Leading US-based anti-Israel activist groups, including Columbia University’s Apartheid Divest (CUAD) and Within Our Lifetime and heads like Mahmoud Khalil, had prior knowledge of the October 7 massacre, a Monday lawsuit by families of the Hamas-led attack’s victims alleged.
The lawsuit is seeking damages from activists aiding and abetting Gaza's terrorist organizations.
According to it, some groups, whom Hamas members reportedly saw as operatives, reactivated just before the massacre, and others issued protest and propaganda materials as the event unfolded in southern Israel.The suit was filed by the National Jewish Advocacy Center, the Schoen Law Firm, Greenberg Traurig LLP, and the Holtzman Vogel Law Firm at the Southern District Court of New York.
It was filed against Within Our Lifetime (WOL) and its leader, Nerdeen Kiswani, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and its representative, Maryam Alwan, Columbia-Barnard Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and its representative, Cameron Jones, CUAD, and Khalil.
The lawsuit is requesting compensation and punitive damages over the alleged coordination with Hamas and its affiliates in its “terror-by-propaganda strategy” and the purported provision of material to support the terrorist organization’s public relations operations.
Per the victims of the massacre involved in the litigation, the organizations had “prior knowledge of the October 7 attack” based on the timing of their public relations activity.
Also, according to one ex-hostage, Hamas captors described these groups as their operatives.
After months of dormancy, Columbia SJP allegedly reactivated its Instagram account “three minutes before Hamas began its attack on October 7,” announcing a meeting and stating that supporters should “stay tuned.”
Statement of support
Eighty-three SJP chapters, including Columbia’s, signed and disseminated a statement in support of Hamas at midnight at the end of the day of the attack, leading the suit to insinuate that the content must have been drafted, reviewed, and signed by dozens of organizations “before and/or during the events of October 7 themselves.”
The Bears for Palestine issued a solidarity statement honoring terrorists “working on the ground on several axes of the so-called ‘Gaza envelope’ alongside [its] comrades in blood and arms” and offered support for “the resistance in Gaza.” It added that the Hamas operation was a “revolutionary moment” in Palestinian “resistance.”
This statement was shared by the National SJP as an October 8, 2023, toolkit, which the suit asserted was disseminated to Columbia SJP, Columbia JVP, and WOL.
Then, nationwide October 12 rallies “included materials that appear to have been created before October 7,” according to the suit.
Day of resistance
The Day of Resistance Toolkit included October 7-themed graphics, one of which Kiswani allegedly published on Instagram on October 7 – a day before the toolkit was released.
“We must continue to resist directly through dismantling Zionism and wielding the political power that our organizations hold on our campuses and in our communities,” the toolkit read.
“We are asking chapters to host demonstrations on campus/in their community in support of our resistance in Palestine and the national liberation struggle – one which they play a critical role in actualizing [sic].”
The toolkit’s creators said that the Israeli victims of October 7 were not civilians because they were “settlers,” and that all forms of resistance, including “armed struggle,” were legitimate.
NSJP described its chapters as being part of a “unity intifada” movement for all Palestinian people and Gazan terrorist “factions” that appeared to be “participating under unified command.”
“We as Palestinian students are part of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement,” said NSJP. “This is a moment of mobilization for all Palestinians. We must act as part of this movement. All of our efforts continue the work and resistance of Palestinians on the ground.”
The suit alleged that Columbia SJP, Columbia JVP, CUAD, and WOL utilized the toolkit as part of their “direct response” to repeated Hamas calls for “mass mobilization” in the wake of October 7, including now-deceased Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s October 7 call to Muslims and Palestinians worldwide to “join this battle in any way they can.”
Last March, CUAD and WOL hosted a leading member of the NSJP, Samidoun International Coordinator Charlotte Kates, and her husband, Khaled Barakat, who is an alleged Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) senior official, in a Resistance 101 event.
During the event, Barakat said that Hamas, PFLP, and Islamic Jihad operatives told him they cared more about what American student supporters did than about the US president.
Shlomi Ziv's testimony
Plaintiff Shlomi Ziv, who was held hostage for 246 days before being rescued in an IDF operation, alleged that “Hamas captors bragged about having Hamas operatives on American university campuses” and showed him photographs of protests at Columbia University organized by the defendants.
The suit alleged that the defendants operated as Hamas’s public relations wing, supported by the terrorist group through shell organizations that were founded by Hamas leaders.
