On Feb. 11, a “mock apartheid wall” appeared on San Diego State University’s campus next to the iconic Hepner Hall. Meant to publicize the supposed injustices in Israel, these are usually festooned with accusations and images. And this one was no different.
But this one went viral on social media, perhaps because noted influencer Hen Mazzig posted about the wall on X, resulting in over 14,000 emails sent to SDSU protesting the wall’s presence. Why was this wall not shut down? Would a wall with similar slurs against any other group be tolerated?
The full story, however, is both more alarming and more reassuring at the same time.
First, who was responsible for the wall?
The student newspaper, The Daily Aztec, reported that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) “put up mock apartheid walls . . . outside of Hepner Hall on Feb. 11.” But while SJP publicized the event, they did not submit the event application. That came from two people who work for California Faculty Association (CFA): Shania Broadway, the office manager for CFA’s San Diego chapter, and Faith Chinnapong, a senior California state organizer for the union.
True, anyone can submit an event request to present their views on SDSU’s campus. You don’t have to be an employee or a student. But surely you have to ask: why in the world are the union’s office manager and organizer sponsoring an anti-Israel protest? What has foreign affairs to do with professor salaries, benefits and the like? And why did CFA hide their involvement? Why are they using students as a cat’s paw?
As for the wall’s content, it combines the interesting and the absurd.
The interesting part is the attempt to disassociate antizionism and antisemitism. The latter is a prejudice against Jewish people, the former a colonialist ideology justifying Israel’s existence. The fact that whoever created the wall felt the need to distinguish them betrays some nervousness about how the two always seem to overlap.
For example, during the “No Kings” rally last October, a group split off, headed to the traditionally Jewish Zeta Beta Tau (ZBT) fraternity house just off SDSU’s campus, and one person held up a sign saying “Kill all Zionists.”
Why is this antisemitic? Because a fraternity house is not the Israeli consulate, and the brothers have nothing to do with how Israel conducts itself.
At a recent rally protesting the U.S. war against Iran in San Francisco, participants chanted “No More Jews, No More War.”
And in the Bondi Beach massacre in Australia, a father and son fired on a group of Jews celebrating Hannukah at a park, killing 15 (11 men, 3 women and a 10 year-old child), claiming in a video that they were attacking “Zionists.”
These are not isolated incidents, and while a case could be made that antizionism does not always mean antisemitism, the fact remains that antizionism — which has its roots in Cold War Soviet propaganda — is where antisemitism lives today.
As for the absurd, the wall’s casting of blame on Israel for Immigration and Customs Enforcement‘s appalling behavior in Minneapolis and elsewhere is nonsense. The canard that there is a “deadly exchange” between Israeli and American police forces is simply not true.
The question, “Why does ICE have centers in Israel?” is easily answered: ICE has centers all over the world, including locations in Abu Dhabi, Bangkok, Beijing and Istanbul. So there’s nothing unusual or particularly suspicious about a center in Israel.
Finally, there is the absurd charge that the U.S. and Israel are colluding to silence pro-Palestine speech. I cannot speak to what’s happening at other campuses, but if that were true at SDSU, this wall would never have been allowed in the first place. What’s more, the wall and the response to the wall show that free speech and academic freedom thrive at San Diego State University.
Anyone, as I’ve said, can apply to have an event on the campus. They need to submit the appropriate paperwork, agree to abide by the CSU Time, Place, and Manner policies, and off they go. Nobody inspects the content of their speech, and that is exactly what happened with the wall.
But there’s more.
After a student organization, Students Supporting Israel, found out about the wall, they applied to have a table, submitted the appropriate paperwork, agreed to abide by the Time, Place, and Manner policies, and off they went. One student told me that they “had good, lengthy discussions with people.”
At the end of the day, both took down their displays, and went on their way.
This is how it should be: speech you disagree with gets answered by further speech. No violence. No censoring. No cancellations. Free exchange of views.
Almost.
Two faculty members tried to stop the students from distributing their materials, but the university told them no, they do not make decisions about content, and the materials were considered protected free speech.
Apparently, not everyone believes in free speech.
Peter C. Herman is a professor of English literature at San Diego State University. He has published books on Shakespeare, Milton and the literature of terrorism, and essays in Salon, Newsweek, Inside Higher Ed, and Times of San Diego. His latest book is “Early Modern Others: Resisting Bias in Renaissance Literature” (Routledge).
