Tulane University junior Daniel Wiesen organized a Palestinian Solidarity Rally yesterday evening in the Lavin-Bernick Center’s Pocket Park in response to Tulane Hillel hosting a dinner with an Israel Defense Forces soldier that same evening.
A group of around 60 Tulane affiliates gathered on campus at the university-approved event.
Wiesen, a Jewish student, was the sole organizer of the event. Tulane’s Students for a Democratic Society later endorsed the event on their social media and many of their members attended.
“My first reaction to seeing [Hillel’s event] was if I were a Muslim student, or if I were a student with family in Palestine, and I knew that Tulane Hillel was sponsoring a soldier that may have been a perpetrator of my family member’s death, it would be very, very alienating to the point where I wouldn’t want to be a part of Tulane,” Wiesen said.
During the rally, a group of around 40 pro-Israel supporters, some draped in Israeli flags, gathered on McAlister Place to watch and film the event.
“With all the antisemitism rising, especially on college campuses, we’re here to show that we’re not afraid of them; they can’t intimidate us into hiding,” senior Zoe Mail said. “We’re just standing here showing our support of the Jewish state, the only Jewish state in the world.”
Mail said that the group was there videoing the pro-Palestine event because they “knew some of the chants they would be saying were going to be violent, so we wanted to get evidence of that.”
Some of the chants the pro-Palestine group chanted were, “N.O.P.D., K.K.K., IDF they’re all the same,” “Israel bombs, Tulane Hillel pays, how many kids did you kill today?”
Visiting law professor Ata Hindi spoke at the event.
“The concern that I have today is the outright publicity of what should be a partner organization fighting for peace and justice is bringing in an individual who may have been involved in the commissions of international crimes, war crimes, crimes against humanity,” Hindi said. “I thought it might be possible that the individual was coming to enlighten us about international crimes being committed in the Gaza Strip. I even asked about that possibility. It doesn’t seem that is the possibility.”
“I think after tonight’s event, I will face a lot of scrutiny in person and online that suggests I’m rejecting my Jewish faith, my Jewish heritage, my culture,” Wiesen said. “I’m a proud Jew.”
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