The lawsuit filed on Monday against anti-Israel groups that are alleged to have aided Hamas on campus returned focus back to campus activists and their ties to the Palestinian terror group.
This is because “Within Our Lifetime” is not the first group to be sued for ties to Palestinian terror organizations, particularly Hamas, in recent years.
Within Our Lifetime (WOL)
WOL leader, Nardeen Kiswani, is a Palestinian-American born in Jordan.
She was involved in the establishment of NYC SJP in 2015, forming a coalition of chapters across the City University of New York schools.
NYC SJP then evolved into WOL in 2018.
October 7th has always been a day against Nazism, and now it’s counterpart Zionism! Long live resistance against Nazism, Zionism, white supremacy, and all forms of genocide, settler colonialism, and fascism! Long live October 7th! https://t.co/LSd9dbki3H
— Nerdeen Kiswani (@NerdeenKiswani) October 8, 2024
Head of WOL, Nerdeen Kiswani, posted on X/Twitter on October 8, 2024, that “October 7th has always been a day against Nazism, and now it’s counterpart Zionism!” while comparing Palestinian “resistance” to a Jewish revolt in Auschwitz-Birkenau which occurred on October 7, 1944.
In June 2024, WOL commemorated the massacre at the Nova Music Festival by setting off flares, waving Hamas flags, and displaying banners with messages that read, “Long live October 7” and “The Zionists are not Jews and not humans.”
American Muslims for Palestine (AMP)
AMP was established in 2006 by University of California, Berkeley lecturer Hatem Bazian. They are currently based in Chicago and have eight active chapters nationwide, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
AMP has “promulgated antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish control of the government,” according to an ADL report, and has expressed admiration for Hamas and Hezbollah.
AMP’s roots lie with the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), which was described by Washington as having “disseminated information/propaganda for Hamas.”
IAP founders in 1981 included Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, who became Hamas Political Bureau chairman from 1992 until 1996, when he stepped back to become deputy chairman in 2013. Khaled Mashal and Ismail Haniyeh took over these positions from Marzook.
Marzook controversially admitted in a February 2025 interview with the New York Times that if he had known the destruction that would be brought on Gaza because of the October 7 attacks, he would have never agreed to it.
Despite IAP having officially dissolved in 2004, IAP leaders have engaged in AMP activism, including Osama Abuirshaid, AMP’s current executive director, and Rafeeq Jaber, former AIP president who has spoken at AMP events, as well as others, ADL reported.
AMP maintains strong ties with SJP, which Bazian also helped found in the ’90s, ADL commented.
In a December 2014 Facebook post, Abuirshaid praised Hamas on the terror group’s 27th anniversary, stating, “A distinction is made… between those who form an army for liberation, and those who prepare battalions of agents [for Israel]… a difference between those who avenge the blood of their martyrs, and those who pour [that blood] into Israeli wine glasses,” comparing Hamas’s attitudes to those of the Palestinian Authority.
An AMP Board Member, Salah Sarsour, was directly implicated in Hamas activity in the West Bank in the 1990s. A 2001 FBI memorandum reported that Jamil Sarsour was arrested in 1998 for funding Hamas and telling investigators that his brother Salah was involved in funding Hamas through fundraising for the Holy Land Foundation (HLF).
Salah Sarsour was also arrested and imprisoned by Israel for eight months in 1995 for supporting Hamas, and his brother claimed that Salah became close with the West Bank commander of Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades.
National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP)
After the October 7 massacre, the National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) described Hamas’s massacre as “a historic win for Palestinian resistance,” calling for “not just slogans and rallies, but armed confrontation with the oppressors,” according to ADL.
NSJP openly receives financial support from AMP.
“While there is no hard evidence of direct financial ties to terror groups, NSJP and terrorist organizations have expressed rhetorical support for one another,” ADL reported.
NSJP also released a “Day of Resistence” guidebook in which it made clear its pro-Hamas stance and support for the terror group to “completely liberate” all Israeli land.
The guidebook also called for SJP chapters to bring “resistance” to the US by “challenging Zionist hegemony” and “dismantling Zionism” on campuses.
In April 2024, a report by the UK’s Daily Mail found that Columbia’s SJP chapter received over $3 million a year in funding from “charities” that are linked to Hamas terrorists.
In May 2024, Columbia’s SJP’s Telegram shared a video of Hamas members, adding a caption reading, “These men will never be defeated.”
Holy Land Foundation (HLF)
The Holy Land Foundation, which was previously known as the Occupied Land Fund, was also founded by Abu Marzook along with other Hamas-linked Palestinians.
In 1994, HLF was placed under FBI surveillance and designated as a terrorist organization in their own right in December 2001.
This was due to investigations by Washington, which found that HLF’s “charitable donations” to Palestinians included organizations in the West Bank that paid stipends to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers and Hamas prisoners, with Hamas being in direct control of these organizations.
In 2004, a US magistrate judge found that both HLF and IAP were liable for the 1996 murder of a teenager in Israel.
In 2008, five senior HLF members were sentenced to long prison terms. Former CEO Shukri Abu-Baker was sentenced to 65 years in prison. Ghassan Elashi, who also founded the Texas branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was also sentenced to 65 years in prison.
Mufid Abdulqader was sentenced to 20 years, while Abdulrahman Odeh and Mohammad El-Mezain, the former endowments director, were sentenced to 15 years each.
Then-president Joe Biden pardoned Abdulqader on December 12, 2024.
Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD)
CUAD, a coalition of far-left and anti-Israel student activist organizations, led many of the post-October 7 protests at Columbia University.
CUAD, like most anti-Israel organizations, sees the entirety of Israel as an illegitimate project, not limiting their designs to the Green Line.
The group was notably formed after Columbia University suspended SJP and Jewish Voice for Peace in November 2023.
In an October 17 Substack article commemorating the October 7 massacre, CUAD stated that it would “not stop demonstrating until Zionism ends.”
CUAD believes that Israel cannot survive without US support and concluded in a November 7 article that “we cannot separate the struggle in support of a free Palestine with the struggle against US imperialism.”
CUAD on November 7 also described Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as a “brave man” who will live in the hearts of many and praised the October 7 Massacre as “Sinwar’s crowning achievement” because the “Al-Aqsa Flood was the very essence of what it is to resist ‘with what we have.’”
Besides Sinwar, the arch-terrorists of Hamas and Hezbollah are the icons of CUAD, with the group mourning the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
In April 2024, Columbia University banned a senior member of CUAD, Khymani James, for comments made about how he would “fight to kill” against a Zionist.
Michael Starr contributed to this report.
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