National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is seeking to usurp university institutions in order to weaken the United States of America, according to an official political program published on Wednesday, as they saw themselves engaged in a class war against what they saw as pillars of economic and social support for the existing political system.
“The University and the Reproduction of Capitalist-Imperialist Society,” SJP position paper, written in 2025, largely reviewed the role of universities through a Marxist theoretical lens but also set out a seven-point strategic program for the anti-Israel organization’s operations.
The points and analyses in the program establish that the tactical objectives of divestment, campus radicalization, and confrontations are in service of the strategic objective of replacing the current universities with revolutionary education camps, which in turn would serve the grand strategy of undermining the US.
“Universities have functioned as pillars of colonial domination and imperialist conquest. To not just achieve divestment, but to weaken US imperialism, we must unite with disenfranchised sectors of the university to develop the structures and capacity to weaken the power of the war profiteers as a whole,” read the seventh point in the programming, which called to control all sectors of the academic institutions and unseat boards of trustees.
“By asserting our democratic will in the university, we transform the campus into an incubator for ideas and a platform for struggle, not a site of capitalist reproduction.”
The sixth point in the program, calling for alliances with other revolutionary movements within and outside university systems, explained that advancing the “global cause for justice” was required to “weaken the US empire within its core” and advance the Palestinian movement.
'A complete replacement of the current academic - institutional model'
A complete confrontation of Zionism on North American campuses meant the complete replacement of the current academic and institutional model, which they saw as unseating Zionist ideological dominance over the system.
They would seek to replace the current model with the “Popular University for Gaza” in the informal grassroots educational encampments established inside the protest encampments and occupied buildings since 2024. The model would usurp “universities’ existing structures, undermining their elite reputations, and delegitimizing their institutional authority.”
“We will provide students with a revolutionary political education that sets the foundation for collective political action,” read the second point.
According to the analyses within the document, to “dismantle the university” would entail eliminating competitive grading and “liberal civility” so that they could engage in “mass-based political education” to foster a Marxist revolutionary “class consciousness.”
The role of the almost 420 chapters, most of which were in the US, was to challenge what the national body saw as American campuses' role in sustaining and legitimizing the US system, which they viewed as an imperialistic and exploitative endeavor.
The student intifada
The two-year “student intifada,” which the organization saw as a “war between SJP and the university,” was therefore not a conflict targeting those specific institutions but against a “ruling class.”
The boards of trustees were part of this ruling class, necessitating the “complete dissolution of the board of trustees and the transfer of the university into the hands of the masses.”
Those who showed loyalty to the academic institutions, engaging in fraternities and sororities, university athletics, and other school societies, were seen as the “good student” and compared to the “petty bourgeois.” They were part of an opposing social force, according to SJP.
“The ‘good student,’ loyal to both the institution and the nested socio-cultural sub-institutions that it supports, is a traitor to the working class and the nationally oppressed,” read an analysis on the “good student.”
The main points of the program call to confront Zionism on US campuses, seeking to end all institutional relationships directly tied to Israel or part of a “globalized military-industrial complex.”
Israel was described as the US’s chief “proxy” in the Middle East, inseparable and integrated into the US-led economic system. Divestment could also not be completed without removing the boards of trustees from power.
“Realizing the goals of the Student Movement for Palestine requires a wholesale upheaval of the university,” read the conclusion. “The cultural rupture of the Student Intifada set the stage for this transformation, but only our future actions can determine whether we emerge victorious.”