Pro-Palestine Protesters Embrace Communist Terror Group Propaganda, Leaders: Report

The terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is well-represented in the ongoing campus protests, according to a new report by the Israeli watchdog group NGO Monitor.

On May 8, the Jerusalem-based research institute published a report detailing the involvement of the PFLP and a subsidiary organization, Samidoun, in the protests active at more than 80 campuses across the United States. The Popular Front was designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. Department of State in 1997.

According to the report, Khaled Barakat, a member of the PFLP and a founder of Samidoun, appeared at an event at Barnard College in New York on March 24 to teach “Resistance 101.”

Barnard is officially part of Columbia University. On May 6, Columbia canceled its main commencement ceremony following weeks of pro-Palestine protests.

At his appearance, Mr. Barakat praised Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front. At the same event, Nerdeen Kiswani, the founder of the protest group Within Our Lifetime-United for Palestine, spoke about Palestinians’ rights to every inch of Palestine from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea.

Moreover, NGO Monitor cited examples of protesters carrying Popular Front posters, wearing Popular Front headbands, flying its flag, and publicly reading Popular Front publications.

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In a statement, Gerald Steinberg, the founder and president of NGO Monitor, said the “wide involvement” of a terror organization in the campus protests “highlights the fiction that this is a spontaneous protest movement.”

“The links between Samidoun, SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine], and the other NGO organizers require an independent and detailed Congressional investigation, including disclosing all of the funding sources from both inside the U.S. and from foreign entities,” Mr. Steinberg said in a release. “In addition, a review of the legality of Samidoun’s operations in the U.S. is overdue.”

According to the National Counterterrorism Center, the Popular Front is a terrorist group known for its Marxist-Leninist ideology. It was founded in 1967 and carried out deadly attacks as recently as 2019.

The Popular Front views “the destruction of Israel as integral to the struggle to remove Western capitalism from the Middle East and ultimately establish a Communist Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital,” according to the center.

The group is led by Ahmad Sa’adat, who was imprisoned in 2001 by the Palestinian Authority.

In April 2024, the Popular Front published a statement on its website affirming its “steadfast support for the struggle of the students youth movements.” It specifically called out Students for Justice in Palestine and the Palestinian Youth Movement.

“We highly appreciate the positions, movements, and struggles of our students in American universities and call for the escalation of their struggle,” the Popular Front statement said.

NGO Monitor calls Samidoun a subsidiary organization of the Popular Front. It also said Samidoun was designed as a terrorist group by Israel in 2021.

Samidoun, which calls itself the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, praised the massacre of Jews by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. Its website currently features an image with the words “Long Live October 7th.”

“The attack on Kates is an attack on the Palestinian people, part of a longstanding effort by Israel and its imperialist allies to criminalize and de-legitimize Palestinian people, their political organizations and their allies,” the May 6 statement said.

On May 3, an X account, @IsraelWarRoom, gained access to a Google Drive account apparently owned by National Students for Justice in Palestine spokeswoman Carrie Zaremba. According to the social media account, that drive contained multiple documents published by the Popular Front.

Also, on May 3, protesters occupying George Washington University’s campus read out loud sections of the Popular Front’s book “Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine,” according to NGO Monitor.

Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department cleared a pro-Palestinan encampment from the university’s campus early on May 8. The crackdown occurred hours before Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser and the department’s chief were due to testify before the House Oversight Committee.

City University of New York (CUNY) law professor Jeffrey Lax told The Epoch Times while it may seem incongruous, it’s “unfortunately not surprising” to see coordination between Marxists and Islamists in orchestrating protests.

“So even though the Marxist and Islamist have nothing in common—they share no values at all—the only thing they share is a common enemy, which is America and Western culture and democracy and capitalism,” he said.

“It’s not a coincidence, these things they’re doing. They want to disrupt the American way of life. That is the whole goal.”

Mr. Laz said he believes a long, hot summer of street protests, public space occupations, bridge and building seizures is looming as protests move off campuses.

“Behind every student rally you see are Marxist professors leading it, guiding it, it’s not students. Don’t be fooled by the face of the rallies,” he said. “I see this up close and personal every day on our campuses. It’s Marxist faculty leading it. And it’s a convenient relationship right now with the Islamist radicals who are supporting terror.”

John Haughey contributed to this report.