The lawsuit is directed against the anti-Israel organizations Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Within Our Lifetime, Jewish Voice for Peace, and their leaders.
By Vered Weiss, World Israel News
A lawsuit filed in the New York Federal Court by survivors of the October 7 attacks and their families accuses anti-Israel groups of prior knowledge of the Hamas attacks and filling the role of “propaganda arms” for Hamas.
The lawsuit is directed against the anti-Israel organizations Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Within Our Lifetime, Jewish Voice for Peace, and their leaders.
The allegation that the groups had prior knowledge of the massacre is based on text and cellphone data, including Columbia SJP restarting its Instagram page just minutes before Hamas’s devastating attack on southern Israel.
“Three minutes before Hamas began its attack on October 7, Columbia SJP posted on Instagram’ We are back!!’ and announced its first meeting of the semester would be announced and that viewers should ‘Stay tuned,'” the lawsuit said.
The plaintiffs also state the fact that 83 SJP sections signed a joint statement supporting the massacre on October 7, 2023, is a sign of possible prior knowledge.
Shlomi Ziv, a former hostage freed after 246 days of captivity, testified that his Hamas captors “bragged about having Hamas operatives on American university campuses.”
The lawsuit alleges that the groups were following the instructions of the now-dead Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, calling for a “mass mobilization” of Muslims and Palestinians globally to “join this battle by all possible means.
In addition, the groups allegedly occupied Columbia University buildings, set up camps, and passed around “an official Hamas brochure”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt mentioned these pamphlets during a March 10 press briefing, where she stated that Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil was arrested and had his green card revoked on March 8 for supporting Hamas.
Khalil, the Columbia University protest leader in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, had ties to UNRWA, a group with close ties to terror organizations.
Two IDF reservists studying at Columbia and serving as plaintiffs said they returned from fighting Hamas to discover that their “affiliates” on their campus were causing mental anguish and suffering.