Participants, including one wearing a Hamas-style headband, take part in a pro-Palestinian rally in New York City’s Times Square on January 16, 2025, a day after the announcement that a ceasefire deal was reached between Israel and Hamas. (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)
While much of the world welcomed the prospect of a pause in hostilities and the release of hostages following news of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in mid-January, leading voices in the U.S. anti-Zionist movement responded by doubling down on extreme and inflammatory positions and support for violent action. In online statements and at on-the-ground rallies in the days following the deal — which was announced on January 15, 2025, and officially began with a multiphase process on January 19 — anti-Israel activists echoed many of the same sentiments that have dominated the movement’s activities over the past 15 months.
Groups including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and others renewed their explicit veneration of violence against Israelis, calls for the destruction of Israel and demonization of the vast majority of the Jewish community by calling to eliminate Zionism.
Celebrating Hamas’s “Victory”
The responses demonstrated how explicit support for Hamas and other antisemitic U.S.-designated terror groups has become a fundamental element of the anti-Israel movement. Leading groups and activists, who responded immediately to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel with praise for terrorism and have consistently venerated terrorists throughout the war, celebrated the ceasefire as a “victory” for Hamas, shared Hamas propaganda footage online and displayed terrorist group paraphernalia at protests.
On January 15, Samidoun, an international fundraising arm for the antisemitic U.S.-designated terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and frequent sponsor of anti-Israel activity in the U.S., released a statement offering its full-throated support for terrorism. The group praised the “unparalleled courage, creativity and brilliant strategy” of “the Palestinian resistance – led by the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas, joined with Saraya al-Quds of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and together with multiple resistance forces including the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades of the PFLP, the National Resistance Brigades of the DFLP, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades of the resisting sectors of Fatah, and their fellow resistance fighters in Palestine.”
The Pennsylvania-based Philly Palestine Coalition commented on January 19, “The ceasefire offers a glimpse of what is possible when the resistance prevails… Do not underestimate the resistance and its capabilities… Glory to the martyrs. Glory to our prisoners. Glory to our fighters.” In a post that same day, the Palestinian Feminist Collective stated, “We honor the tenacity of our freedom fighters who fought until their last hour of life across the Gaza Strip. It is they who have shattered the myth of the Zionist regime’s invincibility.”
Student groups, including various SJP and JVP chapters, also glorified Hamas’s armed “resistance.” Responding immediately to the first reports of the tentative ceasefire agreement on January 15, for example, Duke University’s SJP chapter posted in praise of the “Axis of Resistance—armed and determined that broke the Zionists [sic] will” and added that the group was “praying for the death of the terrorist zionist [sic] regime soon <3.”
Central Florida Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter’s January 20, 2025, statement on the ceasefire agreement, featuring praise for and images of Hamas terrorists. (Instagram/Screenshots)
Central Florida SJP, which is not recognized as an officially registered student group by the University of Central Florida, shared a post on January 20 that prominently featured imagery of Hamas terrorists holding guns alongside the message, “GLORY TO ALL OUR MARTYRS, TOTAL LIBERATION IS NEAR.” In a January 16 post, the University of California, Davis, SJP chapter characterized Hamas’s October 7 massacre as an admirable act of “resistance” while ignoring the hundreds of people killed and kidnapped by Hamas during the attack, stating: “The October 7 Operation Al-Aqsa Flood [Hamas’s name for the attack] was launched in order to liberate Palestinians taken and tortured by the Israeli Occupation Forces.”
Numerous other student groups posted propaganda shared by Hamas or other footage of Hamas terrorists celebrating the ceasefire deal. For example, Huskies for a Free Palestine at Northeastern University shared multiple posts on their Instagram stories on January 19 glorifying Hamas. SJP at Loyola Marymount University shared a Hamas propaganda statement that same day published via the notorious terror-supporting Telegram channel, Resistance News Network (RNN).
Posts from Huskies for a Free Palestine at Northeastern University on January 19, 2025, celebrating Hamas amid the first phase of the ceasefire deal. (Instagram/Screenshots)
Anti-Zionist groups on and off campus also offered unbridled praise for Khalida Jarrar, a PFLP leader who was among those released from Israeli prison on January 19 during the first phase of the ceasefire deal’s Israeli hostage and Palestinian prisoner exchange. The U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), for example, praised her as a “revolutionary intellectual.” Messages of support were also posted by many longtime anti-Israel activists, including Max Blumenthal, conspiracy theorist and editor-in-chief of The Grayzone, and Ariel Gold, former leader of the anti-Zionist group Code Pink. Numerous SJPs also shared footage specifically praising Jarrar upon her release.
L-R: Posts shared by the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) and Palestinian Feminist Collective celebrating Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) leader Khalida Jarrar’s release as part of the first phase of the Israeli hostage and Palestinian prisoner exchange on January 19, 2025. (X/Screenshots)
Extreme Calls to “Eradicate” Zionism
Extreme calls to “eradicate Zionism” from Jewish communal life and U.S. college campuses also characterized many of the ceasefire responses. These plainly antisemitic demands demonize the vast majority of Jewish people for whom a connection to Israel is part of their Jewish identity. Eradicating Zionism would, in practice, force the dismantling of innumerable Jewish institutions worldwide. The normalization of calls to exclude Zionists and eliminate Zionism is a concerning trend that has long existed on the fringes of the anti-Israel movement but has become an increasingly central focus of the movement since the October 7, 2023, terror massacre.
