Leading US-based anti-Israel activist groups, including Columbia University Apartheid Divest and Within Our Lifetime, and heads like Mahmoud Khalil had prior knowledge of the October 7 Massacre, alleged a Monday lawsuit by the families of the Hamas-led attack's victims seeking damages for activists aiding and abetting Gazan terrorist organizations, with some groups reactivating just before the pogrom and others issuing protest and propaganda materials as the event unfolded in southern Israel.
The suit filed to the New York Southern District Court against Within Our Lifetime and its leader Nerdeen Kiswani, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine and representative Maryam Alwan, Columbia-Barnard Jewish Voice for Peace and representative Cameron Jones, and CUAD and Khalil, sought compensation and punitive damages for coordination of Hamas and affiliates in their "terror-by-propaganda strategy" and provision of material support public relations operations.
The organizations were believed by the October 7 victims to have "prior knowledge of the October 7 attack" based on the timing of their public relations activity.
After months of dormancy, Columbia SJP allegedly reactivated its Instagram account "three minutes before Hamas began its attack on October 7," announcing a meeting and stating that supporters should "stay tuned."
Statement of support
Eighty-three SJP chapters, including Columbia, signed and disseminated a statement in support of Hamas at midnight at the end of the day of the attack, leading the suit to insinuate that the content must have been drafted, reviewed, and signed by dozens of organizations "before and/or during the events of October 7 themselves."
The Bears for Palestine solidarity statement honored terrorists "working on the ground on several axes of the so-called 'Gaza envelope' alongside our comrades in blood and arms" and offered support for "the resistance in Gaza" and the Hamas operation as a "revolutionary moment" in Palestinian "resistance."
The statement was shared as part of an October 8 2023 National SJP toolkit, which the suit asserted was disseminated to Columbia SJP, Columbia JVP, and WOL. The Day of Resistance Toolkit included October 7-themed graphics, one of which Kiswani allegedly published through Instagram on October 7, a day before the toolkit was released.
