On October 7, Hamas killed more than 1,300 Israelis and took approximately 150 hostages. Among the staggering atrocities, Hamas executed babies, raped and tortured Israelis, and specifically targeted children and schools.
Five days later on October 12, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC) Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) held a “Day of Resistance Protest for Palestine.”
The event flier celebrated terrorism by featuring a Hamas paraglider en route to kill, rape, and kidnap Israelis. SJP encouraged protesters to wear “face coverings.”
Brave Jewish students showed up holding Israeli flags and signs proclaiming “Rape is not Resistance.”
StopAntisemtism posted a video of a UNC protester yelling, “Hamas are Palestinians, okay. All of us Hamas.”
A local news outlet reported that during the protest, “an Israeli professor was pushed down the stairs.”
This is not a surprise. A UNC-SJP statement on October 8 proclaimed: “It is our moral obligation to be in solidarity with the dispossessed, no matter the pathway to liberation they choose to take. This includes violence.”
The October 12 SJP rally partially resulted from years of the UNC administration enabling its classrooms, conference halls, and online spaces to demonize Israel.
Here is just one example.
UNC permitted doctoral candidate Kylie Broderick to teach the 2021 course on Israel and the Palestinians knowing that she publicly promoted the view that Israel should not exist and demanded that “Everyone at UNC ... Boycott Israeli products.”
In an October 12 column, Broderick characterized Hamas’ vicious assault on Israel as “Palestinians resisting their occupation,” stating that “Israel and its allies are not victims.” On October 15, Broderick tweeted, “F*** Israel” [the expletive has been censored for this article, it was not on Broderick’s tweet).
She actually claimed the Hamas massacre was “a right enshrined under international law.”
How is this person allowed to teach on a university campus?
Let’s take a look at some other local activists practicing “resistance.”
The day after Hamas slaughtered over 1,300 Israelis, the local organization Migrant Roots, co-sponsored the Free Palestine Emergency Demonstration in Raleigh.
In 2015, Roxana Bendezú — the founding director of Migrant Roots — complained on social media, “Who does @HillaryClinton take ‘advice from? Wealthy #Jewish donors.”
In 2016, she stated or implied that the Obama administration was worse than “nazi concentration camps.”
Trivializing the Holocaust and complaining about Jewish money in politics is not resistance. It is antisemitism.
Elyse Crystall is the faculty advisor to UNC-SJP. In 2018, Crystall sent a public record email to fellow anti-Israel activists and to a member of the Durham City Council expressing concern about a Jewish candidate for city council: “Her resume/bio includes mention of her being active in Beth El synagogue. A red flag for me.”
Opposing a Jewish candidate for public office because the candidate attends synagogue is not resistance. It is antisemitism.
The day after the October 12 rally, UNC-SJP edited their announcement for the “Day of Resistance” by removing the names of the co-sponsoring organizations.
UNC-SJP has also deleted their post condoning violence and made another post stating, “We strongly oppose any physical confrontation committed by supporters or opponents of Palestine.”
Without naming Student for Justice in Palestine, UNC’s chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz issued a statement on October 13, saying: “Let me be clear — we will not stand for acts of violence on our campus.”
Kylie Broderick took to social media to call the chancellor’s statement a “joke” that contains “many sins” and is “embarrassing, grotesque, [and] spineless.”
I appreciate the chancellor’s statement, but statements are not nearly enough. Jewish students and the entire UNC community need to feel safe on UNC’s campus.
UNC needs to investigate the claim that Hamas — an internationally recognized terrorist organization — may be on its campus. UNC also needs to investigate if its Students for Justice in Palestine chapter violated the university’s honor code with its now deleted post which condoned the use of violence.
