Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) members inside the Westlands administrative building at Sarah Lawrence College. Photo: Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)/Screenshot

A mob of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) members has taken over the Westlands administrative building at Sarah Lawrence College in New York and vowed not to surrender it unless school officials adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

The action, the first of its kinds since the spring “uprising” of encampments on colleges across the US, appears to have been precipitated by the college’s declining to accept SJP’s divestment recommendations — which aim to compromise Israel’s national security and leave the world’s lone Jewish state vulnerable to jihadist extremists.

“Westlands is occupied,” SJP said in a series of statements published on Instagram on Thursday. “Students have occupied Westlands to demand immediate action on the genocide of Palestinians. Administration has failed to meet our disclosure deadline. Westland residents are safe: they can come and go at will. We need your support: Walkout to the south lawn, bring food donations, sign divestment proposal.”

SJP also called on students to obstruct justice, imploring them to amass “as many bodies blocking doors as possible” and instructing them to wear “mask [sic] and indiscernible clothing, hats, scarves, etc to support the student intifada.” Since then, National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP), which coordinates activities at individual colleges, has cheered the insurrectionist behavior, using the same incendiary language as the students.

“ALL OUT TO SARAH LAWRENCE COLLEGE! DEFEND THE STUDENT INTIFADA! For over 400 days our institutions have ignored the genocide for our people in Gaza, we demand that they disclose their financial investments and they DIVEST FROM DEATH ,” the group, which is linked to a slew of terrorist organizations, tweeted.

NSJP further urged the students to “bring keffiyehs, noise makers, and flags.”

Photos published by SJP show its members tied together on the floor to prevent being detained by the police and posing next to a large banner on which the phrase Dar al Fayoumi is written. Purportedly the name of a casualty of the Israel-Hamas war, SJP proclaimed that it is the new name of Westlands. Additionally, various social media reports by groups such as FreedomNews.tv, reported on Thursday that they have also set up an encampment outside the building.

The occupation of the Westlands comes amid concerns that the over 150 pro-Hamas groups operating on colleges campuses and elsewhere across the US are planting the seeds of domestic terrorism.

“The movement contains militant elements pushing it toward a wider, more severe campaign focused on property destruction and violence properly described as domestic terrorism,” researcher Ryan Mauro wrote in a recently published report, titled “Marching Toward Violence: The Domestic Anti-Israeli Protest Movement,” a project of the Capital Research Center (CRC). “It demands the ‘dismantlement’ of America’s ‘colonialist,’ ‘imperialist,’ or ‘capitalist,’ system, often calling for the US to be abolished as a country.”

Drawing on statements issued and actions taken by SJP and their collaborators, Mauro made the case that toolkits published by SJP herald Hamas for perpetrating mass casualties of civilians; SJP has endorsed Iran’s attacks on Israel as well as its stated intention to overturn the US-led world order; and other groups under its umbrella have called on followers to “Bring the Intifada Home.” Such activities, the report explained, accelerated after Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, which pro-Hamas groups perceived as an inflection point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an opportunity. By flooding the internet and college campuses with agitprop and staging activities — protests or vandalisms — they hoped to manufacture a critical mass of youth support for their ideas, thus creating an army of revolutionaries willing to adopt Hamas’s aims as their own.

The result has been a series of the kinds of incidents seen in academia throughout 2024 fall semester since Hamas’s onslaught.

Last month, when Jews around the world mourned on the anniversary of Oct. 7, a Harvard University student group called on pro-Hamas activists to “Bring the war home” and proceeded to vandalize a campus administrative building. The group members, who described themselves as “anonymous,” later said in a statement, “We are committed to bringing the war home and answering the call to open up a new front here in the belly of the beast.”

On the same day, the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) issued a similar statement, saying “now is the time to escalate,” adding, “Harvard’s insistence on funding slaughter only strengthens our moral imperative and commitment to our demands.”

More recently, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) student wrote a journal article which argued that violence is a legitimate method of effecting political change and, moreover, advancing the pro-Palestinian movement.

As The Algemeiner has previously reported, pro-Hamas activists have already demonstrated that they are willing to hurt people to achieve their goals.

