U of Michigan protesters spotted wearing terrorist group headbands

Protesters at an anti-Israel demonstration at the University of Michigan were seen wearing headbands that are affiliated with a Palestinian terrorist organization.

An Aug. 28 post on X by incoming Massachusetts Institute of Technology student Eyal Yakoby shows what appear to be two student protesters wearing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) headbands.

“This is the University of Michigan on move in day for new students,” Yakoby posted on Aug. 28. “A crowd of masked individuals wearing PFLP headbands stand to intimidate the students.”

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“The PFLP is a designated terrorist organization. This is not the first thing new students should see when walking on campus,” he continued. 

The PFLP has been on the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list since 1997.

According to the Director of National Intelligence, the PFLP “combines Arab nationalism with Marxist-Leninist ideology, viewing the destruction of Israel as integral to the struggle to remove Western capitalism from the Middle East and ultimately establish a Communist Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”

The University of Michigan experienced an anti-Israel protest on Aug. 28 that saw four protesters arrested for their disruptive activity. 

A spokesperson for the university, Colleen Mastony, said at the time that the demonstrators who were arrested were warned multiple times but refused to heed the warnings.

“For more than an hour, they were given multiple warnings that made clear they were blocking pedestrian traffic and violating university policy,” Mastony said in a statement. “Most eventually dispersed although some refused to leave and, as a result, four people were arrested.”

“None of the people who were arrested were students,” Mastony concluded. “Three were unaffiliated with the university, and the fourth is a temporary employee.”

The University of Michigan protesters wearing PFLP headbands marks part of a larger trend of association between anti-Israel protesters on campus and Palestinian terror groups. 

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“In a few days, the academic year will start again at universities worldwide,” Hamas official Khaled Mashal stated this August. “I call upon the student leaders in our Arab and Islamic countries, as well as in the East and the West, to renew the student movement in the broadest scope, in order to stop this criminal aggression.”

“You should be proud of yourselves, oh youths of our nation and the free people of the world,” Mashal concluded.

Campus Reform has contacted the University of Michigan for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.