The worrying surge in pro-terror activities at universities in the Washington metropolitan area requires immediate national intervention. Recent events at George Mason University, George Washington University, and Georgetown University have highlighted a growing threat of radicalization and extremist behavior along with tangible support for foreign terrorist organizations among college students. These are just some cases that symbolize broader issues in higher education where there has been a failure to prevent radical ideologies from spreading under the pretense of activism. Colleges should not function as safe spaces for individuals who propagate extremist beliefs, which lead to violent actions against students and endanger everyone’s safety on campus. We must implement comprehensive reforms in university policies and enforce counterterrorism laws strictly while ending any tolerance toward those who endorse terrorism. Without prompt action, the results will be catastrophic for campus safety and national security.
Pro-Terror Activities at George Mason University
On November 7, 2024, 14 members of the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, Virginia State Police, Fairfax County Police Department, and the George Mason University (GMU) Police Department searched the home of Jena and Noor Chanaa, two Palestinian American students at GMU. Noor is an undergraduate student and the current co-president of GMU’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter. Jena is a master’s student studying civil and infrastructure engineering and was the former president of GMU’s SJP chapter in 2023. Both sisters were suspected of being involved in an act of vandalism that occurred on campus on August 28, where students spray-painted messages threatening a “student intifada.” Authorities found foreign passports and four weapons (AK-47 and AR-15 rifles) unsecured in the home, along with more than 20 magazines with 30 bullets each. They also found pro-terror material, including Hamas and Hezbollah flags and signs reading “Death to America” and “Death to Jews.” The following day, November 8, the coalition of SJP chapters in DC, Maryland, and Virginia (DMV SJP) announced that GMU’s SJP chapter had been suspended. The Chanaa sisters were also barred from campus for four years.
On December 27, 2024, the FBI arrested Abdullah Ezzeldin Taha Mohamed Hassan, an Egyptian national and first-year student studying information technology. According to the affidavit filed in the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Hassan was charged with the “distribution of information relating to explosives, destructive devices, and weapons of mass destruction in furtherance of the commission of a federal crime of violence” of “first-degree murder of internationally protected persons.” His goal was to perpetrate a mass casualty attack at the Consulate General of Israel in New York City because it represented the “Yahud”—the Arabic word for “Jew.” He also operated three different accounts on X (formerly known as Twitter) that advocated for violence against Jews and supported ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Hamas. According to POLITICO’s Senior Legal Affairs Reporter Josh Gerstein, who was the only reporter present during Hassan’s detention hearing, Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick, ordered that Hassan be remanded pending trial, declaring that he was inspired by “a hateful and spiteful ideology.” The District Attorney’s Office handling the case called it “one of the most severe cases of attempted attacks on a Jewish target” on American soil. GMU President Gregory Washington confirmed that Hassan was barred from campus despite not living there.
Pro-Terror Activities at George Washington University
On January 31, 2025, pro-Palestinian students organized a protest, marching down 23rd Street toward GW Hospital and outside the Foggy Bottom Metro Stop. Participants brought banners reading “Israel Occupation Forces Commit War Crimes with Impunity,” “Stop Israeli Settler Violence Against Palestinians,” and “End Illegal Settlements on Palestinian Land.” Demonstrators acted as soldiers of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), pretending to take pictures with the bodies of demonstrators lying on the crosswalk of 23rd Street and I Street, acting as Palestinians. The demonstrators acted out provocative scenes of IDF soldiers threatening and intimidating Palestinians, chanting, “This Is What Your Tax Dollars Pay for America.” The demonstrators acting as the IDF were also simulating the beating and harassment of the Palestinians while saying inflammatory phrases such as “Kill Her Baby,” “Put This on TikTok,” and “Scum of the Earth.”
On February 4, 2025, President Donald Trump made remarks during a joint press conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his plan for the United States to take control of the Gaza Strip and resettle Palestinians in surrounding countries. It sent shockwaves worldwide, except to the plan’s author, Professor of Economics and International Affairs Joseph Pelzman. On February 15, GW’s SJP chapter reacted to the news by calling for Prof. Pelzman to be fired immediately and making a laughable interpretation of the proposal. While some aspects of the proposal would be considered controversial, Prof. Pelzman supported the effort of deradicalization by establishing a “revitalized education system… based on a reformed UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabian curriculum.” The SJP chapter, on the other hand, interpreted it as “the use of re-education programs to permanently cement the ethnic cleansing and cultural eradication of the Palestinians.” On February 25, the SJP chapter went even further, vandalizing the front door to his office on campus with a “notice of eviction” and calling him a “pernicious symptom of the bloodthirsty Zionism permeating this campus.” A spokesperson for GW told Jewish Insider that it “condemns and takes very seriously any acts that deface university property or threaten any members of our community.” In an email, Prof. Pelzman told The Hatchet that he “only wanted to be helpful and come up with a solution to the mess in Gaza.”
Pro-Terror Activities at Georgetown University
On February 5, Jewish Insider reported that the Georgetown University Law Center’s SJP chapter planned to host on February 11, 2025, a discussion entitled “Palestinian Prisoners: An Evening with Ribhi Karajah, Student Activist and Former Political Prisoner, on Arrest, Detention, and Torture in the Israeli Military Judicial System.” Ribhi Karajah, a US citizen and member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was convicted as an accessory to the murder of 17-year-old Rina Shnerb on August 23, 2019. He was sentenced to three and ½ years in prison for his involvement, having been previously convicted for being a member of the PFLP and serving a suspended sentence when on trial for his role in Rina’s murder. While it was alleged that Karajah was released from prison as part of the Hostage Release and Ceasefire Agreement reached between Israel and Hamas on January 15, he was released in February 2023, before the Hamas-led October 7 attack. On February 9, Israel War Room was the first to report that the event was postponed “due to inclement weather.” That was a lie: Katy Button, Associate Vice President for Federal Relations at Georgetown, told a member of Congressman Ritchie Torres’ staff that the event had been postponed “so that the University could conduct a thorough investigation into serious safety and security concerns that had arisen.”
On February 13, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) revealed through the National Review that Georgetown University had enrolled a student with direct and acknowledged affiliations with the designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO) Hamas into the Master of Arts in Arab Studies program at their Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. Mapheze Ahmad Yousef Saleh is the daughter of Ahmed Yousef, a high-ranking advisor to the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh. She also served in the Hamas Government in the Gaza Strip, having worked for their so-called “Committee to Break the Siege in Gaza,” which also happened to be chaired by her father. The Middle East Forum also revealed that Mapheze is married to Badar Khan Suri, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service’s Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. A hypocrite, he claims to specialize in “peace processes in the Middle East.” Yet, just like Mapheze, he has repeatedly defended the Hamas-led October 7 attack and has spread Hamas propaganda through social media.
The recent uptick of pro-terror activities at George Mason, George Washington, and Georgetown Universities should spark more significant calls not just within the Washington metropolitan area but across the country for stronger counterterrorism measures on college campuses, university policy reforms on extremist speech and activities, and stricter consequences for pro-terror activities. All institutions of higher education should work closely with federal, state, local, and/or tribal law enforcement to monitor and prevent activities that endorse terrorism or designated foreign terrorist organizations. Universities should also be reforming their policies to prohibit student organizations from hosting convicted terrorists as guest speakers and prohibit being used as a platform to glorify terrorism. Any student, faculty, or staff found to be actively endorsing terrorism should face legal consequences, disciplinary action, or expulsion. Failure to take decisive action now will only embolden the pro-terror radicals, undermine campus safety, and compromise the integrity of our nation’s universities.