EXCLUSIVE — A coalition of organizations supporting Israel is requesting the Justice Department prosecute an influential college campus group over its “nationwide campaign of violently harassing, intimidating and silencing” Jewish students, according to a letter.
The letter, a copy of which was first obtained by the Washington Examiner, was sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday by the pro-Israel Zachor Legal Institute and dozens of other groups, including the Middle East Forum think tank, Americans for Peace and Tolerance, Combat Antisemitism Movement, Israeli American Council, and Jewish Policy Center. The organizations told Garland that Students for Justice in Palestine, which has chapters on college campuses across the United States, is fostering “hate and discrimination.”
“The objectives of SJP’s campaign include preventing American Jews from exercising their First Amendment rights as well as their rights to participate in federally funded programs such as public education,” the groups wrote in the letter. “Their tactics include brandishing weapons on campuses, physically attacking Jews and using large crowds to physically prevent Jews from attending classes or using campus facilities. This constitutes an organized deprivation of rights of Jewish Americans.”
The prosecution request comes as numerous chapters of SJP, which is a project of the left-wing WESPAC Foundation in New York, face bans or suspensions on multiple campuses after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The letter to Garland cites how SJP members at the University of California, Los Angeles, were reportedly filmed roaming around campus with knives.
Similarly, the letter cited SJP-linked antisemitism and threats on campuses such as Cornell University, Columbia University, Harvard University, and other top-ranking colleges. The U.S. Department of Education is now investigating threats against Jewish students on campuses, including the University of Virginia.
The Zachor Legal Institute-led letter zeroed in on federal statutes known as the “KKK laws,” which were enacted in 1870 and 1871 to protect recently freed black Americans from facing threats, violence, and the deprivation of their rights.
These laws have previously been used by the DOJ to prosecute on issues such as police brutality and election interference, the letter said.
“While slavery and antisemitism aren’t logically connected, the tactics of those who opposed the abolition of slavery and the codification of equal rights for blacks in America are very similar to modern antisemites, especially supporters of Palestinian Arab terror,” the groups argued in the letter.
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The Washington Examiner reached out to the SJP for comment. The DOJ declined to comment.
The entire letter to Garland can be viewed below.