by Sanya Wason
“Free, Free Palestine!”
The chant echoed across Hornbake Plaza at the University of Maryland on Thursday as students supporting Palestine joined a walkout to demand a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip as the conflict entered its 33rd day.
Israel launched the deadly counteroffensive in response to an Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed more than 1,300 Israeli civilians. Israel’s counteroffensive includes bombing and a ground invasion seeking to eliminate Hamas, the Palestinian militant group. The war has already killed over 10,500 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip, which is run by Hamas.
Hundreds of students passed by as activists chalked the sidewalks and shouted for peace during the hour-long protest. Some stayed to watch, others walked away, their heads down.
“It’s been close to 80 years that Palestine has been suffering, and not a single email was sent out. Come October 7th, the administration sends out an email about Israel,” Bea Ybanez, a sophomore computer science major, said. “Although both parties were mentioned in the email, the timing of it all made it seem like they just don’t care about us.”
At an earlier vigil five days after the attacks, a Students for Justice in Palestine organizer said the Oct. 7 “uprising” was a “response to decades of colonial violence, ethnic cleansing, genocide and erasure that has been trapped in open-air prison by the Israeli state and its military for 16 years,” Stories Beneath the Shell reported.
At the vigil Thursday, police and cultural resource officers lined the stairs to ensure safety as more students kept joining the growing crowd. Students created signs, brought flags, and drew messages on the plaza in chalk.
Many students were grateful for the large protest turnout, about 200 people according to organizer estimates.
“Honestly, seeing this many people show up for Palestine makes me happy,” Dayla, a first-year graduate student who declined to give her full name, said.
But showing up for Palestine is only one part, she explained.
“I just don’t feel safe on this campus. At all. I’ve had professors tell me that I’m the problem. One even told me I’m problematic for wearing my kufiya,” she said, referencing a Palestinian checkered scarf worn around the neck and head.
Another student, who requested anonymity because she feared for her safety, agreed.
“Part of me still feels nervous walking around with my hijab,” she said. “It’s who I am but I just don’t feel safe.”
Students demanded that the administration acknowledge the Palestinian suffering in the Gaza Strip, not just the Israeli suffering.
The protest seemed to go smoothly until around 3:00 PM, when pictures of a message chalked on Hornbake Plaza reading “Holocaust 2.0” spread across social media.
Many students, including pro-Israel students, saw the chalk as antisemitic and interpreted it as calling for a second Holocaust. University Vice President of Student Affairs Patty Perillo canceled her office hours as she and other campus administrators rushed on a Zoom call with Maryland Hillel Executive Director Ari Israel to discuss the incident.
Students for Justice in Palestine, which organized the vigil, responded in a statement on its Instagram page.
“We do not excuse antisemitism in any way, shape or form,” the statement read. “A good dozen of our core members are Jewish and stand with us for there is no place in our hearts for hate.”
In an interview Thursday night, a Students for Justice in Palestine member who spoke on condition of anonymity said the message’s author “did not mean to call for a second Holocaust, they wanted to point out parallels between the Gaza war and the Holocaust”.
Once people realized the comparison was “not accurate,” the student said, the organization crossed out the chalk.
Still, the protest’s timing — on the 85th anniversary of the November pogrom in Germany, referred to as Reichskristallnacht, when Nazis massacred 30,000 Jews — added fuel to the fire.
The attendees said the war needed to be discussed in classrooms.
“The truth of it needs to be talked about,” a student who identified herself as Karina Miakomala said, passion rushing through her voice. Stories Beneath the Shell was unable to verify that she is a university student.
“We can’t address this as a war because it is a genocide, an ethnic cleansing,” she said.
The student next to her held up a sign calling on university president Darryll Pines to take action, just as he did as an undergraduate student at Berkeley University when he protested against South African apartheid.
“Pines fought against apartheid,” it read, “but what about genocide?”
Joel Lev-Tov contributed to this report.
Featured image: Students are pictured yelling at a rally demanding a cease-fire at Hornbake Plaza, Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023. Photo by Sanya Wason.
Correction: A previous version of this report stated that Bea Ybanez is a public health major. She is a computer science major. This story has been updated.
Stories Beneath the Shell 