In a statement published on January 15, Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) commented, “Wherever we are, we must struggle to ensure that Zionism has no opportunity to redress or rehabilitate itself: not now, not ever.”
SJP’s national umbrella organization and many of its associated local chapters reacted to the ceasefire by renewing their attacks on Zionism on college campuses. National SJP announced on January 16 its plans for a nationwide “Day of Action” the following week in response to the ceasefire centered on the theme of “GAZA RISES, ZIONISM FALLS.” “Our work has only just begun,” National SJP posted on X on January 19, calling to “eradicate Zionism on our campuses.”
A coalition of Chicago-based SJP chapters stated on January 15, “Let this be a stepping stone toward the downfall of Zionism.” The University of Maryland SJP affirmed their “resolve to dismantle Zionism” in a post on January 20. Swarthmore College SJP and JVP similarly wrote in a joint statement on January 18 that “the fight to dismantle Zionism will rage on.” A regional coalition of 20 SJPs across various college campuses in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Pennsylvania declared in a published statement on January 16 that they would “continue to fight for…the end of zionist [sic] normalization from our campuses.”
George Washington University SJP both celebrated Hamas’s violent actions and called for Zionism to be destroyed in a January 19 statement, commenting, “We salute our resistance, who took up arms against two nuclear powers…There can be no true liberation as long as zionism [sic] exists. [The last 15 months] have reminded us that to liberate our people and the people of the region, every last vestige of zionism [sic] and US imperialism must be destroyed.”
Statement published by a coalition of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) chapters at Columbia University, American University, Georgetown University, the University of Michigan and others on January 19, 2025, pledging to continue fighting against Zionism in the wake of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal. (Instagram/Screenshot)
George Washington University’s JVP chapter also weighed in, as part of a joint statement published on January 19 with JVP chapters from Columbia University, American University, Georgetown University, the University of Michigan and others. The statement declared, “the fight against Zionism must persist,” adding that, “Zionism must fall” and “It is our duty to erase Zionism from every crevice of Jewish life.”
The joint JVP statement implicated “the American Jewish community” broadly for the alleged actions of the Israeli military, stating, “American Jewish institutions will never be able to wash the blood of Gaza from their hands.”
On-the-Ground Responses Echo Online Reactions
Leaders and participants of on-the-ground protests in the days following the ceasefire agreement and implementation echoed the veneration of terrorists and the doubling down on calls to end Zionism that dominated online commentary.
On January 15, anti-Israel protesters sponsored by USPCN, SJP, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), Jisoor and Palestinian American Community Center rallied in celebration in Bridgeview, IL. A speaker stated, “We will fight each and every day, each and every hour, until our last breath, until we see Palestine liberated from the river to the sea…It ends when every single one of us is able to return to every single inch of liberated Palestine and Israel is in the trash bin of history.”
A January 25, 2025, PAL-Awda NY/NJ social media post glorifying Hamas and advertising a protest scheduled for the next day in response to the ceasefire agreement. (Instagram/Screenshot)
In a social media post on January 25, PAL-Awda NY/NJ urged supporters to join a protest the next day in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, to “CELEBRATE THE VICTORY OF OUR RESISTANCE” and “RECOMMIT TO THE FIGHT AGAINST ZIONISM EVERYWHERE, AND TO A LIBERATED PALESTINE FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA.” The post featured imagery of Hamas terrorists and an inverted red triangle, a symbol popularized by Hamas in connection to the October 7 attack to mark targets. During the rally on January 26, protesters displayed flags and headbands bearing Hamas’s logo, as well as a flag depicting Abu Obaida, spokesperson for the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas’s military wing).
Protesters at a ceasefire rally sponsored by PYM, SJP, Healthcare Workers for Palestine and others in Houston, TX, on January 18 held signs that included a depiction of former PFLP spokesperson Ghassan Kanafani and another featuring the slogan “Resistance is the key to liberation” alongside an inverted red triangle.
Flags depicting al-Qassam Brigades spokesperson Abu Obaida were flown alongside other terrorist group paraphernalia at anti-Israel ceasefire protests in Philadelphia, PA (left) and Brooklyn, NY (right) on January 25, 2025. (Instagram/Screenshots)
At a Philadelphia, PA, ceasefire rally on January 25 sponsored by the Philly Palestine Coalition, SJP, Penn Against the Occupation and Healthcare Workers for Palestine, protesters wore Hamas headbands, carried an Abu Obaida flag and displayed a Samidoun-branded banner reading “Long Live October 7th.” Local Samidoun organizer Abu Ali elicited cheers from the crowd when he stated, “All of us should be thanking Hamas, should be thanking [Palestinian] Islamic Jihad, should be thanking the PFLP…This is a huge, huge victory, and it’s all thanks to the Resistance.”
Conclusion
Overall, anti-Zionist responses to the ceasefire emphasized activists’ commitment to keep “fighting” against Israel and Zionism’s existence. This pledge reflected previous calls to action made by leaders in the U.S. anti-Zionist movement since October 7, and signaled that even with a ceasefire in Gaza, anti-Israel activity in the U.S. is not likely to subside.
