UNC Chapel Hill anti-Israel campus protests recap
Students for Justice in Palestine group has been suspended by the university
Over the last week, anti-Israel protests centered in Polk Place on the UNC Chapel Hill campus escalated from signs and chants to an encampment being erected as well as removal of a U.S. flag and subsequent arrests.
First, let’s recall why these protests are happening - to distract from the fact Israel is systematically pounding Hamas in Gaza in retaliation for the Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel, which was one of the most brutal ever seen with at least 1,200 men, women, and children (even infants) were slaughtered; some were beheaded and others burned alive. Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2007 and is an internationally designated terror organization as well as a known-proxy for Iran, also took over 240 hostages during the Oct. 7 attack, many of which still have not been returned to their families.
Some 30 protesters erected tents in Polk Place, in violation of statutes and campus policies. The tents stayed in placed for around 3 days despite being told by the Dean of Student Affairs to take them down.
Police showed up early on the morning of April 30 and that’s when things started to get tense, or as the kids say, it was about to get “sporty.”
“ROUGHLY TEN PIGS IN RIOT GEAR PRESENT BETWEEN MEMORIAL HALL AND CAMPUS Y,” Students for Justice in Palestine posted to X along with a short video clip.
Multiple law enforcement agencies were involved in the roundup and arrest process. Orange County Sheriff’s deputies transported 36 protesters to the Orange County Detention Center. Per the campus safety update, at least 20 were “not affiliated with the University.”
I have not found where the Orange County DA “released the names,” per the UNC safety update and UNC Police are unresponsive.
If you have not been following my X thread on these arrests, you can catch up here. The long and short of it is that attempts to obtain that information have been stonewalled.
ABC11 apparently received a list of names and reported on six of those arrested with “serious” charges. Three of them are UNC students.
Emi Abe-teh, Stephen Sandor, Gurnoor Majhail, and Tashia Ethridge were arrested and charged with resisting, obstructing and delaying law enforcement and trespassing. Jackson Prause and Owen Stone face those same charges in addition to assaulting a law enforcement officer.
"The six that are arrested, they were charged with more serious offenses, quite frankly. And so they were brought to the magistrate, but then they were released once they got the magistrate and the ones who were charged with less serious offenses were cited," said Orange County D.A. Jeff Nieman.
In total, 36 of the protesters were detained and thirty of them were cited for trespassing and released on-site. Ten of them were UNC-Chapel Hill students.
The apex of the protests came on April 30 when protesters took down the U.S. flag and replaced it with the Palestinian flag. Around 50 protesters swarmed the flag pole to remove the U.S. flag. Check out video of the incident captured by freelancer Bryan Anderson.
“WE AT CHAPEL HILL HAVE TAKEN OFF THE AMERICAN FLAG FROM THE CENTER OF POLK PLACE AND REPLACED IT WITH A PALESTINIAN FLAG,” Students for Justice in Palestine at UNC posted on X.
It would not be long before the Palestinian flag was taken down and replaced by the U.S. flag, which Interim Chancellor Lee Roberts helped raise.
"That flag represents all of us. To take down that flag, and put up another flag no matter what other flag it is, that's antithetical to who we are, what this university stands for, and what we have done for 229 years," Roberts said. "That flag will stand here as long as I'm chancellor."
The U.S. flag was then defended from the protesters by a group of fraternity brothers from Pi Kappa Phi.
The fraternity set up a GoFundMe page after defending Old Glory. The page’s title is “UNC Frat Bros Defended their Flag. Throw 'em a Rager.”
As of the writing of this article, $516,647 was raised and the organizer has disabled additional donations.
Apparently, the fraternity has hired a heavy-hitter party coordinator to orchestrate the “rager,” with some of the funds but the rest will go to charities that have yet to be named.
Fences were erected around Polk Place that are around 12 feet tall.
“Polk Place was damaged by the protesters, their tents and significant debris, and they repeatedly replaced the U.S. flag with a Palestinian flag, which is akin both to shouting down a speaker and destruction of public property,” the UNC campus safety update states. “The University put up temporary fencing to preserve the landscape on Polk Place and deter protesters from engaging in dangerous behavior.”
