Lawsuit: Hamas Coordinated with Anti-Israel Groups, Including at Columbia University

A lawsuit filed Monday by prominent Jewish groups claims that anti-Israel groups, including at Columbia University, knew about the Hamas terror attack of October 7 before it took place, and have been working closely with Hamas since.

The Jerusalem Post reported:

Leading US-based anti-Israel activist groups, including Columbia University’s Apartheid Divest (CUAD) and Within Our Lifetime and heads like Mahmoud Khalil, had prior knowledge of the October 7 massacre …

According to it, some groups, whom Hamas members reportedly saw as operatives, reactivated just before the massacre, and others issued protest and propaganda materials as the event unfolded in southern Israel. The suit was filed by the National Jewish Advocacy Center, the Schoen Law Firm, Greenberg Traurig LLP, and the Holtzman Vogel Law Firm at the Southern District Court of New York.

It was filed against Within Our Lifetime (WOL) and its leader, Nerdeen Kiswani, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and its representative, Maryam Alwan, Columbia-Barnard Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and its representative, Cameron Jones, CUAD, and Khalil.

In one passage, the complaint alleges that Students for Justice in Palestine at Columbia University reactivated its dormant Instagram account just minutes before the start of the October 7 attack, and promised more detail to follow.

One freed Israeli hostage, the Times of Israel notes, says that the Hamas terrorists holding him captive often claimed that they were working with protesters at Columbia.

Khalil, a green card holder and now a defendant named in the civil lawsuit, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) earlier this month and is in the process of being deported. As Breitbart News has reported, anti-Israel groups at Columbia celebrated October 7.

Many pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel activists across the nation portrayed October 7 unapologetically as the beginning of the fulfillment of a dream of driving Jews and Israelis out of the land, through genocide if necessary.

The case, Reuters notes, is Haggai et al v. Kiswani et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 25-02400.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.