The lawsuit filed in the United States on Monday against anti-Israel groups that allegedly have aided Hamas on campus returned the focus back to campus activists and their ties to the Palestinian terrorist group.
This is because “Within Our Lifetime” is not the first group to be sued for ties to Palestinian terrorist organizations, particularly Hamas, in recent years.
Within Our Lifetime (WOL)
WOL leader Nerdeen Kiswani is a Palestinian-American who was born in Jordan.
She was involved in the establishment of New York City’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) in 2015, forming a coalition of chapters across the City University of New York schools.
NYC SJP then evolved into WOL in 2018.
October 7th has always been a day against Nazism, and now it’s counterpart Zionism! Long live resistance against Nazism, Zionism, white supremacy, and all forms of genocide, settler colonialism, and fascism! Long live October 7th! https://t.co/LSd9dbki3H
— Nerdeen Kiswani (@NerdeenKiswani) October 8, 2024
Last October 8, Kiswani posted on X/Twitter: “October 7th has always been a day against Nazism, and now it’s counterpart Zionism!” She compared Palestinian “resistance” to a Jewish revolt in Auschwitz-Birkenau that occurred on October 7, 1944.
In June 2024, WOL commemorated the massacre at the Supernova music festival by setting off flares, waving Hamas flags, and displaying banners with messages that read, “Long live October 7” and “The Zionists are not Jews and not humans.”
American Muslims for Palestine (AMP)
AMP was established in 2006 by Hatem Bazian, a lecturer at University of California, Berkeley. It is currently based in Chicago and has eight active chapters nationwide, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
AMP has “promulgated antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish control of the government,” and it has expressed admiration for Hamas and Hezbollah, ADL reported.
AMP’s roots lie with the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), which “disseminated information/propaganda for Hamas,” according to the US government.
IAP founders in 1981 included Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, who became chairman of Hamas’s political bureau in 1992-1996 and then deputy chairman in 2013. Khaled Mashal and Ismail Haniyeh took over these positions from Marzook.
Marzook controversially admitted in a February 2025 interview with The New York Times that if he had known the destruction that would be brought on Gaza because of the October 7 massacre, he would have never agreed to it.
Despite IAP having officially dissolved in 2004, IAP leaders have engaged in AMP activism, including Osama Abuirshaid, AMP’s current executive director; and Rafeeq Jaber, a former AIP president who has spoken at AMP events; as well as others, ADL reported.
AMP maintains strong ties with SJP, which Bazian also helped found in the 1990s, ADL said.
In a December 2014 Facebook post, Abuirshaid praised Hamas on the terrorist group’s 27th anniversary.
“A distinction is made... between those who form an army for liberation, and those who prepare battalions of agents [for Israel]... a difference between those who avenge the blood of their martyrs, and those who pour [that blood] into Israeli wine glasses,” he wrote, comparing Hamas’s attitudes to those of the Palestinian Authority.
Salah Sarsour, an AMP board member, was directly implicated in Hamas activity in the West Bank in the 1990s.
According to a 2001 FBI memorandum, Jamil Sarsour was arrested in 1998 for funding Hamas and telling investigators that his brother Salah was involved in funding Hamas through fundraising for the Holy Land Foundation (HLF).
Salah Sarsour was also arrested and imprisoned by Israel for eight months in 1995 for supporting Hamas. Jamil Sarsour said his brother had become close with the West Bank commander of Hamas’s Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades.
National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP)
After the October 7 massacre, the National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) described Hamas’s massacre as “a historic win for Palestinian resistance,” calling for “not just slogans and rallies, but armed confrontation with the oppressors,” the ADL reported.
NSJP openly receives financial support from AMP, the report said.
“While there is no hard evidence of direct financial ties to terror groups, NSJP and terrorist organizations have expressed rhetorical support for one another,” ADL reported.
NSJP released a “Day of Resistance” guidebook in which it made clear its pro-Hamas stance and support for the terrorist group to “completely liberate” all Israeli land.
The guidebook also called for SJP chapters to bring “resistance” to the US by “challenging Zionist hegemony” and “dismantling Zionism” on campuses.
In April 2024, a report by the UK’s Daily Mail found that Columbia University’s SJP chapter had received more than $3 million a year in funding from “charities” that are linked to Hamas terrorists.
In May 2024, Columbia’s SJP’s Telegram account shared a video of Hamas members, adding a caption that read: “These men will never be defeated.”
Holy Land Foundation (HLF)
The Holy Land Foundation, which was previously known as the Occupied Land Fund, was also founded by Abu Marzook along with other Hamas-linked Palestinians.
In 1994, HLF was placed under FBI surveillance and designated as a terrorist organization in its own right in December 2001.
This was due to investigations by Washington, which found that HLF’s “charitable donations” to Palestinians included organizations in the West Bank that paid stipends to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers and Hamas prisoners, with Hamas being in direct control of these organizations.
In 2004, a US magistrate judge ruled that both HLF and IAP were liable for the 1996 murder of a teenager in Israel.
In 2008, five senior HLF members were sentenced to long prison terms. Former CEO Shukri Abu-Baker was sentenced to 65 years in prison. Ghassan Elashi, who also founded the Texas branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), was also sentenced to 65 years in prison.
Mufid Abdulqader was sentenced to 20 years. Abdulrahman Odeh and Mohammad El-Mezain, the former endowments director, were each sentenced to 15 years in prison.
הצגת פוסט זה באינסטגרם
Then-president Joe Biden pardoned Abdulqader on December 12, 2024.
Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD)
CUAD, a coalition of far-left and anti-Israel student activist organizations, led many of the post-October 7 massacre protests at Columbia University.
CUAD, like most anti-Israel organizations, sees the entirety of Israel as an illegitimate project, not limiting their designs to the Green Line.
The group was notably formed after Columbia University suspended SJP and Jewish Voice for Peace in November 2023.
In an October 17 Substack article commemorating the October 7 massacre, CUAD said it would “not stop demonstrating until Zionism ends.”
CUAD believes that Israel cannot survive without US support and concluded in a November 7 article that “we cannot separate the struggle in support of a free Palestine with the struggle against US imperialism.”
CUAD on November 7 also described Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as a “brave man” who will live in the hearts of many. It praised the October 7 massacre as “Sinwar’s crowning achievement,” because “Al-Aqsa Flood was the very essence of what it is to resist ‘with what we have.’”
Besides Sinwar, the arch-terrorists of Hamas and Hezbollah are the icons of CUAD, with the group mourning the death of Haniyeh.
In April 2024, Columbia University banned a senior member of CUAD, Khymani James, for comments made about how he would “fight to kill” against a Zionist.
Michael Starr contributed to this report.