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On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a surprise invasion of southern Israel from Gaza. Over the course of the day, the terrorists themselves recorded their brutal acts of violence, rape, and kidnapping. Nearly 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, were murdered in the attacks, and more than 250 were taken hostage.
The atrocities of October 7th marked the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Yet, ahead of the third anniversary this week, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and a network allied groups are methodically rewriting history, portraying Palestinians as the victims and Israelis as the aggressors, honoring “our martyrs” and commemorating the date as the purported start of “three years of genocide” committed by Israel in Gaza.
That intentionally distorted framing is useful for SJP’s cause. It erases the horrific crimes against humanity perpetrated by Palestinians on October 7th, and instead focuses solely on Israel’s subsequent military response. SJP incites the public against Israel and Jews, while the question of who actually started the war goes unasked.
This week, as we commemorate October 7, pro-Palestinian campus groups and their allies are trying to hijack the date and the story.
October 7 was the day Hamas and its allies murdered about 1,200 people in Israel, most of them civilians, and took 251 hostages. That is not a metaphor. That is the record.
Look at the posters. There are hundreds of events across the world this week, and they share one idea: erase the day. SJP chapters and allied groups keep October 7 on the flyer and strip out what it means. “Three years of genocide.” “Honor our martyrs.” “Week of Rage.” “Tufan Al Aqsa.” The attack is gone. The Israeli dead are gone. The hostages are gone. In their place is a one-sided grief machine and a calendar built to make October 7 mean something else.
This is a hijacking in plain sight. They keep the date so the week is unmistakable. They drop the perpetrators so no one has to say Hamas. They fill the blank with “genocide” and “martyrs,” so the only story left is the war that followed, never the massacre that started it. From campus vigils and “people’s universities” to shipping blockades and “dismantle Zionism” marches, the week’s programming is the cover story for that erasure.
Denial is the strategy.
We see the flyers. We see the pattern across campuses and cities. This is erasure with a keffiyeh filter.
The @CombatASemitism, through ARC, is monitoring and tracking these events worldwide. We will name the organizers, map the network, and expose support for Hamas and the intimidation that rides with it.
This week we mourn the murdered and the hostages. October 7 is their day. It is not a blank page for someone else’s rewrite.
— Sacha Roytman (@SachaRoytman) October 5, 2026
National SJP’s flyer highlighting its October 5-9 “Week of Action” features the language “3 years of genocide, 3 years of resistance” and “for our martyrs.”
At Kent State University in Ohio, an October 7 march will be held under the banner of “Until Total Liberation.”
In Washington, D.C., at Howard University, there will be a “Vigil for the Martyrs.” Across town, the headline for a rally at The George Washington University is “There Is No End to Our Struggle.”
At Rowan University in New Jersey, a campus vigil will commemorate “1,097 Days of Genocide.”
At Oklahoma State University, a “Week of Rage” has been planned.
These are just but a a few examples documented by CAM’s Antisemitism Research Center (ARC) of such rhetoric being employed to promote SJP-organized events this week across the United States.
Off campuses in the U.S., the strategy of anti-Israel activists is also abundantly clear. In East Palo Alto, California, Peninsula for Palestine, San Bruno for Palestine, and the Palestinian Youth Movement expressed opposition to a local October 7th memorial because it “centers Oct. 7th.” Remembering the attacks and paying tribute to the victims are treated as an offense. The approved story begins in 1948, or in Gaza after October 7th, but never in the border communities of southern Israel on that terrible day.
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, California, Midnight Books hosted on Friday a “Commemoration of Tufan Al Aqsa” — Arabic for “Al Aqsa Flood,” Hamas’s name for the October 7th attacks.
The situation is no different across the globe. An ad for a Montreal4Palestine protest says “Respect Existence or Expect Resistance.” Other examples include: London, England (“Dismantle Zionism”), Hanover, Germany (“Resistance Until Victory”), Athens, Greece (“3 Years of Resistance”), and Gothenburg, Sweden (“Long Live the Resistance”).
The ARC is vigilantly monitoring these events as they are posted and occur. The annual October 7th anniversary should be a moment for solemn mourning and thoughtful reflection, not historical revisionism and antisemitic incitement.
Read more:
October 7th Denial and Distortion: The Newest Form of Antisemitism
