SWC Urges SF State University President to Investigate and Condemn Palestinian Student Group for Slogans Expressing “A Most Hateful and Virulent Form of Anti-Semitism”

The Simon Wiesenthal today urged San Francisco State University President Leslie Wong to condemn and investigate an event held lastThursday by the school’s General Union of Palestine Students where participants were encouraged to display a slogan that the Jewish community sees as “an implicit statement glorifying themurder of Jews.”

In a letter to President Wong, Rabbi Aron Hier, Director of the Wiesenthal Center’s Campus Outreach, said that, according to theAMCHA Initiative, tables for art projects were set up at the event which was a celebration of a student mural of the controversial Palestinian scholar and activist EdwardSaid. Rabbi Hier wrote, “On the tables were cans of spray paint and stencils. One stencil bore the words, MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS KILLED COLONIZERS.” He went on to write thatgiven the event, “the Jewish community is outraged and sees this as an implicit statement glorifying the murder of Jews; an act that may have legal repercussions and that clearlyexpresses a most hateful and virulent form of anti-Semitism.”

Aron Hier urged the SFSU President to “fully investigate this matter and to issue a public statement vigorously condemning this act,”and to fully discipline the student organization(s) involved and to take measures to prevent such actions from re-occurring. “We strongly recommend that any faculty, departmental, oradministrative involvement in this matter be exposed, condemned and disciplined and that in the future no University funds be used to facilitate such an outrage,” Hierconcluded.

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The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families inthe United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament(Parlatino).