INTERVIEW - "Hamas wants to infiltrate American universities," says Wendy Sachs. "The terrorist organization has been pursuing this plan for decades."

On October 7, 2023, filmmaker Wendy Sachs was visiting her daughter at the University of Wisconsin-Madison when news of the Hamas massacre broke. Sachs witnessed from the front row how the climate became poisoned. Instead of a wave of solidarity with Israel, vehement anti-Israel protests erupted, not least on the universities. Harvard, as well as other elite universities, are now having to justify anti-Semitic excesses on campus.

Sachs impressively captures this development in her documentary "October 8," which is expected to be released in German-speaking countries this fall. Together with her producer and editor Nimrod Erez, she explains in a Zoom conversation from New York why the academic elite is receptive to militant anti-Israel ideas. She also argues that anti-Semitism on universities is not merely the product of an ideological aberration. Rather, Hamas deliberately infiltrated the American education system many years ago.

What happened on October 8, 2023?

Wendy Sachs: On October 8, the anti-Israel protests began. There was a march in Times Square in New York, where Hamas was celebrated as freedom fighters. And the next day, at Harvard, more than 30 student groups signed a letter blaming Israel itself for the Hamas attack. After that, it continued like a domino effect. After Harvard, there were anti-Semitic incidents at Cornell and Tulane, at MIT, at Columbia, at Barnard College, at Northwestern University . . . One campus after another was engulfed in protests.

And it all started on October 8, just one day after the Hamas massacre?

Sachs: That's the crux of the matter. The students were ready to march. SJP, Students for Justice in Palestine, just had to reach into their toolbox.

What do you mean?

Sachs: These students instantly adopted the language used by Hamas. Hamas called the terrorist attack the "Al-Aqsa Flood," and the students spoke of "flooding" the streets. They also immediately began using Hamas iconography, such as the red triangle, on campus. This happened without any delay.

Are you suggesting that pro-Palestinian student groups knew about the impending massacre?

Sachs: Yes, that's my impression. In fact, there's currently a case pending in a federal district court in New York addressing this allegation. The social media account of an offshoot of SJP, which appeared to be inactive for many years, apparently resurfaced from a deep sleep exactly three minutes before the terrorist attack began, declaring: "We're back."

You don't believe in coincidence?

Sachs: Look, it was widely known in Israel, too, that there were plans for an attack. The Israelis just didn't think it would actually be carried out.

In contrast to militant pro-Palestinian groups who longed for action?

Sachs: Yes, and so I don't think it's far-fetched that Hamas, or at least people associated with Hamas, coordinated with sympathizers here in America. That they told SJP, for example, "Watch out, something's going to happen in Israel tomorrow." Because Hamas had a plan for decades. They wanted to infiltrate American universities. We lay that out in the film. It's not a conspiracy theory. There's testimony about it in the ongoing court case.

What is SJP?

Nimrod Erez: SJP is an organization founded in 1993 at the University of California, Berkeley, by Hatem Bazian, who is still a professor there. SJP currently has approximately 400 branches in the United States and is not registered as a nonprofit organization. It is a nebulous network that organizes anti-Israel demonstrations and is strongly opposed to a two-state solution.

Who funds SJP?

Erez: There are connections between SJP and AMP, the nonprofit organization American Muslims for Palestine. AMP, in turn, has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an offshoot. We see that these organizations are clearly intertwined. Often the same people are involved. But SJP isn't the only agitator on campus; they're just the most successful. There's also JVP, Jewish Voice for Peace, which operates under the guise of being Jewish. Or the organization WOL, Within Our Lifetime.

Sachs: You also see activists and adults at the protests, who may even be paid. It's not just 20-year-olds demonstrating. Among them are men in their mid-30s, like Mohsen Mahdawi.

. . . who is considered the organizer of the protests at Columbia University and is now fighting against his deportation . . .

Sachs: He is 34 years old and, according to his own statements, began studying in Ramallah almost 18 years ago.

Many media outlets portray him as a peaceful activist whom the Trump administration wants to make an example of. He has been in the United States for a good ten years.

