FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday morning calling on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate potential financial ties between anti-Israel groups and -students on college campuses and the Islamic militant group Hamas.
“In the wake of Hamas’ brutal terrorist attacks against Israel, we have witnessed an alarming increase in support for violence against Jews,” Hawley wrote. “Public reports have indicated that several leftist student groups have lined up to effectively fuel Hamas’ genocidal war against the people of Israel.”
Those universities include Harvard, University of California, Los Angeles, Columbia University and the University of Virginia. Harvard alone had 34 student groups write in a letter that the “Israeli regime” is “fully responsible” for the “unfolding violence” in Israel.
The Harvard student organizations’ statement, released on the day of the Hamas attack, also said the events did not happen “in a vacuum.”
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Sen. Josh Hawley, left, and Attorney General Merrick Garland. (Getty Images)
Columbia University was forced to close its campus to the public after an Israeli student was attacked by an allegedly pro-Palestinian student.
“Other examples are legion. These student organizations seem to lobby in support of the killing of innocent people, including children and infants,” Hawley wrote. “They are terrorizing American Jews within our cities. And they are doing it in what appears to be a coordinated manner.”
Sen. Josh Hawley sent a letter on Monday to the US attorney general. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
A chapter at the University of California, Berkeley also said they “always reject the framing of Israel as a victim.”
HEZBOLLAH POSES ‘REAL DANGER OF INCREASE’ ON ISRAEL’S NORTHERN BORDER, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER SULLIVAN WARNS
People protest for and against Israel in Times Square on Friday, Oct. 13, 2023 in New York City. (Barry Williams for NY Daily News via Getty Images)
“While demonizing and condemning the indigenous resistance is overshadowing the decades of oppression, ethnic cleansing, and destruction of the Palestinian people,” they said.
The University of Virginia chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine also announced that the attacks on Israel are “a step toward a free Palestine.”
Hawley wants the DOJ to investigate how many student groups receive funding from third-party groups, and among those third-party groups, “where pro-Hamas organizations of students are doing fundraising, how many are financially or ideologically related to Hamas.”
“The First Amendment protects the right to protest,” Hawley said. “But it does not protect the provision of material support to terrorist organizations. Nor does it insulate financial transactions that threaten our national security.”
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Demonstrators attend an “emergency rally for Gaza” outside the Israeli Consulate in New York City on Monday, Oct. 9, 2023. (Jennifer Mitchell for Fox News Digital)
The call came just a week after Hamas launched one of the deadliest attacks on Israel in decades, and just days after the Israel on Campus Coalition — a group of national Jewish groups — sent a letter demanding universities to withdraw their support and funding for the activist group Students for Justice in Palestine.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the attorney general’s office and Students for Justice in Palestine for comment.
