As hundreds gathered at George Washington University to take part in anti-Israel protests on Friday afternoon, Jewish students told DailyMail.com they felt fear, adding that the university is “accommodating” “pro-Hamas” activists.
Demonstrations on campus have been going on and off since the Oct. 7 attack, but recently students — taking a page from the Columbia University protesters’ playbook — have set up a pro-Gaza encampment that has yet to be dismantled.
Protesters set up camp early Thursday morning and hundreds later joined the demonstrations.
And even though the university demanded that the camp be broken up by 7:00 pm on Thursday afternoon, the tents and their occupants were still standing defiantly on Friday afternoon.
One protester was even seen at George Washington University (GWU) on Thursday carrying a sign calling for the “final solution,” which was Adolf Hitler’s plan for the “annihilation” of Jewish individuals.
“Hearing people calling for more violence makes me very afraid to leave my house for fear that someone will hurt me or do something to me,” Skyler Sieradzky, a Jewish GWU student, told DailyMail.com at Friday’s protest.
Skyler Sieradzky, a Jewish GWU student whose grandparents survived the Holocaust, said the current pro-Gaza protests on campus have scared her and that hearing rhetoric calling for the destruction of Israel has been alarming.
A protester at George Washington University (GWU) was seen on Thursday carrying a sign calling for the “final solution,” which was Adolf Hitler’s plan for the “annihilation” of Jewish individuals.
Hundreds of people came to the GWU campus on Thursday and Friday to protest Israel and the school’s alleged support for the war between Israel and Hamas.
Protesters set up camp early Thursday morning and hundreds later joined the demonstrations.
“As someone whose grandparents were Holocaust survivors, seeing people use the Holocaust as something we should strive for again makes me very sad and very scary.”
Sieradzky was one of the few counterprotesters who arrived to support Israel amid calls for its annihilation at GWU on Friday.
He wrapped himself in an Israeli flag, earning him some disdain and dirty looks from pro-Gaza protesters.
“It’s very scary to see posters calling for the extermination of the State of Israel, calling for another intifada,” Sieradzky said. “In the second intifada, one of my family members was killed in a suicide attack.”
“When I see posters calling for violence against the State of Israel and more or less against Jews as a whole, it makes me very afraid.”
“I have never been more afraid of being Jewish,” the college student continued. “I see anti-Semitic comments behind my back in my classes. It just makes me feel very scared.
“Seeing the poster of the final solution made me very sad,” he added.
Police had set up barricades around the Gaza student camp to block entry and exit to the student-led protest area.
Activists cheered for hours as students reflected on campus, some avoiding the protest by crossing the street or finding an alternative route to their destinations.
Two other Jewish GWU students also shared similar concerns, although their identities have been withheld for fear of retaliation from their university colleagues for speaking out.
“You have these chants, these slogans: by any means necessary, you have a sign that says final solution, you have river to the sea, resistance is justified, all these slogans that lead the movement to a situation where it is more anti-Israel is more pro-Palestinian, more pro-Hamas than pro-Palestine,’ a Jewish GWU student told DailyMail.com.
“So what I think is problematic about this is that no one in the movement condemns it, no one in the movement speaks against it.”
“Speech can lead to violence and speech right now is not good,” he said.
Another Jewish GWU student told DailyMail.com that the university has been complicit in adapting to the protests by blocking roads, failing to enforce its own rules, and moving final exams to different buildings away from the protests to allow students to take exams in a quiet area, away from ongoing demonstrations.
“They have made all these adjustments specifically to allow this to continue and at the same time they say they were breaking the rules,” the Jewish student said before adding “they are chanting and supporting terrorist organizations.”
“And so it seems like the administration isn’t really prepared to enforce its own rules, which of course only empowers those who don’t respect the rules in the first place.”
“I’m definitely concerned that there will be protests at graduation, and at a time when families of graduating students are coming all the way to DC for a supposedly happy occasion.”
“People could use that opportunity to hold political protests and put a damper on that day for a lot of people.”
GWU protesters dressed a statue of George Washington in a Palestinian flag and a traditional keffiyeh scarf.
All of the pro-Palestinian GWU protesters approached for an interview by DailyMail.com declined to comment.
Some, however, admitted that protest organizers had ordered them not to speak to the press.
Jinan, a DC-based activist and chef who is not part of GWU, told DailyMail.com that she was there to support students’ demands that the university “get rid of the occupation and the State of Israel.”
He was also there to demand the Biden administration defund Israel.
“These are our taxes that are going to finance other wars and protect other countries when we ourselves are very vulnerable to inflation, health care, the student loan crisis and many other things.”
He applauded progressive members of the ‘Squad,’ Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., for visiting Columbia University’s ‘Gaza Solidarity Camp,’ which was the inspiration for the GWU camp.
Aya, an Israeli and Jewish high school student who was at GWU touring the campus when she stumbled upon the protest with her parents, called the event “absurd.”
She was in Israel during the October 7 attack and was stunned by the conversations she had with protesters.
‘They don’t know what river or what sea they are talking about. It’s all so stupid.
When asked if she wanted to attend a university that tolerates protests like the one she experienced, she told DailyMail.com: “If it continues like this, absolutely not.”