Brandeis Center Taking Aim at Organizations Behind Pro-Hamas Mobs at UCLA

UCLA is already being sued for allowing pro-Hamas mobs to block Jewish students’ access to parts of campus.

Now, the Brandeis Center is taking aim at the organizations behind the pro-Hamas mobs at UCLA.

They recently filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Jewish UCLA students, a medical school professor and campus rabbi against a slew of organizations that engineered the encampments in what the complaint says was a calculated conspiracy.  All the plaintiffs were blocked from free access to campus by members of the encampment. The UCLA doctor and medical school professor,  Nir Hoftman, was even assaulted by members of the encampment.

The lawsuit says that National Students for Justice in Palestine, the Faculty for Justice in Palestine Network,  American Muslims for Palestine, the UC Divest Coalition and the WESPAC Foundation took part in “a coordinated campaign of egregious acts of racial exclusion, intimidation and assault” against “Jewish students, faculty and staff.”

All the groups are intertwined.

The president of the UCLA chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine is also named as a defendant but as “John Doe” since his  name is not known.  The complaint says this person coordinated the protests with National Students for Justice in Palestine, which is funded by American Muslims for Palestine and  the WESPAC Foundation.

Additionally, American Muslims for Palestine is described as a Hamas front group, namely “a collection of individuals who have, for decades, dedicated their lives to promoting the interests of antisemitic international terrorist organizations and nation-state proxies in the United States. While these individuals have adopted AMP as their new corporate form, they retain the same mission they always have: to promote Hamas’s antisemitic platform in the United States.”

American Muslims for Palestine is said to maintain operational control over National Students for Justice in Palestine.

The lawsuit says that American Muslims for Palestine  conspired with “SJP and other Defendants to plan, construct, supply, promote, and recruit for the UCLA encampment.”

And this John Doe person was the linchpin of the whole alleged conspiracy. “On information and belief, Doe’s responsibilities included securing funding and planning materials from National SJP (and thus from its fiscal sponsor, Defendant Westchester People’s Action Coalition (WESPAC)), approving the ultimate decision to move forward with the encampment, and executing the initial construction project on April 25. Doe also coordinated with other Defendants to promote the encampment on social media with the goal of recruiting additional personnel to “defend” against law enforcement and other perceived enemies. These recruitment efforts were especially effective at bringing nonstudents to the encampment to support it and grow its ranks. Both organizers and participants told friendly press outlets that an influx of protesters who were not students came to support the encampment shortly before it was dissolved, resulting in the encampment growing three times as large from the day prior.”

Brandeis Center lawyer Omer Wiczyk told the California Globe that, “The lawsuit is designed to address the web of organizations that are behind the protests that are claimed to be grassroots but are really not. They are a result of a conspiracy between groups that recruit, promote,  design and monetize these protests.”

“Part of this lawsuit is that we will put into the public many things that expose the true nature of the conspiracy to violate the civil rights of Jews,” he explained.

The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. It charges the defendants for engaging in a “conspiracy against rights” under a 19th Century law that was enacted to fight the Ku Klux Klan.

At issue are the pro-Hamas encampments that were established on Dickson Plaza and the Royce Quad at UCLA in Spring 2024.  The encampments enforced a “Jew exclusion zone” with “checkpoints” manned by protestors with wooden planks, pepper spray and even a sword and “human phalanxes” intended to terrorize Jewish members of the UCLA community, the complaint says.

The lawsuit says that the “Defendants used electronic communications platforms including Instagram, Twitter, Bluesky, Substack, and Google Docs as part of a coordinated and concerted effort to plan, fund, execute, supply, reinforce, and “defend” the UCLA encampment. “

Moreover, “That Defendants agreed to support the encampment is evidenced by the tightly coordinated mass media campaign, involving almost every Defendant, that called on Defendants’ social-media followers to show up to UCLA’s campus uninvited to “defend” the encampment and the “student intifada.”

This is all staggering stuff.  The lawsuit was covered by the Jewish website JNS.org and mentioned briefly by the right-leaning Free Press but does not appear to have been reported by any mainstream publications. Maybe because it goes against the media narrative that campus protests are just organic efforts by well meaning students?

Along those lines,  Brandeis Center lawyer Omer Wiczyk said that, “We are trying to ensure that the conspiracy is revealed for what it is and to magnify a serious problem that far too many people are unaware of.”

The defendants in the lawsuit did not reply to requests for comment.