The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)¹ – which participated in the October 7th atrocities and is designated as a terrorist group by the US, Canada, the EU, and Israel – has had a strong presence at encampments, demonstrations, and riots on American college campuses. Students have been documented while carrying PFLP posters, flying the PFLP flag, hosting PFLP-linked speakers, and reading PFLP publications. 

On April 23, 2024, the PFLP posted a statement in support of American students: “We in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, along with all our people, the honorable of our nation and the world, confirm our steadfast support for the struggle of the students youth movements, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) at universities such as Columbia, Rutgers, Yale, Stanford, among others. We call for enhancing the unity of students and their struggle to divest American universities from the zionist entity and cut all forms of relations with it.”

In addition, Samidoun, an NGO designated by Israel as a terrorist group and a “subsidiary” of the PFLP,  is part of the NGO network responsible for antisemitic and pro-terror incitement on campuses. Samidoun’s logo can be seen on posters promoting the PFLP, and its officials have preached “resistance” (code for terrorism) at campus events. Samidoun – for which the Alliance for Global Justice, a charity registered with the IRS, collects tax deductible donations in the US – does not publish financial information, reflecting a lack of transparency and accountability.

PFLP flags, posters, and headbands on campuses

Photo credit: @thestustustudio (Twitter)

Student from Rutgers University holding a poster, sponsored by Samidoun, of Ahmad Sa’adat. Sa’adat is Secretary-General of the PFLP, currently serving a 30-year prison sentence. In a video from the demonstration, students can be heard chanting “Israel must fall. Free our prisoners, free them all.”

Photo credit: @dailypenn (Twitter) ; The Daily Pennsylvania ; israelwarroom (Instagram) PFLP flags at the University of Pennsylvania.

Photo credit: ADL

Student at Columbia University holding a poster, sponsored by Samidoun, of Ahmad Sa’adat. The ADL reported signs bearing “the names and photographs of convicted terrorists such as Nasser Abu Hamid, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades; Walid Daqqa, PFLP; Leila Khaled, PFLP; Ahmad Qatamesh, PFLP; and others.”

Photo Credit: @ADL (Twitter). A poster at NYU, sponsored by Samidoun, of Ahmad Sa’adat.

Photo Credit: emilyintelaviv (TikTok). Video documenting a poster at MIT with the PFLP logo on it.

Photo Credit: ADL. PFLP flag at California State Polytechnic University.

Photo Credit: ADL. Signs at Yale honoring PFLP-affiliated terrorists Walid Daqqa and Leila Khaled.

Photo Credit: @sahar_tartak (Twitter). Video documenting a Yale protester wearing a PFLP bandana.

Photo Credit: ssi_movement (Instagram); TC Jewfolk; Shutterstock. PFLP flags at University of Minnesota

Photo credit: The News & Observer. Video documenting PFLP flags at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Demonstrators can be heard chanting “long live the intifada” and “from Chapel Hill to Palestine, globalize the intifada.” CBS News reported, “there was a PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) flag flying on College Green, which is a (U.S. Department of State) USDS designated terrorist organization.”

Photo Credit: @PrincetonTory (twitter). Protesters at Princeton University holding “up a banner calling for the “freedom” of Ahmad Sa’adat. Sa’adat is the secretary-general for the Popular Front for the Liberation in Palestine (PFLP)”

An ABC6 article and video quotes a student from UPenn explaining that he was “Walking past the encampment seeing flags of PFLP, which is a U.S. designated terrorist organization.”

In a video posted on X/Twitter, “a crowd of students cheers a man praising Ham@s, the PFLP, and the Muslim Brotherhood.”

According to an article in Haaretz, student at UCLA convened “The People’s University for a Liberated Palestine.” Organizers distributed and led a discussion group on “the beginning of the Founding Document of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, along with a modern introduction that contextualizes it in history.” Excepts from the reading included, “Only armed resistance, and there is no life for us on our occupied land except the life of popular armed struggle in the service of our objectives and the daily battle,” and “The only language that the enemy understands is the language of revolutionary violence.”

A student from the University of Pennsylvania told the Jerusalem Post that “that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s flag had been erected at the encampment. At a Tuesday rally in front of the vandalized statue of US founding father Benjamin Franklin in which Marc Lamont Hill was a guest speaker, the flag of the US State Department-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization was waved from a prominent position.”

According to the Jerusalem Post, students outside the NYU protests were seen “holding a sign with the face of Walid Daqqah, who died from cancer on April 7 in Israeli prison. Daqqah  was commander of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine cell that kidnapped, tortured, and executed IDF soldier Moshe Tamam in 1984.”

Promotion of the PFLP on campuses

Photo Credit: jvp.columbia (instagram)

In March 2024, students from Columbia and Barnard held an event titled “Resistance 101” – despite the university refusing to host the event on campus. The event was sponsored by Samidoun, Within our Lifetime, and Columbia University Apartheid Divest.

At the event PFLP member and Samidoun founder Khaled Barakat told students, “There is nothing wrong with being a member of Hamas, being a leader of Hamas, being a fighter in Hamas. These are the people that are on the front lines defending Palestine.” Barakat also referred to his “friends and brothers in Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP.” 

Charlotte Kates, Barakat’s wife and a coordinator for Samidoun, stated, “We have the right to return home and we will get that right by any means necessary.” Nerdeen Kiswani, the founder of Within Our Lifetime, said that “she believed Palestinians had the right to ‘every inch of Palestine, from the river to the sea,’ including cities within Israel’s internationally recognized borders such as Akko and Jaffa.”

Several students were suspended in the aftermath of the event. 

A google drive owned by Carrie Zaremba, a spokesperson for National Students for Justice in Palestine, reportedly “contains over 200 documents.. that are pro-terrorism, with guidelines on how to riot and cause disruption, how to make weapons and take over buildings.” PFLP literature appears in this document, including articles by known terrorists such as Leila Khaled, Ghassan Ali, and Ibrahim Nabulsi.

According to news reports, students at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill “put on a puppet show, and followed with a screening of a documentary about Leila Khaled, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.”

According to news reports from George Washington University, on May 3, 2024 “Starting at about 10:20 a.m., roughly 15 protesters sat on blankets in the center of U-Yard to listen to an organizer read excerpts from ‘Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine,’ a book by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and discussed the history and meaning of the text. The book states that it acts as a guide for the actions of the Palestine liberation movement.”