The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) would not say Tuesday whether it is investigating people identifying themselves as part of a foreign terrorist organization heard chanting “We are Hamas” outside U.S. universities including Columbia.
Video footage shows masked Islamists taunting Jewish students outside of President Barack Obama’s alma mater. One woman shouted at a pro-Israel activist, “We are Hamas” while standing outside Columbia University. “We’re all Hamas.”
Another man who covered his face was seen on video promising more mass slaughter, rape, and kidnapping: “Remember the 7th of October! That will happen not one more time, not five more times, to 10 more times, not 100 more times, not 1,000 more times, but 10,000 times!”
“Never forget the 7th of October,” another unidentifiable man donning the Palestinian flag outside the university screams in a video recording. “Are you ready? Seventh of October is about to be every day. Every day. Seventh of October is going to be every day for you.”
The Federalist asked the FBI whether they would investigate the self-proclaimed terrorists.
“Thank you for your inquiry. However, we decline comment on this matter,” the bureau replied.
The FBI designates Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Perhaps the FBI’s unwillingness to let the American people know it’s monitoring self-proclaimed terrorists is because the agency allegedly trained some of its personnel using material that “ranked people who oppose abortion, pro-life activists, as a greater threat than Islamists,” as former special agent Steve Friend told the Tennessee Informer.
Friend said he received the training material in 2014 but was unsure whether the agency still used it. The materials, he said, were produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a hate group whose materials inspired a gunman to shoot up the offices of a conservative DC organization in 2012, and another gunman to attempt to murder a member of Congress in 2017.
As of 2023, the FBI still uses some SPLC materials. SPLC responded to the October 7 terrorist attack in Israel by claiming that, while “all acts of hate violence” are wrong, Israel targets Palestinian civilians. That is a Hamas propaganda refrain.
The FBI also cited SPLC in a 2023 document targeting traditional Christians for opposing abortion and holding orthodox views about the sexes. It labeled them “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists” and even suggested cultivating FBI informants within local churches.
The FBI has also smeared Americans who support former President Donald Trump as potential terrorists by including them in their “domestic extremism” definition, a 2023 report from Newsweek found. Newsweek found “nearly two-thirds of the FBI’s current investigations” focus on Trump supporters who allegedly disregarded “anti-riot” laws.
After Jan. 6, 2021, the agency also expanded its “anti-government or anti-authority violent extremists-other” classification so it could monitor anyone who disagrees with any government action. A 2021 inspector general report found that several FBI officials lied to cover up agency errors and dinged the agency for its systemic lack of rapid investigation of later convicted child sex abuser Larry Nassar.
