, said that NSJP “has effectively become the U.S. campus arm of Hamas.” The suit is jointly being handled by Greenberg Traurig, the National Jewish Advocacy Center, Schoen Law Firm, and Holtzman Vogel.
These groups are “directly aiding and abetting the terror group on American colleges, and facilitating the conditions necessary for Hamas to continue carrying out acts of terror and the holding of hostages, including American nationals,” Ostrosky said. “Enough is enough, we must bring to justice not only the perpetrators of the most heinous massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, but hold accountable all those who enable, support, and collaborate with them, like NSJP and AMP.”
