“We want no Zionists here”

adding-left: 40px”>I asked if they could keep the posters up, saying that they were compliant with school rules and allowed to be there.

The person looked back at me, completely calm. They refused and said that the hanging of the posters tried to justify the genocide of Palestinians.

I said that I didn’t put the posters up but that these hostages are innocent victims.

They were already nearly done taking the posters down. “They’re settlers,” they said, and walked away.

I tried to think of something, anything, to say to express the pain in my heart in that moment. But I couldn’t say anything. I just couldn’t.

Sabrina Soffer, George Washington University:

It all began with pervasive rhetoric in classrooms, online platforms, and public spaces. Soon, our campus was littered with posters and electronic graffiti bearing hateful messages: “Zionists fck off,” “Settlers, fck off,” “Free Palestine from the River to the Sea,” “Glory to our martyrs”—thinly veiled calls for the destruction of Israel and the celebration of mass murder. Then came demonstrations echoing deliberate calls for violence: “There is only one solution, intifada revolution!” Sometimes protesters would add that this is “the final solution.”

Today, my friends and I find ourselves physically excluded from a so-called “liberated zone” on campus: an encampment exclusively for those who disavow the idea of a Jewish homeland. Self-proclaimed social justice warriors have cornered and spit on us, followed us around with cameras, and threatened to kick us off campus. When they say, “We want no Zionists here,” they really mean it.