SPECIAL REPORT

Inside Students for Justice in Palestine

How a campus club, founded as a moderating voice, evolved into a national network pushing the boundaries of student activism during the Israel-Hamas war.

Alumni of Columbia University demonstrate outside the school after its administration recently suspended Students for Justice in Palestine for alleged violations of school policy. (Getty Images)

Students for Justice in Palestine, a campus group started in the 1990s during the height of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, has become a flashpoint since Oct. 7, as some of its members defended the Hamas attack as legitimate “resistance,” and demonstrated against “genocide” in Gaza.

Many also found their names and faces splashed across “doxxing trucks” circling campuses around the country to accuse them of antisemitism.

But the organization itself — really more of a loose network — remains opaque to many observers.

What began as a single club at U.C. Berkeley that supported efforts toward peace with Israel has expanded into a network of more than 200 chapters, across the U.S. and Canada, that oppose a Jewish state in Israel.

But members and alumni don’t share a single vision for the future in the Middle East — or for the group itself.

“Sometimes they do things now that I’m just like, ‘Wow, that was a bad move,’” said a former student who helped create a national network to support the group in 2011.

The Organization of Arab Students holds a pro-Palestinian rally in 1977. Students for Justice in Palestine emerged in the early 1990s, as OAS, plagued by infighting, was disappearing. (AP)

The Forward’s investigative reporter, Arno Rosenfeld, spoke with 14 current and former leaders of Students for Justice in Palestine, which has been banned from at least four universities since the outbreak of war, to explain how it operates, and how it fits into the charged campus climate around Israel.

“There was always suspicion — ‘Who is behind this group?’” Osama Qasem, the group’s founder, said in an exclusive interview. “They couldn’t appreciate that a group can be formed that has no backing and that it just came out of the minds of a few students.”

A U.C. Berkeley police officer guards a building in 2002, following a sit-in by members of Students for Justice in Palestine. The group drew publicity in the 2000s for its flashy activism tactics. (Getty Images)

Questions/feedback:[email protected]

Edited by Talya Zax.

Support Independent Jewish Journalism

Our work to provide strong, thoughtful, careful reporting has taken on new urgency. Please support the Forward with your donation.