US-based anti-Israel groups and activists take propaganda directly from Hamas and amplify it online and on social media, an analysis by the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism revealed.
The center’s analysts found that, since October 7, 2023, groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) promote support for the “resistance” by circulating material taken directly from the accounts of Palestinian designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations such as Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
ADL said this exacerbates threats in two ways. Firstly, through active propaganda circulation. The activists are not just praising the activity of terror groups, but also disseminating official propaganda, such as videos and posters, directly onto mainstream platforms. And secondly, through rhetorical normalization. By spreading propaganda, activists are normalizing the goals and tactics of these groups.
The analysts noted that the migration of terror propaganda from extremist channels and networks to the mainstream demonstrates the ways in which terror groups achieve impact and influence in accessible online spaces, extending their reach and ideology into US public discourse.
One example is the Telegram channel Resistance News Network (RNN), which takes content directly from Hamas’s Telegram channel and shares it in English to its 150,000 subscribers. In May 2025, RNN posted a propaganda piece from Hamas Telegram praising a Houthi missile attack on Israel. In turn, the RNN post was shared by the Bronx Anti-War Coalition, a NYC-based anti-Israel group.
Campus groups spread similar propaganda
However, this phenomenon is not exclusive to RNN. Straight after the October 7 massacre, multiple activist accounts began sharing propaganda. For example, the University of Illinois SJP chapter shared a video on Instagram that showed a Hamas terrorist filming himself from inside the home of an Israeli family during the October 7 attack.
On October 7, 2024, SJP at the University of California, Davis, shared a quote from now-deceased Hamas spokesperson Abu Obaida on its Instagram stories, venerating the attack: “A year has passed since the most successful and professional commando operation of the modern era.”
Similarly, the far-left “direct action network” Unity of Fields (formerly Palestine Action US) has shared terror propaganda material supporting attacks, such as on the first anniversary of the October 7, 2023 attacks, when the group shared propaganda from PFLP on Telegram featuring its logo, a lit torch, guns, and the text “7 October World solidarity with Palestine, Palestine liberates the world.”
In July, the New York group StrikeMOMA, a close partner of Within Our Lifetime (WOL), reposted a Hamas propaganda poster featuring a quote from Abu Obaida.
However, ADL noted that one of the most ubiquitous forms of terror propaganda shared by anti-Zionist activists in recent years has been PFLP posters. Messages on the posters broadly support PFLP’s ideology and vary from outright support for terrorists to support for the working class. (PFLP is a Marxist-Leninist group.) They all seek to normalize the messaging of a terror group that also participated in the October 7 attacks. PFLP posters have been shared by Columbia4Palestine, SJP, and scores of others.
To protect against this trend, ADL recommends that social media companies rigorously enforce their existing policies, which often prohibit the sharing of content from terror groups. It also called on members of Congress to support and pass the Stopping Terrorists Online Presence and Holding Accountable Tech Entities Act (STOP HATE), H.R. 5681, which would improve transparency around how companies enforce their own policies to disrupt terrorist content on their platforms.
In terms of university administrations, ADL suggested they create and enforce rules for members of the campus community, including registered student organizations and faculty groups, and clearly communicate the extent to which certain conduct, including but not limited to the dissemination of terror propaganda, may violate campus policies and/or state and federal law.
“More broadly, it is incumbent upon the general public to engage in due diligence when consuming and sharing content online and associating with activist groups and individuals,” ADL said.