Campus Connections

Founded at the University of Minnesota in early 2012 by Ilan Sinelnikov and Valeria Chazin, Students Supporting Israel has multiple chapters across the United States, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, Poland, Australia, and New Zealand.

SSI’s mission is to be a clear and confident pro-Israel voice on college campuses and to support students in grassroots pro-Israel advocacy.

They are committed to promoting a better understanding of Israel worldwide a as a member of the family of nations, with a fundamental right to exist as a Jewish, democratic state, within secure borders.

Below are some facts & myths from Students Supporting Israel. ​​You can learn more by visiting the SSI website.

• Jews, not Arabs, are Israel’s indigenous people.  Jews are from Judea (Israel). Arabs are from Arabia.
• Jews are Israel’s indigenous people building the First Temple in Jerusalem, the capital of their country Judea (Israel), in the 10th century BC.  Arabs, arriving from Arabia, and did not appear in Israel/Judea until the 7th century BC. All other early groups in the land a la Jebusites, Phoenicians and Philistines, etc., have long since vanished.
• Islam did not exist when the Jewish people made Israel their state and Jerusalem their capital.  Palestinian Arabs are descended from Islamic Arabia, not from any long vanished group a la Jebusites. Jews are from Judea (Israel).  Arabs are from Arabia. There has never been an established Arab, Islamic, or Palestinian-Arab state in Israel. 

• The narrative Israel commits “genocide against the Palestinians,” “Israel exterminates the Palestinians,” “Israel commits mass murder of the Palestinians,” Israel “ethnically cleanses the Palestinians,” and “Israel is a Nazi state,” (implying Israeli extermination of Palestinians), Israel supporters/Zionists are “genocide-sympathetic,” are all false and malicious blood libels, and anti-Semitic statements.
• “From the regional demographic standpoint, since Israel’s entry into the West Bank areas of Judea and Samaria and into Gaza in 1967, the Palestinian Arab population has increased from 954,898 to 4,654,421. This indicates an increase of 387% of the Palestinian-Arab population since 1967.
• Ma’an News Agency, a Palestinian news agency, reported in 2011 that since Israel’s independence in 1948, the Palestinian population had grown at an average of 3.4% yearly growth rate, – higher than the average world population growth, which varied between 0.8% and 2.1% during the same period.