Students at Georgetown University will have the opportunity to dine with a convicted terrorist at an upcoming event hosted by the law school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. 

Ribhi Karajah, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated terrorist organization, will be heading to Washington, D.C., to speak with Georgetown students on Tuesday about “arrest, detention, and torture in the Israeli military judicial system,” according to a flier posted on the student group’s social media page. Karajah is described by the SJP chapter as a “student activist and former political prisoner.”

Karajah was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for his involvement in a 2019 roadside bombing attack in the West Bank which killed a 17-year-old Israeli woman, Rina Shnerb. She was on a bike ride with her brother and her father at the time of the attack. Both of them sustained serious injuries. 

An Israeli military court convicted Karajah based on his confession that he knew in advance about the attack but did nothing to prevent it. He told the court that his friend and fellow PFLP member, Kassem Shibili, informed him of his plan beforehand and gave him specific details about where the attack would take place.  

The D.C. event, which includes dinner and discussion, will take place in a Georgetown Law residential building called the Gewirz student center. The building was donated by alumnus Bernard Gewitz and his wife Sarah, benefactors who have provided significant support for Jewish causes and even created an endowment at Georgetown for a visiting Israeli professorship. 

Georgetown Law’s Zionist student group released a statement on Thursday condemning the school for agreeing to host a convicted terrorist to speak on campus “under the guise of academic discussion” and called on the administration to “immediately and unequivocally revoke this invitation.” 

“Karaja’s presence does not promote free inquiry; it normalizes violence and gives legitimacy to those who seek to undermine fundamental rights,” the group wrote. “In an academic environment that claims to foster critical thinking, there is no place for individuals who have engaged in acts of terror and who continue to justify them.” 

The Zionist group’s founder and president, Julia Wax Vanderwiel, told JewishInsider that antisemitism at the law school is “rampant.” She added that “it’s time someone did something.”

Outrage over Karaja’s visit extended beyond the Georgetown community. The event caught the eyes of Israel’s embassy to U.S., which voiced its disapproval in a post on X. “Why is @Georgetown  hosting a convicted terrorist on campus?” the embassy wrote. 

The House Committee on Education and Workforce shared a similar message: “@GeorgetownLaw is allowing its radical SJP chapter to host a convicted TERRORIST at an event this month,” the committee wrote on X. They contrasted the school’s current silence with its swift investigation into a senior lecturer, Ilya Shapiro, over a social media post. “Why is Georgetown okay with a terrorist, but not a conservative legal scholar?”

Georgetown Law and Georgetown Law’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine have not yet responded to the Sun’s request for comment.