The national organizers behind many of the pro-Palestinian campus protests are the same ones backing a pro-Palestinian high school “strike” in Washington, D.C., on Friday.
Organizers of the anonymous group “schoolstrike4gazadmv” in the Washington metropolitan area planned their strike for Friday at 11 a.m. in Washington’s McPherson Square, which is located near the White House.
The group, which by the afternoon appeared to have amassed a relatively small gathering, portrays itself as a student-run grassroots movement. But it also admitted that it “planned this action alongside veteran organizers who have planned numerous peaceful, unescalated, and legal protests at the exact same locations,” according to organizing documents obtained by education advocacy group Parents Defending Education.
“Self-described ‘militant’ teachers are using children as props to spread their propaganda. These students should be in school learning an education, not being recruited to join a radical cult,” Michele Exner, a senior adviser for Parents Defending Education, told the Washington Examiner. “Parents should demand accountability for these rogue instructors who are trying to convince kids to potentially cross state lines, compromising their safety, to join these non-school sanctioned protests.”
Organizing documents show the group’s goal is to “demand that the Biden administration and Congress 1) End unconditional military aid to Israel 2) Call for a permanent and immediate ceasefire.”
In an effort to help high school students skip class to join the rally, organizers provided a form letter for students to give to their school, which read: “I will join a peaceful march/rally alongside hundreds of students across the DMV who will be striking from school and joining a rally instead. … I can no longer stand by idly and do business as usual as our government funds the slaughter of tens of thousands.”
Some of the organizing groups are affiliated with many of the same ones that successfully created encampments on college campuses across the country.
In a social media post, “schoolstrike4gazadmv” said it received backing from organizations including American Muslims for Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace DC Metro, DMV Coalition of Students for Justice in Palestine, and the Palestinian Youth Movement.
As the Washington Examiner has reported, American Muslims for Palestine, which led a prayer in the afternoon, is a pro-Hamas group that is under investigation for allegedly fundraising and providing money to terrorist organizations.
The group has also been described by the Anti-Defamation League as America’s “leading organization providing anti-Zionist training” and helped facilitate Students for Justice in Palestine’s national organization as well.
While SJP operates chapters regionally and on college campuses, the network is part of a national organization that is known for protesting Jewish speakers and promoting the boycott, divestment, and sanction movement against Israel, among other things. The national organization, which came out defending the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, oversees more than 200 chapters nationwide, including the DMV Coalition. National SJP is a project of the Westchester People’s Action Coalition, which supports other left-wing political goals and boasts assets of over $1,000,000.
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Palestinian Youth Movement is another WESPAC project, and, like SJP, does not have independent financials available because it is under that organization.
Jewish Voice for Peace is similarly situated to SJP and has assets of over $2.8 million. It received $3.9 million from various donors, including from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, whose director, Nicholas Burns, resigned in 2017 for its support of the pro-BDS JVP. JVP’s supporters also include billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Network.