It detailed, echoing past suits by October 7 victims against NSJP, that Hamas had founded a group of support organizations in the US, including the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and the Islamic Association for Palestine. After the US government exposed the groups, it was alleged that the key members founded American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), which in turn created the National SJP, which serves as an umbrella organization for different chapters.
According to the lawsuit, the AMP controls and funds NSJP. Columbia SJP is a branch of SJP, and WOL is a rebranded New York City Students for Justice in Palestine. JVP works nationally as a partner of SJP, and the Columbia branch works closely with its local counterpart – so much so that the suit alleged that Khalil is the de facto president of both Columbia SJP and JVP.
The groups together allegedly used CUAD, a coalition of over a hundred groups, as a puppet to allow them to continue to operate on campus after they had been suspended in November 2023. The suit said that the CUAD social media accounts roused from dormancy after the groups had been banned. Immediately after Khalil’s March 8 arrest, CUAD’s social media accounts temporarily entered a lull of activity.
“Upon information and belief, and based upon statements made to plaintiff Shlomi Ziv by his Hamas captor, Hamas and AMP/NSJP provided financial, organizational, and other support to CUAD and the Columbia AMP/NSJP affiliates for the encampment,” read the suit.
The suit maintained that through organizational ties, answering the terrorists’ call to arms, and providing material support through the production and dissemination of pro-terrorist propaganda and advocacy, the defendants served as the public relations wing of Hamas.
The groups allegedly implemented the three-part Hamas grand strategy that works as follows: Terrorists conduct indiscriminate terrorist attacks against civilians to provoke a response that endangers Palestinian civilians who are used by Hamas as human shields. Either Israel cannot launch military actions due to concern about harming civilians, or the human shields are killed, which caters to Hamas’s propaganda goals. Hamas then manipulates the situation by using propaganda to demonize Israel, legitimize its efforts, and cast itself as the victim.
NSJP appeared to respond directly to a Hamas call for a global December 11 strike for Gaza, posting the same day on Instagram that they were striking “in solidarity with the Palestinian people as they demand a permanent ceasefire and a liberated Palestine free from colonial apartheid.”
Columbia SJP and JVP joined with a Barnard College protest, according to the Columbia Daily Spectator.In April, CUAD established the encampment on Columbia grounds that received backing from WOL in an attempt to pressure the academic institution into cutting all academic and financial connections with Israel.
Activists repeatedly declared support for the October 7 massacre during the several-week occupation of the campus.
This eventually expanded into the seizure of Hamilton Hall, where, according to the university, activists were breaking doors, “mistreating our public safety officers and maintenance staff, and damaging property.”
In January, CUAD activists disrupted a Columbia Israeli history class. When Barnard students were expelled for the incident, CUAD called for further disruptions and led two occupations of Barnard buildings. During the occupation of the Milstein Library, CUAD allegedly disseminated official Hamas pamphlets.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt referenced these pamphlets in a March 10 press briefing in which she said Khalil was arrested and had his green card revoked on March 8 for supporting Hamas.
Two IDF reservists studying at Columbia, who now count among the suit’s plaintiffs, argued that they had come back from fighting Hamas to find that their “affiliates” on their campus were causing mental anguish and suffering.Another Columbia student plaintiff said that she experienced emotional distress from pro-Hamas protests occurring outside her window, with demonstrators glorifying the people who wounded her IDF soldier brother.
These plaintiffs, along with US citizen Iris Weinstein Haggai, whose parents were taken by Hamas, brought their claim against the defendants under the Antiterrorism Act.
Plaintiff Talik Gvili, the mother of slain patrol officer and captive Ran Gvili, Roee Baruch, the brother of slain hostage Uriel Baruch, and James Poe, the father of murdered hostage Leo Poe, brought their claims against the defendants under the Alien Tort Statute for the aid provided in violation of the Law of Nations.
“This case gives voice to heretofore seldom spoken facts. JVP, WOL, CUAD, the Students for Justice in Palestine collective, and student leaders on campuses throughout the country are serving as instruments of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that hates the United States and the very values these anti-Israel college protesters claim to represent.
“The leadership of these campus protesters knowingly affiliates with those who applaud any form of physical, emotional, or economic harm that can be inflicted upon citizens of Western democracy,” the NJAC associate director, Ben Schlager, said in a statement.