Georgia law enforcement officials tell James Magazine Online they continue to monitor inflammatory statements by left-wing, pro-Hamas groups, especially in the wake of virtually all our state’s colleges and universities issuing condemnations of Hamas’ barbaric Oct. 7th terrorist attack against Israel.
To cite just one example, in an Oct. 10 statement University of Georgia President Jere Morehead flatly declared that he was “outraged and deeply saddened by the terrorist acts perpetrated against innocent civilians in Israel.” Morehead further underscored that it was “a dark and difficult moment,” especially for UGA’s Jewish students.
These condemnations didn’t sit well with radical groups like the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Ahead of its so-called “Day of Resistance” rallies across the country, the SJP released a “toolkit” document that refers to Operation Al-Aqsa Flood– Hamas’ Oct. 7th brutal killing, raping and beheading that left over 1,200 dead– as “the resistance.” It further stated that student activities are part of the movement and not just “in solidarity.”
UGA President Jere Morehead
While the document has led some schools across the country to suspend the group, the SJP currently operates on the UGA campus and has been regularly holding rallies and walkouts. That could be ending soon.
SJP’s toolkit document refers frequently to Hamas as “the resistance” and frames Israel as “the Zionist enemy” and “a violent settler state.” It also states that “National liberation is near— glory to our resistance, to our martyrs, and to our steadfast people,” and emphasizes that “we as Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement.”
UGA’s SJP chapter recently organized a protest for students “who support the freedom and self-determination of the Palestinian people” and accused Israel of murdering Palestinians, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The Red & Black also reported that during a march on UGA’s campus, SJP members organized “from the river to the sea” chants and condemnations of Morehead outside of his office.
By the way, a recent survey of American college students found that 86% supported the “from the river to the sea” chant, but only 47% were able to name the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. And a Jerusalem Post article noted that two-thirds of the surveyed students went from supporting the chant to rejecting it after being presented with a handful of “basic facts about the Middle East.”
Meanwhile, according to a report from the Florida Record, University of Florida system Chancellor Ray Rodrigues is deactivating the SJP chapters at the University of Florida and the University of South Florida in light of its toolkit and “support of terrorism.”
