Experts warn of growing radicalization among anti-Israel groups on US university campuses

Experts are raising concerns about the growing radicalization of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish groups on university campuses across the United States in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 terror attack last year, as incidents of antisemitism continue to rise.

Mitch Silber, executive director of the Community Security Initiative (CSI), warned that levels of radicalization are reminiscent of past movements. CSI is the result of a collaboration between the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) Federation of New York and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York (JCRC).

He sees similarities between current anti-Israel groups on campus and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a radical group in the 1960s, which violently opposed the U.S. military's involvement in Vietnam.

“They protested and protested but nothing changed regarding US foreign policy. Eventually, some students peeled off to form the Weather Underground, and they turned to domestic terrorism,” Silber added.

“Columbia is the epicenter for the student intifada in the United States. What happens at Columbia radiates outward. We saw that with the encampment and now here we have at Columbia a student who said taking someone’s life is better for the world.”

Brian Cohen, the executive director of the Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life at Columbia University, said he spends much of his time explaining the meaning of anti-Jewish inflammatory social media posts to campus administrators. Many of the posts glorify the murder of Israelis and Jews. For example, one featured the infamous photo of a Muslim terrorist who proudly displayed his blood-stained hands in a window after murdering two Israelis in the Ramallah lynching in 2000.

“The administration needs to understand who that guy in the window [with the bloody hands] is to understand why that post is so problematic,” Cohen said. Other posts feature the inverted red triangle used by the Hamas terror organization to designate targets.

He is concerned about the deteriorating security situation on campus due to the growing radicalization. “Personally, I am afraid for the safety of the community for everyone at the university; I can see one random student get inspired to do something violent,” Cohen said.

Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), an anti-Israel coalition consisting of over 100 student organizations, has increasingly embraced violent content and images online.

“We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance. In the face of violence from the oppressor equipped with the most lethal military force on the planet, where you’ve exhausted all peaceful means of resolution, violence is the only path forward.” CUAD wrote on Oct. 8 of last year, one day after the Hamas invasion and mass terror attack on southern Israel.

“Now, more than a year into the protests, the encampments, the building takeovers, nothing has changed. They aren’t getting it done and the retraction by CUAD shows they are getting more radical. We are on the same trajectory,” Silber added.

Some of the most extreme CUAD-affiliated organizations, such as Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine, have led training sessions that glorify Hamas and terrorism against Jews and Israelis.

One of the goals of these extremist groups is to pressure the Biden administration to halt its support for Israel in its fight against terrorist organizations funded by Iran, such as Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthi rebels in Yemen.

In May, U.S. President Joe Biden condemned antisemitism at anti-Israel protests on American college campuses and vowed that the U.S. would not abandon its support for its close ally.

Earlier this year, U.S. Members of Congress urged the Biden administration to protect Jewish students amid the growing anti-Jewish and anti-Israel radicalization on U.S. campuses.

“Every single one of these college and university presidents who refuse to take action should immediately resign in disgrace and if they don’t resign, [they] should be thrown out,” Republican Rep. Mike Lawler told media representatives during a visit to the Columbia University. “I have never seen a more disgraceful act than what we are seeing on college campuses right now.”