American Thinker published a distorted article about the upcoming National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) Conference, claiming SJP represents the student arm of the “stealth jihad” movement and criticizing Columbia University and Jewish students for giving pro-Palestinians a platform to express their views.

There are two ways this response can go. I can either focus on the article’s many contextual, grammatical, and typographical errors (the author, Jan Suzanne Krasner, very noticeably confuses SJP with SPJ), or I can simply show how the author contradicts and subsequently discredits herself. Both routes will suggest that Krasner and the ideological views presented in her article represent the extremism and intolerance SJP and other pro-justice organizations work against, but I will choose the latter route and deal solely with the article’s slanderous content.

Krasner, who genuinely believes several neighborhoods in the United Kingdom are “Shariah Controlled Zones” run by Muslims fantasizing about victorious battles against the Crusaders, vaguely argues that the SJP Conference to be held at Columbia University serves to delegitimize Israel through direct yet stealthy jihad. In her own words, “[t]he Muslim Brotherhood actively supports and finances student organizations like SJP”. To Krasner, the conference, which she repeatedly calls a “training event”, is just another example of the “true mission of Islamists” being forced upon the American youth, and she feels compelled to put an end to it.

From the start, Krasner’s idea of SJP and campus solidarity is flawed by her obsession with the far-fetched idea that everything represents creeping Shariah unless it fully abides by and supports  American and Israeli policy. By asserting that SJP serves to promote ‘radical Islam’, a term copped from the FOX network, Krasner reveals her misunderstanding of what it means to stand against Israel’s sustained abuse of Palestinian rights. The article mentions “SJP’s demands” but instead links to an unrelated article about the Palestinian Authority’s recent bid for statehood. What the article purposefully leaves out is that SJP’s real demands involve an end to the illegal occupation of Palestine and a restoration of human rights, equality, and self-sovereignty to all. [Read more...]