Jewish Activists See Signs of Hate

Jewish campus and community activists are expressing outrage over a recent confrontation between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrators at San Francisco State University, saying the incident reflects growing hostility toward Jewish causes there and on other U.S. campuses.

Concerns among Jewish activists also have been fueled by tensions at UC Berkeley, including a controversy over a planned pro-Palestinian English course. The class description referred to “the brutal Israeli military occupation of Palestine,” and it initially urged “conservative thinkers” to avoid the class.

Jonathan Bernstein, the San Francisco-based regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights organization, said rallies in the Bay Area protesting the Israeli government frequently have turned into expressions of hatred toward Jews.

At San Francisco State, police were called to escort participants to safety at a pro-Israel peace rally after they were confronted by counterdemonstrators.

No injuries were reported, and participants offer conflicting accounts of the face-off. Bernstein, without naming specific groups, said organizers of anti-Israel demonstrations “aren’t speaking out when it turns anti-Semitic.”

“You go to a lot of these demonstrations in San Francisco, Berkeley and elsewhere and you see blatant hate, and no one is forcing the demonstrators to remove their signs or stop saying things like ‘Hitler was right,’” Bernstein said.

He also cited what he called an anti-Jewish “blood libel” on fliers circulated for a pro-Palestinian rally at San Francisco State that depicted a dead Palestinian child “slaughtered according to Jewish rites under American license.”

Tensions between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian groups have simmered on campuses around the country this spring, fueled in part by the continuing bloodshed in the Middle East. But the disturbance at San Francisco State on May 7--and an impassioned, widely distributed e-mail about the situation from the director of the campus’ Jewish Studies Program, Laurie Zoloth--spurred widespread concerns among Jewish activists and other community leaders.

“Yes, there are tensions,” said Souleiman Ghali, president of the Islamic Society of San Francisco. “People think the Palestinian versus Israeli struggle has a place here.”

At San Francisco State, campus officials say they are reviewing a videotape of the rally and interviewing students to determine whether anyone should be criminally prosecuted, or disciplined.

According to San Francisco State officials, what came before the confrontation was a rally by about 350 pro-Israel students sponsored by the Jewish campus organization Hillel and a nearby counterdemonstration by roughly 75 pro-Palestinian students. The situation, university officials said, grew uglier after demonstrators started to disperse. They said each side hurled insults at the other, and the videotape shows a male student stomping on an Israeli flag.

Participants, however, offered conflicting accounts. Basil Awwad, an officer with the General Union of Palestinian Students, which organized the counterdemonstration, said Jewish students were the first to hurl insults.

“We were being called all kinds of racist slurs,” said Awwad, as he stood outside the group’s office in the Cesar Chavez Student Union.

He added, “As usual, the Palestinians were made out to be the aggressor, and that’s just not true.”

Asif Hai, a member of the Muslim Student Union, said the face-off was healthy even if it produced tensions. “Maybe students on this campus are more awake to the reality of what’s going on in the world,” he said.

Seth Brysk, executive director for the San Francisco chapter of Hillel, countered that Jewish students were backed against a wall by the counterdemonstrators, prompting the need for the police escort. Still, he said, his group has continued to reach out to Arab students on campus.

Zoloth, in her e-mail, issued a plea for advice on counseling Jewish students on a campus that she said “has become a venue for hate speech and anti-Semitism.”

Robert A. Corrigan, president of San Francisco State, said he has received close to 1,000 e-mails about the incident, mainly from Jews.

At Berkeley, where 41 students and 38 others were arrested last month after pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupied Wheeler Hall, a new controversy emerged.

It was triggered by a course description for a class being offered this fall titled “The Politics and Poetics of Palestinian Resistance.”

The description posted on the Internet said, in part, “The brutal Israeli military occupation of Palestine, an occupation that has been ongoing since 1948, has systematically displaced, killed and maimed millions of Palestinian people.” The description added, “This class takes as its starting point the right of Palestinians to fight for their own self-determination. Conservative thinkers are encouraged to seek other sections.”

After the description was brought to the attention of Berkeley administrators, the last sentence was removed. Officials said they would monitor the class to ensure that all students were free to express their views.

Snehal Shingavi, 26, the UC Berkeley graduate student teaching the course and a co-founder of the campus group Students for Justice in Palestine, said that the “conservative thinkers” sentence was poor judgment on his part. But, he said, “The controversy over my class has little to do with the line, it has more to do with the content of the course.... There is an attempt to silence the teaching of this kind of material at the university level.”

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Silverstein reported from Los Angeles. Glionna reported from San Francisco.