Lawsuit Alleges U.S. Activists and Campus Groups Provided Material Support to Hamas: Free Speech or Coordinated Aid to Terrorism?

By: Fern Sidman

In a lawsuit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, a coalition of plaintiffs—comprising Columbia University students and parents of Israeli hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7, 2023—has accused several American-based pro-Palestinian organizations and individual activists of knowingly coordinating with Hamas, a group designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the U.S. State Department.

BOMBSHELL lawsuit filed today in New York’s Southern District against some of the largest terror supporters and antisemitic mob riot organizers in NYC, including:
– Nerdeen Kiswani & WOL
– Maryam Alwan & SJP Columbia
– Mahmoud Khalil & CUAD
– Cameron Jones & JVP Columbia… pic.twitter.com/d0XDHzjLT5

— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) March 25, 2025

According to detailed report that appeared on Monday in The Free Press (thefp.com), the suit alleges that these groups and individuals did not merely voice political support for the Palestinian cause but provided substantial assistance to Hamas in the form of propaganda, recruiting, and logistical support. The named defendants include several high-profile activist organizations and individuals affiliated with Columbia University, including Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate and CUAD spokesperson, recently detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Nerdeen Kiswani, the co-founder of Within Our Lifetime, a pro-Hamas activist group, Maryam Alwan, the representative of Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), and Cameron Jones, the representative of Columbia Jewish Voice for Peace.

The legal team—comprising attorneys from the National Jewish Advocacy Center (NJAC), Schoen Law Firm, Greenberg Traurig, and Holtzman Vogel—asserts that the core issue at hand is not the defense of unpopular speech, but the unlawful provision of aid to a terrorist group.

“This case is not about individuals and organizations independently exercising their free speech rights to support whatever cause they wish—no matter how abhorrent,” the lawsuit states. “Rather, it is about organizations and their leaders knowingly providing substantial assistance—in the form of propaganda and recruiting services—to, and in coordination with, a designated foreign terrorist organization, Hamas.”

Attorney Mark Goldfeder, lead counsel for NJAC, emphasized to The Free Press that the lawsuit is designed to clarify the legal boundary between protected expression and criminal coordination. “The right to propagandize on college campuses is important,” Goldfeder said, “but it does not encompass coordinating with a terrorist organization or breaking university rules.”

According to the complaint, the national chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, which was suspended from Columbia’s campus, allegedly continued operating under the banner of CUAD. As early as October 8, one day after the October 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, SJP is said to have distributed “toolkits” to its university chapters—including Columbia—urging them to provide “real” support for Hamas, not just symbolic statements, in direct response to what the lawsuit claims was Hamas’s own “call for mass mobilization.”

One plaintiff, Shlomi Ziv, a hostage taken by Hamas during the October 7 attacks, is cited in the suit as having heard his captors brag about “Hamas operatives on American university campuses.” He also recalls being shown Al-Jazeera coverage and images of Columbia protests, which were allegedly organized by several of the named defendants, according to the report in The Free Press.

The March 8th detention of Mahmoud Khalil by ICE has generated national attention, particularly on the issue of freedom of speech and political dissent in the post-October 7 climate. But the lawsuit, The Free Press reported, insists that this framing mischaracterizes the actual legal argument. It contends that Khalil and others crossed a clear legal line by coordinating with a designated terrorist group, thus violating the Antiterrorism Act and the law of nations.

The plaintiffs are seeking compensatory and punitive damages, aiming to establish civil liability and potentially disrupt the operations of the groups involved.

This is not the first case alleging that U.S.-based groups have provided material support to Hamas. As the report in The Free Press noted, the Boim family, whose 17-year-old son David Boim was murdered by Hamas gunmen in 1996, successfully filed a civil case against three U.S.-based organizations. The jury found these groups—believed to be Hamas front organizations—civilly liable for Boim’s murder.

Former FBI special agent Lara Burns, now head of terrorism research at The George Washington University, told The Free Press that there are “elements” within the U.S. that maintain ties to original Hamas front organizations, and that legal actions such as the one filed this week could prove instrumental in exposing and dismantling those networks.

“These cases could help hold individuals like Khalil responsible,” Burns said, “and lead to the dismantling of the groups being sued.”

The lawsuit raises fundamental questions about how American campuses have become staging grounds for global ideological conflicts, and whether certain activist efforts—when aligned too closely with the agenda of foreign terrorist groups—can or should be protected by the First Amendment.

As the report in The Free Press highlighted, this case will likely test the limits of free speech, academic freedom, and civil liability under U.S. counterterrorism statutes, especially at a moment when geo-political tensions have reached fever pitch on campuses nationwide.