Over three dozen pro-Palestine demonstrators gathered in front of the Administration Building for a protest organized by SB4Palestine at noon on Thursday.
The protest was the third on-campus demonstration related to the Israel-Hamas conflict this semester and the second of those protests to be in support of Palestine.
Zubair Kubir, a spokesperson for SB4Palestine, said that the group’s main goals included more transparency from Stony Brook University’s administration and, more specifically, information about the investments made by the University.
“I feel that students have the right to ask hard questions to [the] administration and that they should be able to recessive honest, truthful answers from the administration,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be us, if an individual student wants to get attention from the University on an issue they feel is important, the University should honor that and treat that with respect.”
Myrna Gordon, a member of the North Country Peace Group and a resident of Port Jefferson, N.Y., also attended the rally and spoke in support of the students protesting.
“I can tell you as a peace group member and as a peace activist my entire life, I am certainly in support of what the students are recommending and asking for on campus,” Gordon said.
After gathering in front of the Administration Building, protesters began marching around campus, chanting and holding signs in support of Palestine.
Demonstrators made their way into Frank Melville Jr. Memorial Library, through the Student Activities Center, past the Roth Community and West Side Dining before making their way to the Staller Center for the Arts and back in front of the Administration Building.
Soren Wu, a freshman majoring in studio art, said that she saw the protest while coming out of class and decided to join them.
“It’s something that feels like a duty I want to fulfill,” she said.
While the protestors were marching toward West Side Dining, the crowd called out a police officer riding on a bike next to the demonstration, who Kubir said had arrested him twice last semester with a “beautiful smile” on her face.
Demonstrators then made their way to the top of the Staller Steps where speakers gave closing remarks.
Josh Dubnau, a professor in the Departments of Anesthesiology and Neurobiology and Behavior, spoke to the protestors and called SB4Palestine the “conscience” of Stony Brook.
“Welcome to the conscience of the institution, because that’s what this group is,” he said. “So there’s a lot of gaslighting that happens in our society now, and that happens at institutions like this one … you new students who have joined us, you have stood up to the gaslighting.”
Dubnau was one of 29 individuals arrested during a Pro-Palestine encampment protest in May.
Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, a member of the anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta International, spoke to the crowd in support of the demonstration.
“We cry for the suffering of the people in Gaza,” he said. “We lived together, Jews and Muslims, for hundreds and hundreds of years. In fact, the Jewish people, in the last 2,000 years, we were dispersed throughout the nations. We were unfortunately oppressed. We went through many trials and tribulations … and the Muslim countries embraced us.”
Mustafa Abuelqumsan, a post-doctorate researcher at Stony Brook Medicine, said that he attended the protest to advocate for peace between Israel and Palestine.
“We should have coexistence between Palestine and Israel, there should be no genocide there,” he said. “They should stop the killing, the murder.”
A spokesperson for the University declined to comment on Thursday’s protest, instead referring The Statesman to Interim President Richard L. McCormick’s message that was sent on Aug. 14.
“[W]e must ensure that the university remains unwaveringly committed to free speech and equally committed to providing everyone in our community with an environment free of discrimination,” McCormick wrote in the message.
Ethan Eskenazi • Sep 17, 2024 at 4:54 am
Wow, this is really beyond the pale, even for SB4Palestine. I am actually stunned to hear that they invited the leader of the Neturei Karta to our campus. Just so everyone knows, the Neturei Karta is a tiny, cultish group of Haredi Jews, whose views are almost universally rejected by the wider Jewish community. They have attended Iranian conferences that denied the Holocaust, and they have met with terrorist groups such as Hamas and PIJ and openly supported violent attacks against civilians, including those with both Jewish and non-Jewish victims.
Their opposition to Israel is actually unrelated to the “humanitarian” or “anti-colonial” rhetoric that the majority of these protesters ascribe to. No, the Neturei Karta opposes Israel because it was founded before the coming of the Messiah, and because the state has a mostly-secular legal system rather than a system directly based on Jewish religious law. The group’s entire issue is that Israel was founded “too early” and is too tolerant of minorities; they would be glad for all Palestinians to die, as long as happens within their preferred timeframe.
Many organizations have written about the Neturei Karta’s extremist, horrific beliefs, and it is shameful that SB4Palestine is trying to invite these terrible people to serve as a “token” Jewish group in order to justify their opposition to Israel. It’s often said that “Tokenization is nothing more than lip service and bigotry disguised as acceptance.” If these students actually valued authentic Jewish voices, they would be willing to listen to the more than 85% of American Jews who support Israel and consider the country to be an important part of their identity. But of course that’s not what this is really about. When you have loony students labeling themselves as “progressive” and then falling for violent Islamist propaganda, even going so far as to label these backwards beliefs as “liberation”, then you know that these people are not looking for any constructive solutions.
Am Yisrael Adayin Kan, now and forever.
From a proud Jew and Zionist,
Ethan Eskenazi