Anti-Israel activists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have vowed to fight back “by any means necessary” as the 2024-2025 academic year officially begins on August 18.
UNC Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), an informal anti-Israel student group representing Chapel Hill, stated its determination to “resist by any means necessary” in an Instagram post on July 31 and said it tolerated “all forms of principled action.”
The group receives funding from Hamas-affiliated groups. Research suggests Researchers at the Global Antisemitism Policy Institute were responding to the on-campus arrests of around 40 agitators who set up an encampment in the school’s courtyard in May to protest the Israel-Gaza war.
“We will not be silenced. We will not be intimidated,” SJP wrote on its Instagram account with more than 14,000 followers. “The group of defendants issues these points of unity to demonstrate our commitment to our collective defense and will fight united to have all charges dropped, without losing sight of our ultimate goal: the liberation of Palestine.”
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Red paint was smeared on the steps of the president’s office at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on May 11, 2024. Earlier that same day, students vandalized the building in protest of the war between Hamas and Israel. (Image direct from Fox News Digital)
Points made in the Instagram post include support for “the right of resistance not only in Palestine but here in the heart of the empire.”
“We embrace all forms of principled action, including armed uprising, necessary to stop Israeli genocide and apartheid, and to dismantle imperialism and capitalism more broadly.”
The post further states that the “goals” of the US and Israel “are the same: to colonize, murder and steal for capitalist greed.”
Anti-Israel protesters replaced the American flag with the Palestinian flag during a demonstration on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus on April 30, 2024. (Heather Deal/Daily Tar Heel)
Irina Zuckerman, a research associate at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and the Arabian Peninsula Institute and president of Scarab Rising, a strategic advisory firm for security and geopolitical risk, told Fox News Digital that SJP is a national organization with local chapters, and while some of the group’s supporters may be on college campuses, some are not college students or U.S. citizens.
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Anti-Israel protesters clash with police at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on April 30, 2024. (Travis Long/News & Observer/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
“They’re very good at presenting themselves as the mouthpiece for Palestinians, but they’re really the mouthpiece for Hamas,” Zuckerman said. “I think a lot of people follow them without really knowing who they are or what they stand for. … And people who follow SJP believe it’s actually human rights work. … They’re born activists, and they’re not all American citizens.”
Steve Maguire, the Paul and Karen Levy Fellow on Campus Freedom at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni Association (ACTA), told Fox News Digital that schools should take SJP’s social media comments “seriously” because they have a duty to “protect their campus communities.”
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Students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill raise the American flag during a protest on campus on April 30, 2024. Anti-Israel activists had replaced the American flag with the Palestinian flag during demonstrations. (Parker Ali/Daily Tar Heel)
He similarly described the group as “anti-Western, anti-civilization revolutionaries.”
“Their objectives are political or ideological. They clearly have ties to Gaza… They are one of the groups that have helped students organise and carry out the various protests and camps that have been seen on university campuses across the country. Now they are saying they condone all forms of moral action, including armed insurrection. Another word for armed insurrection in this context is terrorism,” Maguire said.
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Steve Maguire of the American Board of Trustees and Alumni Association said UNC administrators should prepare for the possibility of protesters setting up encampments and demonstrations in the fall, just as they did in the spring. (Makiya Seminarra/File)
He added that people should be prepared for the possibility that protesters will hold encampments and demonstrations in the fall as they did in the spring. ACTA will publish a guide for colleges on responding to encampments on campus on Tuesday to help them prepare for the response.
“They see the university as an instrument they can use to advance their revolutionary cause.”
“I think that’s one of the reasons why university leaders need to recognize that while freedom of expression is something that should be protected in America, universities also have the right and responsibility to protect the rights of others, ensure the safety of members of their campus communities, and protect the integrity of their own institutions,” Maguire explained.
Zuckerman said social media misrepresents how many students actually follow support groups and student-to-student activities.
On May 11, 2024, protesters left a trail of red handprints on the Chancellor’s Building at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Image direct from Fox News Digital)
Zuckerman said the group’s members are “people aligned with the general anti-capitalist, radical left movement, with no specific agenda other than to oppose the Western establishment.” They share a common goal: “anti-Israel, anti-capitalist, anti-democracy,” he added, using “21st-century tools to amplify their voices.”
Chapel Hill made headlines in the spring when anti-Israel protesters replaced an American flag flying in a Chapel Hill courtyard with a Palestinian flag, prompting University of North Carolina Interim President Lee Roberts to intervene with police officers to return the American flag.
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About 1,000 anti-Israel protesters rallied in the south building of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the early morning hours of April 30, 2024, after police removed a “Gaza solidarity camp.” (Travis Long/News & Observer/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
When activists not affiliated with Chapel Hill tried to take the flag down again, a group of students, including fellow sororities, stepped in and prevented it from falling to the ground, a moment that went viral on social media.
The University of North Carolina Board of Trustees last week approved Roberts as the university’s 13th president at Chapel Hill, despite criticism he received for calling campus police to respond to protests and encampments in May.
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Students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill hold up an American flag during a protest on campus on April 30, 2024. (Parker Ali/Daily Tar Heel)
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“There is no nobler calling than upholding our mission every day,” Roberts said in a press release after being named president. “To me, this university represents above all the ideals of public service, helping the residents of this state and all those connected to this land realize their full potential. As president, I am committed to living up to this principle as we work together to lead North Carolina into the future.”
The Chapel Hill chapter of SJP and the Southern Student Action Coalition, along with other progressive student groups, called Lee an “authoritarian” and a “general” after his appointment as university president.
