An Israeli-born actress called Wednesday for the FBI to investigate funding that pro-Palestinian organizations may be receiving from terror groups.
Noa Tishby, who served last year as Israel’s first-ever special envoy for combating antisemitism, told the House Ways and Means Committee that federal and state law enforcement should “immediately” look into the sources of support for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and American Muslims for Palestine (AMP).
“There is sufficient evidence linking SJP and AMP members with support and financing of terrorist groups, including Hamas, that both state police and the FBI should investigate them immediately,” Tishby told members led by committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.)
“We cannot any longer give free passes to supporters of organizations committed to global jihad that currently hold over 200 Israeli, American, and other dozens of other nationals hostage in Gaza,” she added.
AMP, which was founded by University of California at Berkeley professor Hatem Al Bazian, currently harbors employees and fundraisers who formerly worked for defunct organizations that gave more than $12 million to Hamas, according to former Treasury Department terrorism finance analyst Jonathan Schanzer.
Schanzer testified before the House Homeland Security Committee in 2016 that the organizations — the Holy Land Foundation, KindHearts, and the Islamic Association for Palestine — had sanctions and prison sentences imposed on their leaders after the terror financing was revealed.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has also noted SJP’s pro-Hamas messaging and promotion of violence against Israelis in the wake of the brutal Oct. 7 surprise attack that killed more than 1,200 people — including 33 Americans.
SJP issued a memo hours after the attack that justified the killings as “resistance” and urged its university chapters to express “solidarity.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered his state’s university system last month to ban the radical pro-Palestinian student group from campuses over their “harmful support for terrorist groups.”
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares launched a probe into AMP Oct. 31, saying the organization was unregistered and “may have used funds raised for impermissible purposes under state law, including benefitting or providing support to terrorist organizations.”
Other SJP chapters have either had their official status revoked for holding unauthorized rallies — as at Columbia University — or seen their demonstrations shut down for displaying antisemitic messages.
Students at Cornell University have also called for their administration to take disciplinary action against a professor who called the terror attack “exhilarating” at an SJP rally.
Tishby, who is the best-selling author of the 2021 book “Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth,” denounced SJP in her remarks as “a hate group” that is “grooming American college students … to hate Israel, hate Jews and hate America.”
“SJP glorifies terrorists like notorious Palestinian plane hijacker Leila Khaled, putting her face on their t-shirts,” she said. “And they hijack any campus where they operate. They have no interest in peace and you just need to listen to what they chant at rallies.”
“Every college in this country should permanently ban SJP,” she added. “We wouldn’t pay the Mafia to teach business on campus. We shouldn’t pay terrorist supporters to teach political activism to our kids. We should treat SJP just as we would the KKK.”
Tishby further suggested that Congress must “stop rolling out the red carpet” for fellow “groups with terrorist links” — and said that it was “appalling that there are members of Congress who have taken donations” from AMP.
“Given past evidence of their links to terrorists, we must ask whether there are a fringe group of congressional representatives being funded from the same pot as murderous and proscribed terror groups,” she said.
Those donations have been sent to “Squad” Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who was censured last week by the House of Representatives for echoing calls from Hamas to eradicate the state of Israel.
Tishby has joined with Israeli “Wonder Woman” actress Gal Gadot to bring attention to the horrors that Hamas carried out, including by screening footage of the atrocities at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles last week.