EXTREMISMCampus Antisemitism Surges Amid Encampments and Related Protests at Columbia and Other U.S. Colleges
College campuses have been the site of many tense anti-Israel protests and antisemitic incidents since the start of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war that began with Hamas’s October 7, 2023 terrorist attack. Anti-Zionist student groups on over a dozen U.S. college and university campuses have established “encampments” in recent days to ostensibly protest Israel’s actions in Gaza and their academic institutions’ alleged “complicity” in those actions.
Anti-Zionist student groups on over a dozen U.S. college and university campuses have established “encampments” in recent days to ostensibly protest Israel’s actions in Gaza and their academic institutions’ alleged “complicity” in those actions. College campuses have been the site of many tense anti-Israel protests and antisemitic incidents since the start of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war that began with Hamas’s October 7, 2023 terrorist attack. These recent encampments and related protests in support of a “Popular University for Gaza” initiative have brought those tensions to a boiling point as protesters ramp up their activity to push universities to divest from Israel.
Several protesters, including those who are participating in the encampments or have demonstrated in support of the encampments, have expressed explicit support for Hamas terrorism and urged Hamas to commit further violence against Israel. Some protesters have also directly confronted Jewish students on and near campus, at times using antisemitic rhetoric. Many protestors have called for “Zionists” to be excluded from campus communities. The concerning actions and rhetoric that has often stemmed from the encampments only serves to further marginalize Jewish students as they already face a disturbing level of antisemitism on many of the impacted campuses.
Background
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters have played a key role in organizing many of these encampments. National SJP, the umbrella organization of these local chapters, put out a call to action on April 20, 2024, urging college students, staff and faculty to “join the Popular University” and “take back our institutions,” adding “we will seize our universities and force the administration to divest.” On April 22, National SJP released the “mission statement” of these “Popular University for Gaza” protests, writing:
· “…We as students will reclaim our power on campus—there will be no classes or compliance with our institutions so long as their shameless profiteering off of our genocide persists. Through the student movement for a popular university, we will transform our mass mobilization into sustained, tangible power…We will seize control of our institutions, campus by campus, until Palestine is free.”
In addition to SJP, numerous other campus and community anti-Zionist groups — many of which have played key roles in organizing anti-Israel protests since October 7 — have supported calls for college encampments.