Sachs: And he doesn't even have a master's degree! Furthermore, he apparently fabricated a story about himself as a Palestinian refugee that's becoming increasingly unraveling.

Why should it be so important for Hamas to infiltrate student groups?

Sachs: Because that's where opinion formation begins. Starting in academic circles, the mindset spreads. In the film, we recount an FBI operation: In 1993, a Hamas meeting was wiretapped at a Marriott hotel in Philadelphia. Those present explicitly discussed: How do we get in? How do we infiltrate America? Well, the best way to do this is through universities. Hamas recognized this. You start with young, impressionable minds. The brightest minds from the elite—because those are the future leaders.

Aren’t you overestimating Hamas’s power and capabilities?

Erez: It's not just Hamas or Iran. It's important to note that the Soros Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and other left-leaning organizations support these student groups. Some of these organizations stopped funding them after the campus protests escalated. But there's an organization called Westpac from Westchester, New York, that's dedicated to "progressive change" and is apparently involved in funding SJP.

Isn't it legitimate to criticize Israel and protest on campus?

Sachs: That's undisputed. Everyone should be able to criticize Netanyahu, the Gaza war, the settlements, border issues... No question about it. But we're not talking about freedom of speech, we're talking about hate speech. About the intolerable harassment and threats against Jewish students.

Harvard has now published a report on anti-Semitism on campus, but also one on anti-Muslim prejudice. What is your assessment of this?

Sachs: This is crazy, it makes me angry.

For what reason?

Sachs: Because Harvard can't bring itself to identify anti-Semitism as a systemic problem on campus. They obscure it by simultaneously publishing a study on Islamophobia. Yet the numbers are perfectly clear. You only have to look at the FBI crime statistics: It's not the same. They're apples and oranges. Which, of course, isn't to say that there haven't been incidents in which Muslim students on campus have felt intimidated or harassed. But for them, it doesn't happen in seminars, it doesn't happen with fanfare, there's no hateful graffiti on campus. It simply doesn't have the same virulence.

Erez: What is Harvard University's definition of an Islamophobic act? If a Jewish organization on campus invites an Israeli IDF soldier to a panel, and the Muslim students say they felt intimidated by the presence of an IDF soldier, is that an Islamophobic incident? Of course, there is Islamophobia on campus and elsewhere in the country, but statistically, there are about ten times more antisemitic incidents.

Why is it so difficult for educated people from academia – such as the resigned Harvard President Claudine Gay – to speak out clearly against anti-Semitism?

Erez: For 30 years, these people have been shaped by left-wing ideologies that focus heavily on identity politics, anti-colonialism, and "white power." Today, they are presidents of NGOs, they work at the United Nations, they get government jobs, or they head universities like Harvard.

Sachs: What drove me crazy after October 7 was their silence about the Israeli victims and the hostages: the silence of Amnesty International, the silence of Hollywood. But above all, the silence of women's rights organizations. That's why I made this film.

Was it difficult to finance it?

Sachs: Very, very difficult. Because no one wanted to tackle the subject. I went to various production companies, to CNN, to Vox, and they all said: This is too political, too sensitive, we're sorry. I decided it would be a film financed entirely by donors and didn't accept any money from investors, because you don't get a return on investment with a film like that. Even when I had a rough cut, I only received rejections. This has continued to this day. Why expose yourself to such a sensitive topic?, the streamers are thinking. The film did find a theatrical distributor in America because we had someone in Hollywood who anonymously advocated for it. But otherwise, everyone in Hollywood reacted allergically to our project. The same was true in the world of independent film and at film festivals. We were rejected by all the major film festivals, including Berlin. A member of a programming team told me openly: Your film should have been accepted, but we're not currently accepting anything that demands understanding for the Israelis. As far as we know, even our Oscar campaign was sabotaged by the IDA, the International Documentary Association. Our advertising banners were simply shut down.

They were canceled.

Erez: It's crazy. Of course, the war in Gaza is horrific. But what happened on October 7 and what is now happening to Jews in America and elsewhere is also terrible. We as a society need to relearn that two things can be true at the same time.