On Probation at UC, SJP Promotes a Charity Accused of Terrorist Ties
CINCINNATI – The appeal is three words: “Donate to Palestinians.” Those are the words on the University of Cincinnati’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP UC) chapter’s public Linktree that directs supporters to the Middle East Children’s Alliance, a California nonprofit now facing a congressional referral to the IRS over alleged ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.
Founded in 1967 by George Habash, the PFLP is a secular, Marxist-Leninist Palestinian terrorist organization that seeks a single socialist Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. The State Department lists its areas of operation as Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, Lebanon and Syria. The United States designated it a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. Its history includes international attacks and airline hijackings.
The chapter, which announced in August that it had been placed on disciplinary probation, promotes the link through its Instagram and Facebook pages. It is unknown when SJP UC began soliciting donations for the charity. Its MECA donation link remained publicly accessible when reviewed Oct. 4, six days after House Republicans announced the referral.
The chapter’s probation followed disciplinary proceedings over its April 21 protest outside “Shifting Paradigms, New Horizons,” a university conference examining the Abraham Accords and U.S.–Israel relations. Little is known about the terms of that probation. The university has not responded to requests for comment.
In an April report, the Network Contagion Research Institute identified Dr. Mona El-Farra, MECA’s longtime director of Gaza programming, as a former deputy director of the Union of Health Work Committees, which the researchers described as a PFLP-linked organization. NCRI also reported that El-Farra facilitated a 2012 meeting in Gaza between MECA founder Barbara Lubin and PFLP figure Leila Khaled.
A subsequent NCRI report, published August 2026, “Writing Off America,” examined MECA’s funding and organizational relationships. It alleged repeated grants to organizations with PFLP ties, overlapping personnel and increasingly opaque disclosures of overseas spending. The report identified Students for Justice in Palestine among the activist networks promoting MECA’s fundraising.
On Sept. 28, the House Ways and Means Committee announced they referred MECA to the IRS for investigation and potential revocation of its tax-exempt status. They cited alleged PFLP connections and gaps in the charity’s public disclosures about foreign grants.
SJP UC has also scheduled an Oct. 7 event on settler violence at the same time as UC Hillel’s commemoration of the attacks. The scheduling echoes anniversary programming at other campuses that the Antisemitism Research Center criticized in an Oct. 5 report for reframing the date around accusations against Israel while erasing the Hamas massacre. The report highlighted National SJP’s “Week of Action,” advertised with the words “3 years of genocide, 3 years of resistance” and “for our martyrs.”
The Cincinnati event also brings in a speaker who has participated in CAIR’s advocacy campaigns. Kamel Mussallet, of Florida, has appeared in campaign material from the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The event is co-sponsored by Young DSA, Pal Shield and the Cincy Palestine Solidarity Coalition.
