Make no mistake, when the college student group Students for Justice in Palestine was banned from some University of California campuses in mid-February, it was high time.

SJP chapters, after all, were the primary groups responsible for setting up illegal encampments in key locations on many campuses last spring to protest Israel’s retaliation against the terror group Hamas for its murderous Oct. 7, 2023, rampage through southern Israel. That attack killed at least 1,200 Israelis, resulted in the kidnaps of more than 250 others and saw rapes and assaults on many more individuals, even babies.

In proportionate terms, it was as if one of America’s neighbors killed or kidnapped more than 50,000 persons during a raid on this country. How violent would the American response be to an attack of that magnitude?

What’s more, since the protests and occupations began on Oct. 8, 2023, just hours after the Hamas raid began and a week before Israel fired so much as a single retaliatory bullet, there was the clear implication that SJP knew about the raid in advance and had prepped its adherents to move instantly.

Protesters across America immediately began harassing students who appeared to be Jewish, blocking their access to some areas and buildings, with university administrators doing nothing to stop them.

Things are different this year. Not only did UC agree to prevent on-campus antisemitism as part of a settlement with ex-President Joe Biden’s administration, but new President Donald Trump issued an executive order threatening to deport foreign students expressing pro-Hamas views, and hang any First Amendment free speech guarantees.

That hasn’t dimmed the fervor of SJP, which was as loud and threatening as ever during a masked February demonstration outside the Los Angeles home of UC Regent Jay Sures, one of many regents who have refused protest demands to consider divesting UC’s endowment money from companies that do business in Israel.

Within days, both the undergraduate SJP group and an SJP chapter made up of graduate students were banned from UCLA indefinitely. They cannot use school facilities or get student government funds as most clubs do. Not to worry, most SJP funding has long come from oil-rich Qatar.

Similar bans hit the group’s chapters at UC campuses in Irvine, San Diego and Santa Cruz.

But UC’s bans may not be going far enough. They leave SJP’s mentor group, Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) intact. One possible reason: it’s harder to make bans on that group stick, since faculty members have more rights and avenues for appeals than students.

Right now, FJP chapters remain very active. Not only do they mentor SJP chapters — banned or not — and help organize protests, but they dominate portions of the websites of some UC departments.

One national study last year found colleges with FJP chapters (there are more than 160) are 7.3 times more likely than others to experience violent physical assaults on Jews. Death threats against Jews were 3.4 times as common at schools with FJP chapters than elsewhere. The antisemitic nature of both SJP and FJP is made clear by their targeting many Jews not affiliated with Israel or Zionist causes.

Activities of the FJP chapter at UC Santa Cruz, not impeded by either the Justice Department settlement or Trump’s deportation threats, may be typical of the group.

The UCSC Education Department, where 40 percent of core faculty have publicly allied with FJP, this winter sponsored a talk subtitled “Centering an anti-Zionist Commitment in Early Childhood Teacher Education.” So teachers will be trained in vilifying Israel to kindergartners?

That talk was touted on the FJP chapter website. Also at Santa Cruz, nearly half the anthropology faculty and 85 percent of the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies faculty, including the department chair, are associated with FJP.

It’s easy to see why Santa Cruz has become known to many Jews as strongly antisemitic.

All of which makes it plain that rousting SJP from campuses should be only a first step, with the more difficult act of ending faculty antisemitism not yet even started.

Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com.