The relevant UNC Chapel Hill statements about the protests turned riots can be viewed below:
More To The Story
The main driver behind the protests was the group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNCCH) has suspended that group “on an interim basis,” per a campus safety update notice.
As a campus group, SJP traces back to the University of California. The first chapter was created in 2001 by Professor Hatem Bazian, known for defending Hamas. Bazian as also called for “intifada,” in the United States.
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and the Muslim Students Association (MSA) often work in tandem with SJP on anti-Israel campaigns and protests like the one in Chapel Hill. These groups and their antisemitic activities are often aided or joined by the Democratic Socialists of America and the Palestinian Youth Movement.
SJP is recognized as being the driver on college campuses of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which targets Israel on all economic fronts in an attempt to harm and cripple the nation.
The movement has been considered by critics as antisemitic.
Under the Trump administration, during a visit to Israel, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the U.S. would begin identifying organizations engaged in BDS.
In joint remarks with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Pompeo declared BDS to be antisemitic.
Today I want to make one announcement with respect to a decision by the State Department that we will regard the global anti-Israel BDS campaign as anti-Semitic,” said Pompeo. “I know this sounds simple to you, Mr. Prime Minister, it seems – it seems like a statement of fact, but I want you to know that we will immediately take steps to identify organizations that engage in hateful BDS conduct, and withdraw US government support for such groups. The time is right.”
Under the Biden administration, the BDS movement appears to no longer be included in the list of policy issues for the U.S. State Department but a search of the archives shows reports does show some tracking of BDS activity in foreign countries.
UPDATE:
National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) and it’s parent organization AJP Educational Foundation Inc. (a.k.a. American Muslims for Palestine) are being sued in federal court by nine survivors of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack.
The filing apparently says NSJP is acting "as collaborators and propagandists for Hamas” with its incitement of campus protests and riots.
FOX News has the report; excerpts below:
The litigation, brought by major U.S. and global law firm Greenberg Traurig, alleges AMP "serves as Hamas’s propaganda division in the United States" and "was founded from the ashes of disbanded organizations created by senior Hamas officials after those organizations and related individuals were found criminally and civilly liable for providing material support to Hamas and other affiliated terrorist groups."
[…]
"This case is not about independent political advocacy. It is about organizations whose very creation was intended to provide continuous, systematic, and substantial assistance to a Foreign Terrorist Organization and its allies," the complaint states.
In a nutshell, the lawsuit directly calls NSJP and its parent organization a propaganda arm of Hamas and that NSJP was “prepared” the day after the terror attack to carry out Hamas propaganda activities.
“Defendant AJP Educational Foundation, Inc. a/k/a American Muslims for Palestine (“AMP”) serves as Hamas’s propaganda division in the United States. AMP was founded from the ashes of disbanded organizations created by senior Hamas officials after those organizations and related individuals were found criminally and civilly liable for providing material support to Hamas and other affiliated terrorist groups.
In 2010, AMP expanded its operation to American college campuses when it founded Defendant National Students for Justice in Palestine (“NSJP”) to control hundreds of Students for Justice in Palestine (“SJP”) chapters across the country. Through NSJP, AMP uses propaganda to intimidate, convince, and recruit uninformed, misguided, and impressionable college students to serve as foot soldiers for Hamas on campus and beyond.”On October 8, the day after Hamas’s terrorist attack, AMP and NSJP were prepared and responded to Hamas’s “call for mass mobilization” by disseminating a manifesto and plan of attack (“NSJP Toolkit”) which includes materials that appear to have been created before the attack. In the NSJP Toolkit, AMP and NSJP identify themselves as “PART of” a “Unity Intifada,” governed by Hamas’s “unified command” of terrorist operations in Gaza.
The FOX News article includes a link to the lawsuit.
Also check out this May 3, 2024 article from the Wall Street Journal:
“Activist Groups Trained Students for Months Before Campus Protests”