demonstration - SF chronicle Friday 7/12/02.

After being surrounded by a mob of students shouting, "Hitler didn't finish the job," and "Get out or we'll kill you," pro-Israel students at San Francisco State University are finally finding an ally against hate.
Anti-Semitic riot at San Francisco State University

from the Jerusalem Post

After being surrounded by a mob of students shouting, "Hitler didn't finish the job," and "Get out or we'll kill you," pro-Israel students at San Francisco State University are finally finding an ally against hate.

The university president is so fed-up with the hate-filled atmosphere on the Bay Area campus that he has asked the local district attorney's office to help bring pro-Palestinian hate-mongers to justice.

The May 7 incident received widespread press attention after an e-mail was circulated by Prof. Laurie Zoloth, director of the Jewish studies program at SFSU, describing the virulence of the anti-Semitic rhetoric and the campus's seeming inability to halt such occurrences.

More than 100 anti-Semitic incidents, including graffiti, vandalism, hate speech, and violence have occurred on US campuses since January, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Zoloth, who attended the campus Hillel's Peace in the Middle East Rally along with several hundred students, faculty, and members of the community, described how Palestinian supporters descended on a group of 50 students who stayed behind to clean up and conduct a prayer service, after singing Hebrew songs and hearing speeches in support of Israel.

"They screamed at us to 'go back to Russia' and they screamed that they would kill us all, and other terrible things," she wrote in the May 8 e-mail.

"As the counter-demonstrators poured into the plaza, screaming at the Jews to 'Get out or we'll kill you' and 'Hitler didn't finish the job,' I turned to the police and to every administrator I could find and asked them to remove the counter-demonstrators from the plaza, to maintain the separation of 100 feet that we had been promised. The police told me that they had been told not to arrest anyone, and that if they did, 'it would start a riot.' I told them that it already was a riot."

After approaching Dean of Students Penny Saffold, who called the San Francisco Police, pro-Israel demonstrators were marched to the campus Hillel House under police protection and a guard was posted at the door.

Zoloth also described what life is like for Jewish students and faculty at SFSU, noting her despair at the emergence of posters around campus equating Zionism with racism and Jews with Nazis, and pictures of cans of soup labeled "Canned Palestinian Children Meat, slaughtered according to Jewish rites under American license."

"This is not civic discourse, this is not free speech, and this is the Weimar Republic with brown shirts it cannot control," she wrote.

After staying silent for nearly a week, university president Robert Corrigan posted a statement condemning the incident on SFSU's Web site on Monday. But in a move that Jeffrey Ross, ADL director of campus/higher education affairs, praised as a positive departure from many campuses' public silence on anti-Semitic incidents, Corrigan noted a request to the office of District Attorney Terence Hallinan to assign a member of its hate crimes unit to work with SFSU and consider bringing legal action against certain students.

"Despite the claims of some, this is not an anti-Semitic campus. But as history shows us, silence and passivity can at times of crisis be very little different from complicity," Corrigan said in the statement.

In the Bay area, where anti-Israel protests have been the norm on campus for decades, Ross credited the University of California, Berkeley, as being the first school in the area to take legal action against pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Last month, 79 protesters were arrested after taking over a building on campus, and Students for Justice in Palestine was suspended from operating on campus for a month.

"In both cases, you've got administrators who are trying to do the right thing in very difficult circumstances. We're pleased that they're working beyond the rhetorical to law enforcement, when law-enforcement is appropriate," Ross said.

But it remains unclear whether those who have been terrorized will be placated by Corrigan's vow to crack down on anti-Semitic demonstrators after nearly two years of virulent anti-Israel demonstrations. As Zoloth noted in her e-mail, the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and anti-American atmosphere that has pervaded campus extends far beyond the scope of one protest that spun out of control.

"After nearly seven years as director of Jewish studies, and after nearly two decades of life here as a student, faculty member, and wife of the Hillel rabbi, after years of patient work and difficult civic discourse, I am saddened to see SFSU return to its notoriety as a place that teaches anti-Semitism, hatred for America, and hatred, above all else, for the Jewish State of Israel, a state that I cherish," she wrote.

I think you mean Occupied Israel. Those Jordanians need to give up and get back to their homeland.

As someone who grew up in Egypt and goesto SFSU
the rally at SFSU were GUPS threw a shit fit because someone raised the Israeli flag is typical. In our countries anyone perceived as insulting Islam or Arabs doesn't have rights, and unfortunately a small group of my fellow countrymen try the same thing here and are surprised they are condemned for it. In their culture they would be praised for it. Most of us realize this is wrong though.

Main Entry: Sem·ite
Pronunciation: 'se-"mIt, esp British 'sE-"mIt
Function: noun
Etymology: French sémite, from Semitic Shem, from Late Latin, from Greek SEm, from Hebrew ShEm
Date: 1848
1 a : a member of any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs b : a descendant of these peoples
2 : a member of a modern people speaking a Semitic language

Main Entry: 1Se·mit·ic
Pronunciation: s&-'mi-tik also -'me-
Function: adjective
Etymology: German semitisch, from Semit, Semite Semite, probably from New Latin Semita, from Late Latin Semitic Shem
Date: 1813
1 : of, relating to, or constituting a subfamily of the Afro-Asiatic language family that includes Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, and Amharic
2 : of, relating to, or characteristic of the Semites
3 : JEWISH

Pro-Palestinian demonstrations, by definition, cannot be anti-Semitic. Palestinians are Semites. Actually, most modern Jews are of Khazar (Caucasian) origin, and have no roots in Palestine.

Logic is good. Thank you for giving a lesson to those have trouble using it and the dictionary. Cheers.

Of course Logic makes an age-old assinine point to make himself seem clever. Yes, "semite" applies to arabs. But to say that jews cannot be semitic when the 3rd entry of your second definition says "JEWISH" amounts to shooting yourself in the foot. Here also is the definition of anti-semite from three REPUTABLE dictionaries. You'll notice the stress in on a semite as specifically being Jewish.

an·ti-Sem·ite (nt-smt, nt-)
n.
One who discriminates against or who is hostile toward or prejudiced against Jews.

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anti-Se·mitic (-s-mtk) adj.

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.


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Anti-Semitism \An`ti-Sem"i*tism\, n. Opposition to, or hatred of, Semites, esp. Jews. -- An`ti-Sem\"ite, n. -- An`ti-Sem*it\"ic, a.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.


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anti-semitic

adj 1: relating to or characterized by anti-Semitism; hating Jews 2: discriminatory especially on the basis of race or religion [syn: racist, antiblack, anti-Semitic, anti-Semite(a)]
Source: WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University