SJP and other prominent anti-Israel groups will assemble in Times Square ‘against Zionism’
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the pro-Hamas campus group, is sponsoring a mass protest in New York City to honor Iran’s International Quds Day—the sort of demonstration that Hamas itself encouraged its international supporters to organize in opposition to Israel.
SJP’s national affiliate and a host of other prominent anti-Israel groups—including the Muslim Action Committee, Code Pink, and Medical Students for Justice in Palestine—will assemble Friday in Times Square “in support of Palestine” and “against Zionism,” according to promotional materials posted online.
In doing so, SJP and its American allies are heeding calls from Iran and Hamas. In a Thursday message published by Tehran’s state-controlled media, Hamas urged its global supporters “to mobilize on the upcoming Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to defend Gaza, al-Quds, and Al-Aqsa, support our people’s resilience, reject the occupation’s crimes … and to condemn the U.S. support for these atrocities.”
SJP and its American backers are doing just that. The rally in New York City, they say, “demonstrates the unity, will, and power of those seeking justice in the face of arrogant imperialist powers today.” Quds Day is traditionally celebrated each year by Iran and its terror allies in the Middle East, which use the so-called holiday as a vehicle to export their extremist ideology across the globe.
SJP’s central role in organizing Quds Day activities domestically reflects the group’s continued reliance on Hamas for guidance.
Since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terror spree, SJP has served as Hamas’s “U.S.-based in-house public relations firm,” according to a lawsuit filed earlier this week by American and Israeli terror victims. U.S. intelligence has long indicated that Hamas’s patrons in Iran encouraged and funded anti-Israel campus protests in America.
In Tehran, Quds Day activities will kick off Friday morning, when hoards of Iranians will take to the streets to burn the American flag, chant anti-Israel slogans, and pray for Israel’s destruction.
In the United States, the demonstrations are likely to look similar, with SJP bringing its signature brand of anti-Semitic agitation to Manhattan’s streets. The campus group’s role in Quds Day protests is raising fresh calls for universities across the country to ban it from operating.
United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI), a national advocacy group, described SJP as a direct “threat to U.S. national security.”
“At a time when antisemitism is rising to alarming levels on college campuses across the country, it is disgraceful that the National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP), in conjunction with other groups, is listed as a supporting organization for a Quds Day rally in New York City’s Times Square,” UANI chairman Jeb Bush and CEO Mark Wallace said in the statement.
“Universities should be given a choice: If they do not ban organizations like SJP which are promoting the agendas of a state-sponsor of terrorism and terrorist organizations, the U.S. government should revoke federal funding,” Bush and Wallace said.
In some cases, the Trump administration is already doing so. It has paused federal funding for a number of colleges, including Columbia University, due to their failure to address anti-Semitic activity on campus.
Foreigners found to participate in Quds Day rallies across the United States, according to the UANI statement, should immediately have their visas or green cards revoked.
Then-Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini established Quds Day in 1979. It has since become a rallying point for Israel’s enemies across the world. Tehran has spent decades building a “network of soft-power entities in the U.S. and Europe” to facilitate Quds Day rallies in Western cities, Bush and Wallace said.
Iran’s current hardline leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, deemed tomorrow’s protests the most significant in recent memory, given Israel’s renewed military operations in the Gaza Strip.
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