Vandals smashed windows and scrawled “Boeing kills” on the building. The aerospace giant donated $10 million to help finance the construction of the brand-new $100 million facility. Pro-Hamas activists have targeted Boeing because it sells weapons to Israel and other countries.
According to social media posts by radical activists, the latest attack was part of a broader campaign to keep the building “closed and unable to fulfill its genocidal purpose.” The same groups celebrated the destruction online, boasting that “community members in so-called Seattle attacked and destroyed several windows,” and that their “comrades” had escaped without incident.
This resurgence of extremist action comes on the heels of a May 5 occupation of the IEB, led by the suspended student organization Students United for Palestinian Equality & Return (SUPER UW), with the involvement of Antifa militants. Protesters barricaded themselves inside the building, ignited fires, shattered property, and inflicted wide-scale destruction of lab facilities with damages totaling over $1 million. Over 30 individuals were arrested during the operation.
The May 5 attack has been connected to directives from Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, a group with recognized ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. A manifesto released by SUPER UW in advance of the occupation praised Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel as a “heroic victory” and echoed Samidoun’s tactics, including strategies for evading law enforcement and engaging in violent disruption.
“This was not a protest,” said Michael Masters, National Director and CEO of the Secure Community Network (SCN). “This was a deliberate, destructive, and illegal operation influenced, in the words of those who undertook their criminal activity, by a designated terrorist entity. The infiltration of a foreign terror organization into American life, and on our campuses, presents a clear threat to our national security.”
The radical rhetoric behind the vandalism is intensifying. On social media, groups aligned with the occupation have adopted language nearly identical to the slogans used during the deadly 2020 Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) occupation, saying: “If we cannot reclaim this building for the community, it serves no purpose here.”
An online manifesto posted by Escalate Seattle, which promotes “open war against war profiteers,” condemned Boeing’s $10 million donation toward the IEB’s construction. The post declared:
“The community of Seattle demonstrates solidarity by taking action to weaken the war machine… How much longer will you let Palestine suffer, with its enemies in your community? It is time to affirm your humanity!”
The group also denied direct responsibility for the recent action but cited SUPER UW as a “collaborator,” reinforcing fears of coordinated activity between student radicals and international extremist movements. The same group previously posted a video showing activists clad in black bloc vandalizing the home and car of the University of Washington’s president, Ana Mari Cauce, with antisemitic graffiti.
Following the May 5 incident, UW suspended 21 students involved in the occupation, banning them from all university campuses. Despite the disciplinary actions, protests demanding their reinstatement erupted on campus days later. Speakers included Noah Weight, previously seen distributing Hamas propaganda, and Bissan Barghouti, a prominent Samidoun organizer in Seattle. During the rally, participants chanted “Long live the student Intifada” and openly praised the October 7 attacks, calling for a similar uprising in the United States.
The terrorist-affiliated activists have now set up a GoFundMe to pay for their “legal and medical fees, as well as for living expenses for those evicted, fired, or banned."
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon issued a firm response as part of a joint government task force investigating antisemitic activity on campuses. “The violence and chaos that ensued on the University of Washington’s campus is yet another horrifying display of the antisemitic harassment and lawlessness which has characterized many of our nation’s elite campuses over the last several years. This destructive behavior is unacceptable.”
Samidoun has been responsible for other recent extremist actions in Seattle, including the blockade of I-5 and the disruption of a Democratic fundraiser featuring former Speaker Nancy Pelosi earlier this year.
