Due to safety concerns, University of Arizona officials are “actively monitoring” campus events billed as “Israeli Apartheid Week” being held by Students for Justice in Palestine during the Jewish holiday of Passover.
“Many students, parents and members of the campus community have expressed concerns about safety particularly because of the passionate and divergent beliefs held by many on this topic,” UA Vice President and Chief Safety Officer Steve Patterson wrote in a campus-wide email Friday.
The events this week are being marketed by Students for Justice in Palestine, an anti-Israel group stationed on many college campuses across the country, as a learning experience that will consist of seminars every day and a rally on Thursday. They come at a time of increasing tensions on college campuses about the Israel-Palestine war.
The UA, Patterson wrote, “upholds the right to free expression, which is afforded to all members of our community and student groups” but has a “commitment to fostering a safe, inclusive and respectful environment.”
He added that the threat assessment and management team at the university is “actively monitoring” the SJP events this week.
Despite concern from university leadership, leaders at SJP say the events are purely about education.
“During Israeli Apartheid Week, we seek to educate people on how Israel’s apartheid system violates Palestinians’ human rights,” a student spokesperson for the group told the Arizona Daily Star. “Thursday’s rally will draw attention to Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people, including its systemic destruction of schools and universities in Gaza.”
SJP was set to host a rally at UA last October but canceled it just hours before it was scheduled to take place after UA President Robert C. Robbins released a statement calling it “antithetical” to the school’s beliefs. Now, it seems, the group is prepared to go through with the rally.
Maha Nassar, a professor of Middle Eastern and North African Studies and the faculty advisor for SJP, told the Star she was “so impressed with the students’ thoughtfulness in planning this week’s events.”
“They have been careful to follow university policies and to ensure everyone stays safe,” Nassar said. “The university must continue to protect them and their first amendment right to speech.”
UA Hillel, a Jewish campus organization, said it is working with Patterson’s team to make sure Jewish students remain safe during the week.
“At this time, there is no indication that there is any increased threat of physical violence against Jewish students,” the Hillel group wrote last week.
The group wrote about the emotional impact the week, and rally, may have on some pro-Israel Jewish students.
“We recognize that beyond the physical safety of students, several aspects of the week ahead are deeply troubling and upsetting to many Jewish students at the university,” the group wrote, noting that the events coincide with both the week of Passover and the week before final exams.
“When we and our Israeli and Jewish students hear slogans chanted on the mall like ‘From the River to the Sea,’ we hear a call for the displacement of Jews from our historical homeland, and the erasure of Israeli culture,” the organization continued. “When we see signs that say ‘End All U.S. Aid to Israel’ just weeks after the Iron Dome deflected hundreds of Iranian drones and missiles targeting Israeli population centers, it’s horrifying to think about the casualties that would happen in consequence if that aid were not there.”
The group is also encouraging its students to “rise above.”
“Know that if you feel unsafe, troubled, confused, angry, or any other of the hundreds of emotions we too are experiencing, you always have a home here at Hillel,” the email stated. “During this time, we encourage you to attend our upcoming Passover programming, which will be dedicated to expressing our love for Judaism in a safe and healthy way.”
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