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Palestine Solidarity Committee
The Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) is an alternative name for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
PSC currently has active chapters on at least four campuses in the United States, including: University of Texas, Austin (UT Austin), Harvard University (Harvard), University of Nebraska, Lincoln (UNL) and California State University, Chico (CSU, Chico).
As of February 2017, PSC’s largest and most active chapters were PSC Harvard and PSC UT Austin. Below is a summary of these two PSC chapters’ activities.
Justifying Militant Violence
In October of 2015, while radicalized Palestinians were carrying out daily stabbings throughout Israel, PSC Harvard posted on Facebook a video produced by Qatar-owned, anti-Israel news source AJ+ that rationalized what became known as the “Knife Intifada,” as an “inevitable result” of “occupation.” PSC Harvard added its own comment: “The occupation humiliated Palestinian people beyond measures [sic.], making violence an inevitable consequence from an oppressed population.”
October 2015 saw an upsurge in violence across Israel — incited by Palestinian political and religious leaders — that involved young Palestinians throughout the country stabbing and attempting to stab scores of Israeli civilians.
In November of 2015, PSC UT Austin held a rally at the Israeli Consulate in Houston, Texas, entitled “Solidarity with the Palestinian Uprising: Call to Action!” The Facebook event expressed PSC’s support for the ongoing attacks in Israel, stating: “Long Live the Resistance! Long Live the Intifada!”
Defending a Terrorist
In November of 2016, PSC Harvard hosted an event defending Rasmea Odeh. Odeh was a military operative with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization. In 1969, Odeh masterminded a bombing that killed two university students in a Jerusalem supermarket and attempted to bomb the British consulate.
Odeh confessed, in a highly detailed account, the day following her arrest. In a 2004 documentary, one of Odeh’s co-conspirators directly implicated her as the mastermind.
Supporting Incitement
In April 2015, PSC Harvard held an event called “Being Palestinian in a Jewish State,” featuring Haneen Zoabi —a member of Israel’s parliament (the Knesset). Zoabi who has been investigated for inciting violence on a number of occasions.
In July 2014, Zoabi was suspended from the Knesset, after she attempted to justify the Hamas terrorists who kidnapped three Israeli high-schoolers from a bus stop, declaring that the abductors were "not terrorists." The boys were later found to have been murdered by their kidnappers.
Promoting Disruption
On November 13, 2015, PSC UT Austin was involved in hijacking an event organized by Professor Ami Pedahzur of the Institute for Israeli Studies on UT Austin’s campus. The scheduled guest speaker was Dr. Gil-Li Vardi of Stanford University, who was to deliver a lecture on the birth of the Israeli Defense Forces’ military culture.
PSC members formed a human wall at the back of the room, unfurled a large Palestinian Flag, while their leader, Mohammed Nabulsi, read a prepared speech on “the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population of Palestine.” Professor Pedahzur asked the group to listen to the scheduled speaker and then respond, but they refused all dialogue. Instead, the students screamed: “We don’t want two states,” and “Long Live the Intifada!!” conveying their support for the "knife Intifada," then occurring throughout Israel.
Professor Pedhazur faced down the ranting disruptors. Then, three individuals grabbed Prof. Pedahzur’s arm and pushed him backwards. Eventually, the campus police arrived and detained the PSC members.
Following the incident, PSC released a heavily edited video of the protest, falsely accusing Prof. Pedahzur of assault, and lodged a “civil rights” complaint with the University. PSC Finance Committee Chair, Ahmed Khawaja, subsequently initiated a GoFundMe fundraising campaign in order to sue Professor Pedahzur.
Anti-American Sentiment
In November of 2015, PSC UT Austin posted a call to protest a talk by U.S. Navy veteran Admiral William McRaven, a UT Austin graduate, who led the raid to kill Osama bin Laden. PSC accused UT Austin of hosting “a swarm of US intelligence and military officials on campus” who would “recruit students to a life of crime.”
For additional history about SJP, an alternative name for PSC, see SJP.
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