NYU Hosts "Palestinian Prisoners' Movement" Event—Code for Imprisoned Terrorists
On Dec 3, NYU hosts "The Palestinian Prisoners' Movement and Transcultural Solidarity" featuring Kaleem Hawa organizer from alleged terror-tied PYM and Professor Andrew Ross
New York University has scheduled a December 3, 2025 campus event featuring Kaleem Hawa, an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), a group that multiple watchdog organizations allege maintains ties to U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Hamas.
The event, titled “The Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement and Transcultural Solidarity,” is organized by NYU Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine and co-sponsored by the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies—a Title VI National Resource Center for modern Middle Eastern Studies that receives federal funding from the United States Department of Education—along with NYU’s Departments of Social and Cultural Analysis and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies
Joining Hawa is NYU Professor Andrew Ross, who was arrested and barred from certain NYU buildings in December 2024 following participation in pro-Palestinian protests. Ross served on the advisory board of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) and also said he was part of Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP), which is part of USACBI. He has previously published articles glorifying Palestinian terrorists as “martyrs” and justifying the wave of stabbing attacks during the 2015 “Knife Intifada.”
In November 2024, Ross was named in a federal lawsuit filed against NYU by three Jewish students, who claimed the university failed to adequately address harassment and discrimination. The lawsuit was settled in July 2024, with plaintiffs stating their complaints about antisemitic threats had been “ignored, slow-walked, or met with gaslighting by NYU.”
Speaker’s Defense of October 7
Hawa, a PhD candidate in Columbia University’s Department of English and Comparative Literature, has made statements characterizing Hamas terrorists involved in the October 7, 2023 massacre as returning to the lands of their grandparents.
At a CUNY 4 Palestine teach-in in 2023, Hawa stated there was an “overemphasis on women and children being martyred in Gaza” and argued it was “equally important to recognize the loss of first responders, fighters, and various other groups that are less easily grievable,” in apparent reference to Hamas and other terrorist groups.
PYM’s History of Alleged Terror-Ties
The Palestinian Youth Movement, which Hawa represents, co-organized a Times Square demonstration on October 8, 2023—one day after the Hamas October 7 massacre. The Anti-Defamation League reports that PYM has co-hosted protests where speakers praised Hamas’s October 7 attack and organized events featuring speakers who called armed struggle a “legitimate path for total liberation.”
A July 2024 report by the Israeli Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism stated that PYM has “close ties with the Popular Front and its affiliates, as well as with the Students for Justice in Palestine organization linked to Hamas.” PYM has offered an annual scholarship named after deceased PFLP leader Ghassan Kanafani, who participated in the 1972 Lod Airport massacre.
In May 2024, PYM hosted the People’s Conference for Palestine, which featured endorsements from PFLP leaders who called for the destruction of Israel. That same conference featured an address from the PFLP’s Wisam Rafeedie—who has spoken at other PYM events in the past.
The group’s collaboration with terror-affiliated organizations further highlights its extremist agenda. PYM has worked closely with Samidoun, designated as a terrorist group by the U.S., Canada, Germany, Dutch parliament, and Israel for its ties to the PFLP.
A notable example includes PYM and Samidoun’s collaboration on a campaign calling for the release of Ahmad Sa’adat, a PFLP terrorist imprisoned by Israel for masterminding the 2001 assassination of then-Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi.
In August 2025, Senator Tom Cotton called on the IRS to investigate PYM’s funding and alleged terrorist connections.
Hawa’s Writings Glorify Terrorism
In a May 2024 editorial he wrote,” Hawa declared that “Zionism is the catastrophe.” He wrote that “the Palestinian resistance is our inspiration; we salute our brave fighters”—terms the researchers identified as euphemisms for terrorism and terrorists. The piece rejected what he called those who merely want the “violence to end” and instead called for readers to “defend those who do.” In the same piece, Hawa described Israeli society as a “social formation that cannot be lived alongside.”
Hawa has also authored a book titled “Like a Bag Trying to Empty” that frames Walid Daqqa as a “Palestinian prisoner and political intellectual.” Daqqa, a PFLP member, was convicted of orchestrating the abduction, torture, and murder of Israeli soldier Moshe Tamam in 1984.
In 2020, Hawa received special thanks for his involvement in a film screening of FEDAYIN, done in collaboration with Samidoun and PYM. The film is centered on the life of Georges Abdallah, a Lebanese terrorist convicted in France for the 1982 murders of U.S. military attaché Charles Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov.
The film includes interviews with Khaled Barakat and Charlotte Kates, both leaders of Samidoun, which was designated as a terrorist entity by the U.S. and Canada in October 2024 for serving as “an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.”
Organizing Group Includes Suspended Faculty Member
NYU Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, which is organizing the December 3 event, includes among its members Amin Husain, an adjunct professor who was suspended by NYU in January 2024 after denying Hamas atrocities during the October 7 attack. At a teach-in, Husain told students “we know it’s not true”, referring to Hamas’ use of sexual violence on Oct 7th, and described New York as a “Zionist city.”
Host Center Accused of Anti-Israel Bias
The Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, which is co-sponsoring the event, has been described by the Middle East Forum as serving as a “hub connecting numerous departments, initiatives, projects, centers, and clubs that demonize Israel and rationalize Palestinian and Iranian atrocities.” The center is a Title VI National Resource Center, meaning it receives federal funding for Middle Eastern studies programming.
“Prisoners’ Movement” Celebrates Convicted Terrorists
The event’s focus on the “Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement” uses activist language to reframe convicted terrorists as political detainees. The Palestinian Youth Movement has campaigned for the release of individuals including Khalida Jarrar, who has been identified in the past by Israeli security forces as the head of the PFLP in the West Bank, and has memorialized former PFLP terrorist Walid Daqqa. PYM has also celebrated individuals killed while carrying out terror attacks, including Oday al-Tamimi, who murdered 18-year-old Israeli soldier Noa Lazar in a checkpoint shooting.
NYU should be subject to all relevant sanctions for this egregious Title VI violation.
So…. Will there be hundreds of masked pro Israel protestors aggressively blocking the entrance into this venue? With bullhorns screaming catchy slogans and huge banners calling them out as the pathetic cowards and filthy murderers they really are?
And if not…. Why not?