CUNY For Palestine Vows to Destroy University and Target NYC

CUNY for Palestine released a rather terrifying statement on July 25 declaring the pro-Hamas group’s intentions to destroy the City University of New York and “brutalize” and “escalate” against the city of New York.

The student-led group criticized the Gaza Solidarity Encampments for being too soft and conciliatory. The goal, according to CUNY for Palestine, should be the destruction of the school for its alleged complicity in Israel’s “genocide:”

The encampments were an escalatory response, but they often failed to envision an end goal beyond a meeting, a committee or an email. An encampment should not normalize the institution, it should disrupt it, dismantle it and abolish it. A principled encampment should not collaborate with the pigs. This includes campus “public safety.” Anyone that chooses to play the role of a pig is the enemy. [original emphasis]

The statement later says, “The city of New York and their pigs are going to keep brutalizing and escalating, and so will we.”

Merging the Anti-Israel and Anti-Police Movements

The demonizing of police is heartfelt, but it’s also part of a strategy that CUNY for Palestine’s comrades have promoted for the sake of building a nationwide anti-American insurgency.

An anonymously-authored anarchist essay published shortly after the October 7 attacks and distributed widely within the anti-Israel extremist ecosystem advised activists to quickly merge their causes with those pursued by other militants:

In the United States, the first step for Palestine Solidarity is to make its position clear on Black liberation. A rudimentary starting point is to chants expressing support for Black liberation and Palestinian liberation as well as condemnation of police to become commonplace at demonstrations.

The document emphasizes the fight against Israel is a theater in a wider war, ending with the statement, “Freedom for Palestine means Death to America.”

Another zine from an anarchist website that has been widely distributed in the anti-Israel militant online ecosystem emphasizes “the pro-Palestinian movement must be a movement against the police.” It honors students who physically battled police officers during a crackdown on their protests and equates American law enforcement with the Israeli military, implicitly justifying a terrorist campaign targeting cops.

Similarly, Palestine Action US, the American wing of the UK-based Palestine Action militant group, regurgitated the zine’s exact words about expanding the scope to target law enforcement. It instructed activists: “Stay mobile, stay together, fight back again and again. The risks we refuse to take to end the genocide now are shifted on to someone else, later.”

CUNY for Palestine’s statement also reflects its desire for harming police officers by demanding “the reinstatement of the Guillermo Morales/Assata Shakur community center, which existed because of a campus occupation.”

Shakur is an iconic figure among anti-American Marxist and anarchist militants. She was a ferociously anti-American terrorist from the Black Liberation Army who committed a spree of violent crimes including robberies and kidnappings and was ultimately imprisoned for murdering a police officer. She then escaped prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba, where she was harbored until she died in 2019.

A Proxy for Hamas and Iran

The group states that it “attempted to answer the call made by the steadfast Palestinian resistance to escalate from within the belly of the beast.” It further says it acts in alliance with the Iran-led coalition that includes the Syrian dictatorship, Hezbollah, the Houthis, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq militias, and other terrorist groups:

Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq continue to respond to the Palestinian call by confronting the zionist entity, smashing all illusions of the occupation’s invincibility while they deal with entity’s outbursts. ‘The Axis of Resistance bears its responsibility not only in supporting Gaza but in doing more to serve the primary goal, which is stopping the aggression in all its forms.’

The fight is not just in solidarity, but in resisting assimilation to the colonial project.  The CUNY 22 attempted to answer the call made by the steadfast Palestinian resistance to escalate from within the belly of the beast. We resist with Gaza. [emphasis original]

CUNY for Palestine also has ambitions for forceful actions off campus. It says, “The fight for a liberated Palestine is also a fight for a liberated Harlem, and the destruction of U.S. Empire.”

It also refers to “fighting in Atlanta,” an apparent reference to the Stop Cop City campaign that is linked to anarchist terrorists. Over 60 of the activists involved in that effort are being prosecuted, with dozens of them facing domestic terrorism charges. The group has been involved in attacks on law enforcement and utility workers contracted by the so-called Cop City and various acts of arson and property damage.

The Significance of “We”

CUNY for Palestine’s closing paragraph uses the word “we” when referring to terrorists and extremists who are attacking Israel and fighting in Sudan’s civil war:

Whether we are fighting in Atlanta, New York City, Sudan, or Palestine, the enemy remains the same. The zionist entity escalates, so does the Palestinian Resistance. The pigs and institutions escalate, so do the agitators of the world! [original emphasis]

The use of the words “we are fighting” means CUNY for Palestine doesn’t just see itself as stalwart supporters of those forces. It sees itself as an actual part of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” particularly Hamas and the Sudanese Armed Forces.

To put it more bluntly: CUNY for Palestine is saying they are terrorists.