National Students for Justice in Palestine is a pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel advocacy group which creates student activism on college campuses. Its efforts include protesting Jewish speakers, supporting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and supporting student groups which back the BDS movement. ^{[1] [2]} Students for Justice in Palestine claims to be an independent, grassroots organization. ^[3] However, the left-of-center Jewish watchdog group Anti-Defamation League has alleged the group has received significant support from the radical Palestinian organization American Muslims for Palestine and that it was co-founded by American Muslims for Palestine’s founder and board chairman, Hatem Al Bazian. The League also reports that Students for Justice is a “primary” organizer of anti-Israel boycotts and other activities on U.S. college campuses. ^{[4] [5]} A 2019 report by the Study of Global AntiSemitism and Policy showed that the organization frequently supports alleged and convicted terrorists. ^[6] The group’s leadership and financials are not publicly disclosed.

Positions

National Students for Justice in Palestine had its first gathering in 2010, though the Anti-Defamation League reports that its roots began a decade earlier. ^[7] As of 2018, it claimed to have over 200 chapters. It claims to oppose anti-Semitism and describes Palestinians as being under an “occupation” since Israel’s creation in 1948. ^[8]

The group compares Israel to the Nazi German regime and its treatment of Palestinian minorities to the Jim Crow-era United States’ treatment of black Americans. ^[9] It also organizes an annual “Israel Apartheid Week” named after the racist South African government of the 20th century. The March 2020 conference language accused Israel of engaging in domestic and international repression towards, and supporting genocide of, minorities. ^[10]

Students for Justice’s 2019 annual conference endorsed the existence of a Palestinian state outside “a Zionist framework.” The conference material also endorsed U.S. Representatives Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN). Both Members of Congress have expressed varying levels of support for the BDS movement and have been accused of anti-Semitism. ^{[11] [12]}

Students for Justice in Palestine and its campus chapters periodically issue statements about other issues in American politics. A statement endorsing Black Lives Matter claimed there are efforts to create “erasure to Black communities in the US and around the world.” ^[13] The group has condemned President Donald Trump’s ban on immigration from a number of Muslim-majority nations and Trump’s 2019 Executive Order which extended protections in the 1964 Civil Rights Act to ethnic Jews. ^{[14] [15]}

Controversies

One of the group’s most controversial methods of activism is giving “eviction notices” to college students. These notices are posted by campus chapters without permission on students’ doors in on-campus and off-campus housing. ^[16] They falsely proclaim that demolition of homes will take place within days, and at Emory University the flyers claimed that Israel destroys Palestinian homes “to ethnically cleanse the region of its Arab inhabitants and maintain an exclusively ‘Jewish’ character of the state.” ^[17] The New York University Chapter of Students for Palestine was suspended for this activity in 2014. ^[18] Organizers of a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter which was denied club status as Fordham University sued to gain official status. The group was rejected because of concerns about anti-Semitism. ^[19] A judge ruled in 2019 that the private Catholic institution must allow the group to exist equally to other student groups, including the opportunity to receive university money and use university space. ^[20]

Affiliations

National Students for Justice in Palestine claims to be a grassroots organization with loose internal structure. ^[21] However, the Anti-Defamation League reports that the group is closely affiliated with the American Muslims for Palestine, including coordination and founding by American Muslims for Palestine founder and board chairman Hatem Al Bazian. ^[22] The Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy reports that American Muslims for Palestine and the U.S. Palestinian Community Network facilitated the first national convention of Students for Justice in Palestine chapters in 2010. ^[23]

Students for Justice is also assisted by the left-leaning, New York-based WESPAC Foundation, formally known as the Westchester People’s Action Committee Foundation. Based and focused around Westchester, New York, the Foundation is the student group’s fiscal sponsor. ^[24] In 2016, WESPAC’s support for Students for Justice in Palestine included fundraising, back-office support, and managing funds for the national conference. A spokesperson for WESPAC said the relationship had been ongoing since 2011 or 2012. ^[25] WESPAC supports the BDS movement. ^[26]

Hatem Al Bazian

Hatem Al Bazian is the founder and president of both American Muslims for Palestine and Americans for Justice in Palestine. He also founded National Students for Justice in Palestine when he established the group’s first chapter at the University of California, Berkeley in 2001. ^[27]

Earlier in his career, Bazian was a fundraiser for a pro-Palestinian organization called KindHearts, which had its assets frozen by the federal government amid allegations that it provided “support for terrorism behind the façade of charitable giving,” specifically for allegedly providing aid to the terrorist organization Hamas. ^[28] KindHearts resisted the allegations, eventually closing its doors while the federal government paid its legal fees and removed the group from its terrorist list. ^[29]

In 2019, Bazian accused Israel of having an “apartheid” view of Israelites, a reference to the racist South African government of the 20th century. ^[30] A December 2018 post on his personal site blamed Israel for various assaults in Lebanon and Gaza, not mentioning that Islamist terrorist groups engaged in military action which predated several of the attacks. ^[31]

Bazian has involved in academia since at least 2002. He co-founded the first accredited Muslim liberal arts college in the U.S. ^[32] He is a senior lecturer at the taxpayer-funded University of California, Berkeley. ^[33] He lectures on race, Palestinian issues, Arab-related studies, and colonial-related studies. ^[34]