Sean Eren
Overview
Sean Eren expressed support for Hamas terrorism as a National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) steering committee member, in late 2023 and early 2024. NSJP is the national branch of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).Eren’s anti-Israel activism took place in the wake of Hamas terror atrocities and war crimes against Israeli civilians, including mass murder, torture, rape, beheadings and kidnappings, which were executed on October 7, 2023. The attacks left over 1,200 Israelis dead, hundreds kidnapped and thousands wounded. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.”
Support for Hamas Terrorism during an Israel-Hamas War
On March 24, 2024, Eren participated as a panelist at an event titled: “Palestinian Resistance 101,” where various anti-Israel agitators were invited to deliver lectures on “‘the fight for liberation.’” Khaled Barakat, a leader in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror group, joined the event via Zoom.During the panel, Eren referred [00:33:34] to Hamas as a “resistance body” and praised [00:33:56] Hamas’s “communication networks,” saying: “It’s really incredible to see, it’s inspirational. It’s also a development that is showing a new era in the Palestinian struggle.”
Among Palestinians and anti-Israel activists, the term “resistance” can be a euphemism for nationalistic terror. It is often used to excuse or even glorify anti-Israel and anti-Semitic violence.
Eren continued [00:34:11] discussing Hamas: “We have unprecedented unity among what used to be kind of called a fringe group of the rejectionist front. This is now the core of the united strength of the Palestinian resistance and the Palestinian people.”
Eren also pointed out [00:34:29] that various terror factions were “utilizing the same popular cradle, and utilizing the same consent of the Palestinian people and the surrounding civilians…to carry out an operation like this.”
The term “popular cradle” reportedly “has a long history within Palestinian resistance, and…denotes a state of cohesion between the resistance and the masses, leading the resistance to become a general state of being.”
In addition to Barakat and Eren, other panelists included Charlotte Kates, who is an international activist with Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network (Samidoun), designated as a terror group by the Israeli government for its ties with the PFLP. Barakat is also a Samidoun activist.Another panelist was Nerdeen Kiswani, founder of the pro-terror activist group Within Our Lifetime (WOL).
The “Resistance 101” event was held at Q House, “the LGBTQ+ special interest community at Columbia University” (Columbia) in New York, New York. The organizers were reportedly unauthorized to use Columbia property for the event, prompting them to move the venue to Q House.
The event was led by Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a pro-BDS coalition of “over 80 student groups working toward the goal of collective liberation.” CUAD began in 2016 but was revived in late 2023 during Israel’s war against Hamas.
CUAD’s demands include “a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, divestment from Israel…and to reinstate” the campus chapters of SJP and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) after the university suspended them.
According to a December 15, 2023 article published by the New Yorker, Eren said he had “no regrets about promoting” a tool kit produced by NSJP, which the group circulated “in the immediate aftermath” of the October 7, 2023, Hamas atrocities.
The tool kit called the attacks “a historic win for the Palestinian resistance,” and included “a promotional graphic featuring a cartoon of a fighter on a paraglider.” Eren called the imagery “iconic.”
During the October 7, 2023, Hamas terror attack on Israel, numerous terrorists breached the Israel-Gaza border in motorized paragliders “to infiltrate Israeli territory and secure terrain.” War reports included footage of the gliders descending on the Supernova Music Festival, where Hamas terrorists slaughtered over 360 unarmed young men and women. In the days following the Hamas atrocities, images of Hamas militants on paragliders were employed to glorify terrorism and serve as a symbol of Palestinian violent nationalism.
Biographical Information
As of April 2024, Eren indicated on his Instagram bio that he was a member of NSJP’s steering committee. In March 2024, Eren was introduced [00:03:06] as the lead editor of “The Written Resistance,” NSJP’s newsletter.According to the New Yorker magazine, Eren reportedly said the SJP chapter he was involved in while he was a student at “a New England arts school” had become “pretty active on the scene” in helping organize “events and protests against our campus and local police…”
Eren was also quoted saying that SJP “is oriented in a special way. The idea is to appeal to people who know nothing.”
Eren further explained that SJP educates its members “from apartheid to…settler colonialism…And then…we move to imperialism. And then, for example, what does Marxism have to do with Palestine?”
Eren is a supporter [01:12:32] of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
In October 2022, Eren posted on his Instagram that he graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) “4 months ago” with a bachelor's degree in jewelry and metalsmithing.In February 2023, Eren’s Instagram bio read: “@davidyurman CAD Engineering.”
Full Profile Coming Soon
SJP
SJP is a student organization engaged in anti-Israel activity on North American college and university campuses.
The first chapter of SJP was founded in 2001 at the University of California at Berkeley by Professor Hatem Bazian. Bazian has spread classic anti-Semitism, reportedly promoted religious anti-Semitism and defended the Hamas terror group. In 2004, Bazian called for “intifada” in America.
SJP organizes anti-Israel campaigns, including running annual Israel Apartheid Weeks, often in collaboration with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Muslim Students Association (MSA) campus chapters.
SJP has been a major force in pushing the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement on campuses. Chapters have initiated dozens of BDS resolutions in student governments, which have been proposed on or around Jewish holidays, a time when many Jewish students are off-campus.
SJP activists have reportedly physically assaulted, intimidated and harassed Jewish students, disrupted pro-Israel campus events and demonized pro-Israel campus organizations.
Chapters have often endorsed and campaigned for numerous terrorists and whitewashed terrorism.
BDS
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true.
One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”
Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”
In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”
The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.
BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.
The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.
Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.
BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.
