FOGGY BOTTOM, DC — In the same neighborhood that holds the U.S. Department of State and its openly anti-Israel staffers in the nation's capital, antisemitic students at The George Washington University established a Hamas Youth™ camp on Thursday similar to the one at Columbia University to champion barbaric terrorists in the Gaza Strip and call for an intifada to eliminate Israel and murder Jews.
Signs in the crowd made vile declarations such as "FINAL SOLUTION" while camped-out students chanted "there is only one resolution // intifada revolution" and "from the river to the sea Palestine will be free."
By Thursday afternoon, the camp had some 20 tents, hundreds of student demonstrators, and a portable bathroom set up on GW's University Yard. A statement from the university on Thursday morning stated that demonstrations were not allowed there and instructed the antisemitic students to move to another location on campus. Students did not comply and the university did not take action to enforce its policies. GW also said overnight encampments aren't permitted and that demonstrators and their camp would be "required" to be gone by 7:00 p.m. Thursday.
Just a few feet from the antisemitic chants and calls for the elimination of Israel, a group of Jewish students turned out with Israeli flags to show solidarity with the State of Israel. One student, David, told Townhall that "everybody has a right to freedom of speech" but was clear-eyed about what the chants from the unpermitted occupying protestors meant. "When you call for the 'intifada revolution,' you're calling for the destruction of the Jewish people worldwide. When you call 'from the river to the sea,' you're calling for the destruction of the democratic state of Israel — but it's not going to go anywhere."
Calling the encampment "illegal," David noted that the demonstrators were "not working with the university or the various police departments in the area" and said he was "afraid of this becoming agitated and aggravated" — a reasonable fear given the way similar antisemitic demonstrations have played out on other campuses.
"For a lot of Jewish students on this campus, it's very scary," David emphasized of his peers at GW. But fear hasn't stopped him and other Jewish students staring down the antisemitic hate being shouted into bullhorns just a sidewalk away.
"It's a scary feeling," a Jewish student told me as we watched cheers for an "intifada revolution" rise from a pro-Hamas campout at GW. But he's not letting fear win: "I'm proud enough of my Jewish identity and of my Zionist identity where I'm not going to be scared or go hide." pic.twitter.com/bMuVTyXdfc
— Spencer Brown (@itsSpencerBrown) April 25, 2024
"I'm proud enough of my Jewish identity and of my Zionist identity," David declared. "I'm not going to be scared or go hide. I wear my Jewish star with pride, I wear my yarmulke proudly, and I'm open to any conversations with anybody," he said, emphasizing the refusal of demonstrators to even engage in a discussion with him.
"Unfortunately, those who are violent are standing over there," continued David looking at the pro-Hamas students — most wearing checkered keffiyeh scarves over their heads or draped over their shoulders in addition to COVID-era face masks to obscure their identities — loudly advocating for the murder of people who share David's beliefs. "Those who are not violent are standing over here."
If GW's administration start enforcing its policies and removing the protest after allowing the antisemitic demonstrators to remain in a disallowed location, David worried the pro-Hamas students will "revolt and start being aggravated...that's when the violence is going to start."
"I don't think they'll be done and I don't think they'll leave," David said of the anti-Israel agitators. He said he hopes GW administrators and authorities will enforce the policies instead of caving to the demonstrators, but when asked if he has faith the university will uphold its decision, David said "no."
"We are proud of what we support," David told Townhall, contrasting the Jewish students gathered with him to the masked and hidden faces chanting genocidal refrains. "If they were proud of their cause they would show their faces — they would have, as we would say in Yiddish, the 'chutzpah' to show their face. And they don't have chutzpah," he quipped. "We do, because we are proud to wave that flag, we are proud to show our face, we are proud to call ourselves Zionists."
"I am proud to call myself a Zionist," David reiterated. "I will hug that flag — I will die for that flag."
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