SFSU General Union of Palestinian Students displays posters reading, “My Heroes Have Always Killed Colonizers”; University President condemns the event.
This week, San Francisco State University President Les Wong publicly condemned an event held on campus in which students created posters that read, “My heroes have always killed colonizers.” The posters were displayed in the campus square, and were created as part of a larger event celebrating Edward Said, according to AMCHA. The event was organized by the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) on November 7th, 2013.
While the event celebrating Said was reported in the SFSU newspaper, there was no mention of the hateful posters, which outwardly call for the murder of Jews that live in Israel. And this isn’t the first time by any means that GUPS has exercised “free speech” to demonize Israel; indeed, in September of 2012, for example, the group resorted to cheap tactics to demonize Israel by displaying bloody dolls on campus.
A supporter of GUPS, who posted a photo from the event on Indymedia, claimed that “Rejecting normalization is not incitement to violence.” Well, as it turns out, it is.
In his public condemnation of the event and the posters in particular, San Francisco State University President Les Wong expressed that he was “deeply disturbed by incendiary language that marred an annual commemoration of a cultural mural on campus… I am dismayed by the glorification of violence that this message conveys. There is no place at SF State for celebrating violence or promoting intolerance, bigotry, anti-Semitism or any other form of hate-mongering. We are a university community committed to furthering civil dialogue. Each of us must remain vigilant in working to achieve this goal.”
GUPS has made its deadly desires perfectly clear. While President Wong has responded very seriously to the group’s promotion of murder, much work needs to be done on the SFSU campus to combat poisonous incitement, and to actually work productively towards peace and stability in Israel and the region.
Contributed by Ariella Charny
