Students for Justice in Palestine investigated over potential terror funding

As first reported by JNS, Hanaway's office issued a civil investigation demand Wednesday to the national Students for Justice in Palestine organization. The demand requires SJP to identify recipients of money collected through charitable fundraising in Missouri and provide records allowing investigators to trace the funds and determine whether recipients were properly vetted.

Stephanie Whitaker, communications director for the Missouri Attorney General's Office, described the demand to JNS as “our version of subpoena power.”

“If they do not respond in any way, then we go in front of a judge and hold them to responding,” Whitaker said. “To actually get answers. We will be pressing hard for that.”

Hanaway's office also issued a demand to SJP's University of Missouri chapter. According to the outlet, the attorney general cited public reports that raised questions about the organization's fundraising and potential connections to groups whose resources could ultimately reach terrorist organizations. “Our office will not tolerate any organization duping Missourians or Missouri students into unknowingly financing radical Islamic terrorism,” Hanaway said.

The attorney general's office also pointed to SJP's response to the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel. “SJP’s national leadership and multiple campus chapters issued statements that praised and endorsed Hamas’s violence, including its attacks on civilians following the Oct. 7, 2023 incursions in Israel,” Hanaway's office said. “National SJP also distributed a ‘Day of Resistance’ toolkit that celebrated the assault as a ‘historic win for the Palestinian resistance’ and cast ‘free Palestine’ not as protest rhetoric, but as a call for armed confrontation against perceived oppressors.”

The Missouri investigation follows years of scrutiny over the funding and organizations behind SJP's nationwide campus network.

A 2024 report from the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy alleged that millions of dollars were flowing to campus organizations through nonprofits with alleged Hamas connections, including American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and Americans for Justice in Palestine. The report called for authorities to investigate the financing behind SJP's campus operations. More recently, the Solidaire Network provided $25,000 to Students for Justice in Palestine while also funding organizations including AMP, the US Palestinian Community Network and Palestinian Youth Movement.

SJP and AMP have also faced congressional scrutiny over allegations concerning connections or coordination with Hamas-linked individuals or networks involved in organizing anti-Israel demonstrations in the United States.

SJP chapters have also hosted individuals convicted of terrorism offenses. In April, Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine and UC Berkeley Students for Justice in Palestine hosted convicted Palestinian terrorist Israa Jaabis during a campus “teach-in.”

Jaabis was convicted over a 2015 car bombing attack near Jerusalem and sentenced to 11 years in prison. The explosion severely injured Jaabis and Israeli police officer Moshe Chen. She remained imprisoned until November 2023, when she was released as part of the prisoner exchange for hostages kidnapped during Hamas's Oct. 7 attack.

Video posted by SJP showed students applauding Jaabis as she addressed the Berkeley event remotely. The Missouri attorney general's office said it has also received tips and other reports concerning SJP. The office has received “reports that this group is not a good actor in this space,” Whitaker told JNS. Hanaway is “looking at what reports we have received as an office and acting on those,” she added.

The investigation comes as SJP's University of Missouri chapter is involved in a separate legal fight with the university. Attorneys with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) argued Wednesday before the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit that the University of Missouri violated the First Amendment when it barred the SJP chapter from participating in the school's annual homecoming parade.

CAIR itself has faced scrutiny over alleged Hamas connections. CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing prosecution. The organization was not charged in the case.

Whitaker told JNS that the timing of the Missouri investigation and the SJP court proceedings was “truly coincidental.”

The Missouri investigation now puts SJP's finances directly under state scrutiny, with investigators seeking records showing who received money raised through the group's charitable appeals and what vetting, if any, occurred before those funds were transferred.