Groundwork Books is a longstanding student-run, not-for-profit “workers cooperative” focused on social action. Although not directly funded by the University of California, San Diego, it sits in the heart of the Old Student Center in a university-owned building where it champions anti-Israel ideas.
The bookstore has a long history of fighting for righteous causes, such as equal rights for women and the safety of immigrants. It developed a facade of embracing justice and equality while championing a pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel movement that goes against every one of their core values by pushing antisemitic propaganda and publicly endorsing acts of terror and violence against Jews.
Groundwork’s website mentions that they have collaborated with Students for Justice in Palestine, an unregistered student organization at UCSD that was given a Cease and Desist order in May of 2024 for its participation in illegal and dangerous activity, such as creating tent encampments on campus, denying access to officials for safety inspections and even possessing weapons.
In the store itself is a Palestinian flag hung by the window, posters in Arabic covering the walls, and stands littered with various pamphlets containing symbols and words directly inciting violence and praising violent activity.
These posters include a photo of Ghassan Kanafani, a well-known member of the terrorist group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, known for plane hijackings and the mass murder of Jews. Another poster celebrates glory to the “workers,” otherwise known as the Arab colonial invaders influenced by former Nazi collaborators, who fought against Israel in the 1948 war for self-determination.
One flier uses debunked maps of Israel to smear archaeology, claiming that these studies are an excuse to continue oppressing Palestinians and parroting the falsehood that Jews have no claim to their ancestral homeland.
A pamphlet calls for an “Internationalist Intifada,” echoing the popular protest chant “Globalize the intifada,” essentially calling for widespread violence against Jews the world over as a way to extort Israel into accepting Palestinian maximal political demands. The back of the pamphlet features words arranged in an inverted red triangle, a symbol that Hamas’s military wing uses in their propaganda to identify Israeli military and civilian targets marked for death. It is also reminiscent of patches sewn onto uniforms by the Nazis during the Holocaust to identify political prisoners.
The “Staff Picks” at Groundwork include The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi, which denies the history of the Jewish people in Israel and relies entirely on falsehoods to mislead readers into aligning with the “Palestinian cause” against Israel. Staff should have known better, considering that the author has ties to the Palestinian Liberation Organization, a designated terror organization by the United States and Israel, which was responsible for the massacre of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympics in Munich, war crimes during the Lebanese Civil War and countless other atrocities.
This student collective’s support of violence even goes so far as to praise acts of self-harm committed in the name of Palestinian “liberation.” The pamphlet “Memories of Aaron Bushnell” glorifies the self-immolation of the activist in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 25, 2024, in protest against what he proclaimed was a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
What kind of educational institution encourages young people to see self-immolation as heroic?
When I went to the store to ask for a comment about all of this, one of the workers, who recognized me and knew of my involvement in Jewish organizations on campus, repeatedly asked for more specifics about the clubs that I am affiliated with before saying she needed the consensus of the entire staff to speak with me and refused to provide me with any more information.
The store’s antisemitic views began long before Oct. 7, 2023. A post on its Instagram page dated April 9, 2023, features a photo of a pro-Palestinian protest with the caption “From the river to the sea” and an emoticon of a Palestinian flag. The use of this genocidal antisemitic slogan followed by complete silence after Hamas’s atrocities six months later suggests that the people running the business endorse the rape and murder of Jews.
Messaging disseminated by the bookstore and related organizations is extremely damaging to the social climate on the UC San Diego campus. The least harmful is that my classmates feel justified in alienating me over my Jewish identity; the most harmful is that a generation of young people believe that terrorism against Jews is merely “resistance” and that the use of violence to further oppress, murder and/or ethnic cleanse certain vulnerable minorities is morally just.
Rather than create a healthy, if not politically charged, community of like-minded thinkers, Groundwork serves as a factory for a violent anti-Western ideology, and injects a hostile and exclusionary influence that has no business at a university.
It is imperative that students and alumni who believe in a society free of hate and discrimination demand accountability from UC San Diego for giving legitimacy to an institution that peddles such propaganda on university property.
This article was originally published in Jewish News Syndicate.