Last year, in California, an elderly Jewish man was killed when an anti-Zionist professor employed by a local community college allegedly pushed him during an argument. At Cornell University in upstate New York, a student threatened to rape and kill Jewish female students and “shoot up” the campus’ Hillel center. Violence, according to a report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), was most common at universities in the state of California, where an anti-Zionist activist punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban looks on as he gives a statement next to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic (not pictured) in Budapest, Hungary, Nov. 14, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo

Prime Minister Viktor Orban invited Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday to visit Hungary but several other European nations said the Israeli premier would be detained if he set foot on their soil, following the issuing of an arrest warrant for him.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants on Thursday for Netanyahu, his former defense chief Yoav Gallant, and for a Hamas leader, Ibrahim Al-Masri, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict. Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu and Gallant, adamantly rejected the allegations as false, saying the ICC’s actions were politically motivated.

All European Union (EU) countries are members of the court, which means they are supposed to enforce its warrants.

But the diverging reactions — and the fact that EU heavyweights Germany and France have not said if they would arrest Netanyahu — highlight the major diplomatic and political challenge posed by the ICC decision, which drew swift condemnation from Israeli leaders and the White House.

“For us Europeans, this warrant exposes a real dilemma between international law, which is our law, and our foreign policy, especially for those member states that are unconditionally backing Israel,” Eurointelligence analysts wrote in a note.

Assuring Netanyahu that he would face no risks if he visited Hungary, Orban branded the arrest warrants a “brazen, cynical, and completely unacceptable decision.” Orban, who is often at odds with his EU peers, has forged warm ties with Netanyahu.

“Today I will invite Israel’s prime minister, Mr. Netanyahu, for a visit to Hungary and in that invite I will guarantee him that if he comes, the ICC ruling will have no effect in Hungary, and we will not follow its contents,” Orban said.

The ICC, which does not have its own police force to carry out arrests, has only limited diplomatic means to force countries to act if they do not want to.

The Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Finland, Portugal, Slovenia ,and Ireland are among EU states that have said they would meet their ICC commitments.

Netanyahu will be arrested if he set foot in Ireland, Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris told RTE radio. “Yes absolutely. We support international courts and we apply their warrants,” Harris said.

Cyprus, which has close ties to Israel, regards the warrants as binding in principle, a government source told Reuters.

GERMANY TORN

But Berlin declined to spell out what it would do until and unless Netanyahu planned to travel to Germany, adding that legal questions had to be clarified regarding the warrant.

Germany “is one of the biggest supporters of the ICC — this attitude is also the result of German history,” a government spokesperson said.

“At the same time, it is a consequence of German history that we share unique relations and a great responsibility with Israel,” the spokesperson added, alluding to the Nazi era.

German officials said they will carefully examine the warrants and how to deal with them.

“I find it hard to imagine that we would make arrests on this basis,” government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit on Friday, pointing out that legal questions had to be clarified regarding the warrant.

France was also non-committal, toning down its initial reaction, which had been to say that its response would align with ICC statutes.

“France takes note of this decision. True to its long-standing commitment to supporting international justice, it reiterates its attachment to the independent work of the Court, in accordance with the Rome Statute,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine said in a statement.

Paris said on Friday the ICC decision was not a ruling but a “formalization of an accusation.”

France has been working on Lebanon ceasefire efforts and officials said cornering Netanyahu now could scupper those efforts.

Non-EU Britain — also an ICC member — was similarly circumspect in its response.

In the Netherlands, far-right leader Geert Wilders said he would meet his “friend” Netanyahu in Israel soon, even though the Dutch government has said it will act on the ICC‘s arrest warrant if the Israeli leader were to visit the country.

Wilders is the leader of the largest Dutch government party, but is not himself a cabinet member.

The Czech Republic, which like neighboring Hungary has traditionally sided with Israel, appeared similarly conflicted.

The Czech foreign ministry said Prague would respect its international legal obligations, while Prime Minister Petr Fiala described the ICC decision as “unfortunate” and said it would undermine the court’s authority.

The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which rules Gaza, launched the ongoing war in the Middle East with its invasion of southern Israel last Oct. 7. During the onslaught, the terrorists murdered 1,200 people, wounded thousands more, and kidnapped 251 hostages while perpetrating mass sexual violence against the Israeli people.

Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.

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D. Appleton & Co., a publisher based in New York, released Picturesque Palestine, Sinai and Egypt in 1882, a series of 40 semi-monthly magazines with a goal was to bring […]

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