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Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is promoting a credit-bearing university course on Palestinian revolutionary history whose faculty instructor has helped organize a national pro-Palestinian activist network and faced criticism over controversial statements about Israel and Zionist students.
The student-initiated course, titled Palestine, Imperialism, and Struggle: The Revolutionary History of Palestine, lists Stanford professor David Palumbo-Liu, a longtime advocate of academic boycotts against Israel, as its faculty instructor. In an Instagram announcement, Stanford SJP encouraged prospective members to enroll in the class, which examines revolutionary political thought through the writings of Vladimir Lenin and Frantz Fanon before applying those theories to Palestinian history.
An additional finding emerged from a Google-indexed description associated with Stanford University’s official course catalog. The description explicitly named writings of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization responsible for airline hijackings, assassinations and other terrorist attacks, including the 2001 killing of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi. The PFLP also participated in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks against Israel. The reference does not appear in SJP’s public advertisement, and the complete course syllabus does not appear to have been publicly released.
Faculty Instructor Helped Establish National Pro-Palestinian Network
The course’s listed faculty instructor, David Palumbo-Liu, is Stanford’s Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor of Comparative Literature and a founding faculty member of the university’s Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity program. His involvement in pro-Palestinian activism extends beyond public advocacy for academic boycotts, encompassing efforts to organize faculty nationwide in support of campus activism.
According to a February 2024 report by The Stanford Daily, Palumbo-Liu was a founding member of Stanford Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) and helped develop the idea of establishing FJP chapters nationwide approximately six years earlier, in conjunction with the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI). The initiative emerged after Palumbo-Liu observed the expansion of Students for Justice in Palestine chapters across American universities.
During a May 2024 interview with The Real News Network, Palumbo-Liu confirmed his involvement in developing the faculty network. He explained that the initiative had subsequently been revived and expanded to approximately 100 chapters nationwide, identifying support for student activists as its immediate priority.
His relationship with SJP has also involved direct participation in campus activities. In May 2025, Palumbo-Liu addressed a Stanford SJP-organized rally supporting a campus hunger strike, encouraging demonstrators to put their bodies on the line when other means failed. In December 2025, he hosted an episode of his Speaking Out of Place podcast featuring SJP organizers from San José State University and the City University of New York.
More recently, an October 8, 2026, report by The Stanford Daily identified Palumbo-Liu as a faculty supporter of a vigil organized by SJP and Jewish Voice for Peace on the third anniversary of the Hamas-led October 7 massacre. In a separate September 2026 opinion article, Palumbo-Liu defended student protesters who had occupied Stanford’s president’s office in June 2024 and disclosed that he previously served as a faculty mentor for students pursuing a university divestment proposal in 2015.
Professor’s Controversial Statements on Israel and Campus Safety
Palumbo-Liu has also faced criticism over public statements concerning Israel and the safety concerns expressed by Zionist students on campus.
In a September 24, 2023, commentary published by JNS, the professor was identified among speakers at the Palestine Writes Literature Festival at the University of Pennsylvania. The article attributed a social-media statement to him declaring, “If Israel is not the most hated nation in the world, there is something deeply wrong with the world.” The remark was subsequently highlighted in a December 2023 post by the watchdog organization StopAntisemitism.
Another statement became the subject of congressional scrutiny in early 2024. According to a March 7, 2024, report by The Stanford Daily, Stanford physics doctoral student Kevin Feigelis submitted written testimony to a congressional roundtable on campus antisemitism that included a screenshot of a Facebook post by Palumbo-Liu.
In the post, Palumbo-Liu responded to Zionists who said they did not feel safe on campus with the words, “Well as the saying goes, get used to it.” Feigelis criticized the statement as dismissive of students’ safety concerns.
Academic Boycott Collective Included Samidoun Coordinator
Palumbo-Liu has also held an organizing role within USACBI, which advocates academic and cultural boycotts of Israeli institutions. On his personal website, he identifies himself as a member of USACBI’s Organizing Collective. In a May 2024 article published by Jacobin, titled In Defense of Boycotting Israeli Universities, he argued that Israeli universities should face academic boycotts.
An August 2018 organizational letter published by USACBI identifies both Palumbo-Liu and Charlotte Kates, the international coordinator of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, as members of the same USACBI Organizing Collective.
On October 15, 2024, the U.S. Treasury Department designated Samidoun, describing the network as a fundraising front established by the PFLP and accusing it of providing financial support to the terrorist organization.
Professor Questioned Reporting on October 7 Sexual Violence
Palumbo-Liu has also publicly challenged reporting about sexual violence during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks. In a June 2024 interview with the French organization Indigènes de la République, he accused The New York Times of publishing “incendiary and false reporting” concerning what he described as “supposedly massive cases” of rape involving Israeli victims.
SJP Encourages Prospective Members to Enroll
Stanford SJP’s promotion of the course also connects its organizational recruitment efforts with an academic offering focused on revolutionary political theory. In its Instagram announcement, the group specifically encourages students interested in joining SJP to enroll.
The group’s official Stanford student-organization listing advocates a democratic, plurinational one-state arrangement and frames Palestinian liberation within a broader struggle against imperialism and capitalism. Its mission statement also explicitly supports what it calls the “right to defense and resistance”, while describing Palestinian political organizing as a means of spreading anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist ideas into other American social movements.