EXTREMISMPalestinian Youth Movement (PYM): Five Things to Know
The Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) is an anti-Zionist activist organization that expresses support for terrorism against Israel, promotes and engages in antisemitism, and frequently propagates inflammatory rhetoric about Zionism.
1. The Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) is an anti-Zionist organization whose members and affiliates have expressed support for terror — including the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led terror attack on Israel.
The Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) is an anti-Zionist activist organization that expresses support for terrorism against Israel, promotes and engages in antisemitism, and frequently propagates inflammatory rhetoric about Zionism.These include calls to demonize and ostracize Zionists — those who believe in the right of the Jewish people to self-determination and statehood in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel — from community spaces.
The organization has over a dozen chapters worldwide.
In statements, at events and rallies, and on social media, PYM and its affiliates have expressed concerning positions glorifying terror groups and figures, including on October 8, 2023, a day after the terror massacre across southern Israel. That day, PYM co-hosted a protest in New York City with the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) and other groups, where some PYM speakers and others praised Hamas’s actions. Following some backlash, PYM subsequently doubled down in its support for Hamas in a letter defending the protest: “As the organizers of this protest, we called on our communities in New York to rally behind a simple message: We stand with the Palestinian people. We defend their fundamental right to resist an illegal occupation, break out of their concentration camp, and defy the cruelty of the sixteen-year Zionist blockade.”
Two months later, at a December 2023 teach-in hosted at the Palestinian American Community Center (PACC) in New Jersey, a PYM speaker praised Hamas’s commitment to “the path of armed struggle as a legitimate path for total liberation” and its rejection of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which would have paved a path for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
At a March 2024 anti-Israel rally organized by PYM with the Cleveland Palestine Advocacy Community, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) and the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), protesters displayed a flag glorifying Abu Obaida, a Hamas spokesperson. An individual who was livestreaming the protest on PYM’s social media stated, “Abu Obaida is with us today! Thank you!”
