New and explosive lawsuit brought on behalf of American family members of victims of Oct 7th & Israeli Columbia students against Nerdeen Kiswani, WOL, Columbia JVP and SJP, CUAD, and and Columbia students Maryam Alwan, Cameron Jones, and Mahmoud Khalil.
Docket No. 25-cv-2400 🧵
(for those who may not remember, Cameron Jones is best known for his role as Keffiyeh Ken in the now-infamous "basic humanitarian aid" video)
This complaint is 79 pages long PLUS exhibits so I will try to summarize this in digestible form. First: the plaintiffs are alleging that the defendants are the PR wing of Hamas in the US.
More specifically: American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) exists as a mechanism to disseminate Hamas propaganda in the US. AMP organized National Students for Justice in Palestine, which allows AMP, through individual SJP chapters, to funnel its propaganda onto college campuses.
The complaint continues by making specific allegations against Columbia SJP, JVP, and CUAD, and ties in WOL and Nerdeen Kiswani and WOL.
Shortly after the Oct 7th attack began, Hamas began its PR campaign. AMP/NSJP immediately began disseminating its own propaganda, including the "toolkit" (that many will remember) that urged members to support the "struggle" and included graphics & other materials.
But it goes further than that: the complaint alleges that not only did these groups "heed the call," thesy had prior knowledge of Oct 7th. Three minutes BEFORE the Oct 7th attack began (approx midnight NY time), Columbia SJP activated its long-dormant Instagram account.
The next 40 (!!!) pages or so goes on to detail all of the pro-Hamas activities of these groups over the past 16 months.
There is then one page on how this is not First Amendment protected speech, this is a concerted propaganda mission on behalf of a foreign terrorist org.
There are two counts asserted - one on behalf of the American plaintiffs, and one on behalf of the foreign plaintiffs. Both allege that these groups are effectively arms of Hamas and liable for Hamas's terrorist activities.
I'm not an intl law lawyer, but I have my doubts here.
But I will leave that to the international law experts, both the ones that already exist and the brand new ones that will be minted overnight.
Link to the complaint, thank you @BenTelAviv drive.google.com/file/d/1SGz224…
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