Students at NYC fighting for BDS on their college campus (Credit: Legal Insurrection)
Anti-Zionist student groups have expressed outrage over US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital on Wednesday, holding rallies and calling for a violent uprising.
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Stony Brook University in New York shared a Russia Today video of protests in Ramallah against the embassy move on Wednesday, with the caption, “Intifada Revolution is the only way “
“Intifada” — an Arabic term for a popular uprising — refers to two violent Palestinian campaigns carried out against Israel in recent decades, which included multiple suicide bombings, shootings, stabbings, and other terrorist attacks.
SJP at Florida State University warned, in turn, “In Jerusalem and throughout Palestine we will see popular uprising and we’re called to support Palestinians in every way we can.”
“After all, it will have been the actions of the United States that sparks this resistance,” the group claimed.
Similarly, New York City SJP — which represents local “students and community members” — shared a post claiming that “jaffa, where the u.s. embassy is currently located, is no less palestinian than jerusalem, and it is ours just as jerusalem is ours just as the rest of the land from the river to the sea is ours.”
NYC SJP captioned the post with the slogan, “We don’t want two states – we want ’48!,” and urged supporters to attend a Friday rally in Times Square against the embassy move. It added the hashtag, “#LongLiveTheIntifada.”
SJP at the University of Oklahoma (OU) also organized a campus demonstration against the White House decision, which featured chants including, “Jerusalem for all,” and “From OU to DC, do not move the embassy.” Protests also took place at Hunter College in New York, and will be cohosted by local SJP chapters in cities including San Francisco, Chicago, and Columbus.
On Wednesday, SJP at Columbia University condemned the embassy move by tweeting that the Palestinians “are fighting a genocide,” adding, “The manner by which they respond is entirely up to them.”
The group also denounced all Zionists, claiming, “Every Zionist is a fascist,” and alleged that Palestinians have been subjected to “genocide, apartheid, and bantustans” for “70 years” — since Israel’s creation.
“Every inch [Zionists] claim is Palestine and for every inch they take, they will be resisted,” SJP Columbia added.
The vast majority of Israeli Jews identify as Zionists. Similarly, according to a Pew Research report published in 2016, “most U.S. Jews say they are either very or somewhat emotionally attached to Israel and that caring about Israel is essential or important to what being Jewish means to them.”
When pointed to these figures by The Algemeiner, SJP Columbia tweeted, “I should have clarified: Every Zionist is a fascist, colonialist, and a racist.”
The SJP branches’ consternation was shared by Hatem Bazian, a lecturer at the University of California who co-founded SJP and serves as chairman of American Muslims for Palestine, one of the group’s leading backers. Bazian has recently come under fire for sharing images featuring Jewish caricatures alongside captions such as “Ashke-Nazi,” which have been widely condemned as antisemitic.
“Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem is not only a Palestinian problem but a responsibility of the world, which created this crisis beginning with the Balfour Declaration in 1917 and all the way to the present games played by a US president planning a re-election campaign,” Bazian wrote on Wednesday.