How to make your campus Palestinian

CHICAGO — It’s the day after Thanksgiving, but about 50 American college students aren’t with their families, watching football or trying to score a Black Friday deal. They’re sitting in a conference room in the Chicago suburb of Tinley Park, trying to figure out how they would deal with an Israeli official visiting their campus.

And they turned it into a competition between two teams: women against men. A woman in a purple hijab named Jenin Alharithi leads the game. She presses the timer on her phone and tells the group that they have five minutes to “strategize.”

“A war criminal is coming to your campus,” said Alharithi, a recent graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago. “What are you going to do?”

A woman in a green chiffon hijab is the first to speak out, saying students should protest, starting by recruiting demonstrators on the secure messaging app Telegram.

“I think we should demand international justice,” she said, spreading her hands as she imagined the words on a poster. “And add an ’emergency rally’ to the school Telegram group.”

Then a young woman with dark curls speaks. She says it is important to reject any accusations of anti-Semitism, which is why she would enlist the group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) to take part in the protest. The Anti-Defamation League describes the JVP as a “radical” organization “working to eradicate Zionism and boycott Israel.” The group has more than 25 chapters across the country; Last spring, Columbia University banned its department for using “threatening rhetoric and intimidation” at events on campus.

“The first complaint will be, ‘Oh, that’s anti-Semitic,'” the woman said, explaining the protest. “I think we need a JVP or something with Jewish people. We want white people there, Jewish students.”

This exercise, called the “Crisis Room,” was part of the program for college students at the 17th Annual Palestine Conference – the largest gathering of its kind in the United States, attended by thousands last weekend. The event is hosted by American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), a nonprofit organization that is currently facing a House investigation over allegations that it has “significant ties to Hamas.” The purpose of the conference, which attracts Palestine supporters from across the country, is to “strengthen their base,” according to Jon Schanzer, a former terrorist financing analyst at the U.S. Treasury Department.

“There is evidence that AMP has recently helped fuel the anti-Israel movement that is engulfing college campuses,” Schanzer told me. In fact, the group’s executive director, Osama Abuirshaid, was seen speaking to student activists at Columbia and George Washington universities last spring. Abuirshaid, whom federal authorities had previously classified as a “known or suspected terrorist,” told Columbia University students: “This is not just a genocide being committed in Gaza – this is also a war against us here in America.” Less 48 hours later, he appeared at George Washington’s camp and told a crowd of keffiyeh-clad students: “Zionism is no less evil than white supremacy.”

This year’s Palestine Convention also featured speakers including AMP board member Salah Sarsour, who was arrested by Israel in 1995 and jailed for eight months for supporting Hamas, and Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations last year said he was “happy to see” Hamas carry out its Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people.

Schanzer, who testified before Congress about AMP in 2016, said that over the last decade the group has invested “great effort and, as far as we can tell, no small amount of money, into training the next generation of activists” on behalf of the Palestinian cause. He added that the group “has done a lot to get people to support Hamas.”

I bought a two-day ticket to Congress to find out how the movement is preparing American college students for the next wave of anti-Israel protests.

Check out Olivia’s coverage of the event here:

The convention’s program for college kids is called the “Campus Activism Track” and included sessions on the following topics:

• “Make Your Campus Palestinian,” which taught how to “amplify the voices of Palestinian students and communities” on college campuses. Former student activists, including from DePaul and Loyola universities in Chicago, shared strategies on how to “counter anti-Palestinianism.”

• The “Know Your Rights” session was attended by Rifqa Falaneh, an associate at Palestine Legal who specializes in defending student protesters. Falaneh previously led the DePaul chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, the widely banned campus group that receives financial support from AMP. Included is Youssef Hasweh, a former University of Chicago student who was initially denied a degree after he became a prominent participant in his school’s camp last spring.

• “Bringing Activism to Professionalism,” where students heard speakers describe “how they have incorporated Palestinian activism into their craft.” Guests included Ashraf Al-Mashharawi, a producer with credits at AlJazeera as well as a pharmacist, a software engineer and an English teacher at a nearby public school.

In a session called “In Front of the Lens,” speakers taught college students how to write a press release and handle “tricky questions” from reporters about whether they “support terrorism.” A girl with a keffiyeh on her head tried to answer that question by telling the crowd, “I would say, ‘No, I don’t support terrorism,’ and then I went into the things that Israel does – I would “I do not support the expulsion of innocent Palestinians, I do not support the shooting of Palestinian children.” ”

She continued: “You don’t want them to put you on the defensive. You have to bet them on defense.” Students enrolled at Saint Xavier University, DePaul University, Loyola University and other Midwestern colleges nodded in agreement.

Meanwhile, in a plenary session titled “Criminalizing Palestinian Solidarity: The Age of the New McCarthyism,” Falaneh thanked the young activists in the crowd for their role in advancing the pro-Palestine movement.

“They are at the forefront of the liberation movement,” she said of the student demonstrators. “The students are the ones who face these neoliberal Zionist institutions.”

Falaneh added that her firm, Palestine Legal, has received more than 900 requests for legal assistance “related to campus repression” since January.

“These numbers show that while the Palestinian liberation movement is becoming more violent, the oppression is also becoming more violent,” Falaneh said.

“You know, a lot of people sit around and say what the students are doing: ‘May was crazy, April was great with the camps and so on.’ Look at what the students are doing.’ But it’s like, “No, my friend, what are?” You do? How do you support the liberation movement?’ ”

Olivia Reingold is a reporter for The Free Press. Follow her on X @Olivia_Reingold and read her piece “Camping Out at Columbia’s Communist Coachella.”

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