How a pro-Palestinian group became a leader of campus protests
Early leaders such as Dr. Bazian feared infiltration and disruption, so there was no national command structure. In an interview, Dr. Bazian, now a lecturer at Berkeley, said the approach “enables any campus that sees the principle to initiate a chapter and get started.”
It was not unusual for universities to help support the groups, as they have often done with registered student organizations. Dr. Youmans recalled that the Berkeley chapter of his day “would survive on funding from the university or the equivalent of pastry sales.”
The amounts have not always been princely. In 2013, the University of Tennessee chapter received $550. (The organizers of “Sex Week” received $20,000.) Chapters often seemed closer to broke than flush.
“The other day I thought, ‘Why don’t you all make a good banner?’” Pranav Jani, the department’s faculty advisor at Ohio State University, where he is an associate professor. “They said, ‘Well, we don’t have any money.’”
In Chicago, DePaul University’s chapter sometimes receives donations of falafel or hummus from local restaurants, said Laila Farah, the chapter’s faculty advisor and associate professor at the university.
Researchers and pro-Israel groups have tried for years to trace the network’s funding and have been skeptical of its poverty claims. They note that the national group is collecting donations, but the amount has not been made public. They also cited the network’s intellectual and financial connections to American Muslims for Palestine, a Virginia group involved in a lawsuit about whether it is an ‘alter ego’ for a disbanded organization linked to Hamas.
Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an organization critical of Hamas, told Congress in 2016 that American Muslims for Palestine was “arguably the primary sponsor and organizer” for the student group. With that support, he told a House of Representatives committee last Wednesday, groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine systematically threaten or intimidate Jewish and pro-Israel students.
Dr. Bazian, now chairman of the board of American Muslims for Palestine, downplayed ties to the student group, which he said were generally limited to providing printed materials and offering grants to students to bring in speakers or attend conferences. live. He said his group has no meaningful power over Students for Justice in Palestine.
The lack of formal structure of the student network has not allayed concerns. Even after the group created a national steering committee that helped organize conferences and other resources, critics said, the group neither declared itself a nonprofit nor formally incorporated it.
Steering committee members shied away from the idea of coast-to-coast infrastructure, even though it might mean more money and more confidence.
“It would compromise the integrity of our movement as a grassroots movement,” Carrie said.
Steering committee members said they had no control over campus chapters. The committee, which today consists of a dozen members, considers itself an advisory body, whose members say they offer local chapters little more than ideas and, from time to time, tools they can use.
Among the network’s alumni, the national group may seem informal.
“I tried to reach out to them and say, ‘I was involved, and, hey, if you want to talk,'” said Dr. Youmans about an earlier plea. “They never really contacted me.”