Campus Protests Embolden Terrorist Groups

The aftermath of the burning of an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and also an Israeli flag as protestors look on, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Washington near Union Station and the U.S. Capitol. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

The encampments – which mushroomed to over 40 campuses in less than a week in late April and whose stated goal is divesting U.S. universities from Israel – have been a key propaganda tool for global jihadists’ radicalization campaign since their emergence.

In early May, U.K.-based al-Qaeda preacher Hani al-Siba’i lauded university protests as “the university intifada” – referencing Palestinian terrorist waves in the late 1990s and early 2000s – and called on followers to support their efforts against the United States, which he described as “based on terrorism” and “founded on murder and blood.”

Terror sympathizers and Iranian regime supporters on social media have seized on footage of responses to demonstrators as evidence of the United States oppressing Muslims. Among the graphics circulating on these social media platforms is one that says it all. It features Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the head of the Houthis Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and masked Qassam Brigades and Quds Force fighters, against a red and green background – the colors of the Palestinian flag – with the words “The Good Guys Are Winning.”

All of this indicates that what has been taking place on college campuses is far from a matter of campus security, but rather of homeland security and foreign policy that the United States must frame and respond to accordingly.

Indeed, these terrorist groups have already been exploiting the war in Gaza as a way to plot their next attacks.

In early March, the Intelligence Community released its Annual Threat Assessment. In her opening testimony to Congress, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines warned that “it is likely that the Gaza conflict will have a generational impact on terrorism. Both al-Qa’ida and ISIS, inspired by HAMAS [sic], have directed supporters to conduct attacks against Israeli and U.S. interests.”

Following the ISIS attack on a concert hall in Moscow later that month, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray noted that the potential for “a coordinated attack here in the homeland” akin to the one in Moscow, “is now increasingly concerning.”

What should the United States do?

Einstein was credited with saying “if I have an hour to solve a problem, I spend the first 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.”

How the United States leadership describes what is happening on campus is key to the solution. That means President Biden is right, but incomplete, in condemning the rise of antisemitism on campus, as he did in early May. Rather, he must point out that terrorists are looking to exploit this rhetoric to harm Americans and that what we are seeing on campus is the product of planning by organizations with ties to terrorist groups rather than students’ expression of their first amendment rights.

Second, the United States must highlight the consequences for these actions, that rhetoric that promotes violence – any violence, but certainly any directed according to racial and ethnic categories, to include antisemitic rhetoric – must result in disciplinary actions by the university. Thus far many of the arrests have been for trespassing, assault, or damage to property.

Finally, the United States must integrate these responses with a coherent and constructive foreign policy regarding Israel, the main foil for these campus agitators. Whatever waffling, in either rhetoric or actions, the administration has done in recent days in terms of support to Israel, there is clearly a new urgency to demonstrate “no daylight” with Israel – a theme the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) has advanced in recent years – given the immediate U.S. homeland security risks not doing so would present.

That message should be mirrored in our foreign policy in explaining that Israel must finish off Hamas – a group that holds six Americans as hostages – and that the Rafah operation is essential to that objective.

Supporters of Hamas’s actions – whether their tents are on U.S. campuses or in the Syrian desert – need to hear the same message of “don’t” from the October 8^th version of President Biden.

Lt. Gen. David Fridovich, (U.S. Army, ret.) is former Deputy Commander, U.S. Special Forces Command (USSOCOM) and is a 2013 participant in JINSA’s Generals & Admirals trip to Israel. Sheriff Kim Cole is the sheriff of Mason County, Michigan, and is a 2024 participant in JINSA’s Homeland Security Program trip to Israel. Dr. Jacob Olidort is the former Director of Research of JINSA’s Gemunder Center for Defense & Strategy.