Students Supporting Israel founder Ilan Sinelnikov was repeatedly punched in the head at an anti-Israel encampment protest at University of California, Berkeley, on Wednesday during a scuffle over an Israeli flag.
Sinelnikov told The Jerusalem Post that the group faced incitement and calls for violence for around 20 minutes. A man who would later attempt to grab one of the SSI group’s flags tried to rally the encampment against them, calling them “Talmudic devils.”
“Go back to Europe, colonizer,” one anti-Israel protester yelled before the first man attempted to take the flag.
In videos published by his group, Sinelnikov attempted to wrest the Israeli flag back from the anti-Israel protesters. During the tug of war, a third activist punched him in the head. He told the Post that it was the most violent event he had encountered in his 12 years as an activist.View this post on Instagram
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Universities are complacent
SSI said on Instagram that the university “is complacent in the antisemitic hate crimes taking place on their campus.”
“Private security stood by and haven’t done anything,” Sinelnikov said. “We went to file a police report and the police said that they don’t have enough power at the force to go out and make the arrest. In addition, the police mentioned that UC Berkeley does not allow them to engage and there is nothing much they can do.”
UC Berkeley is not a safe environment for Jewish students, according to Sinelnikov, who urged Jewish donors to withhold their support to the academic institution.
“I met Jewish students on campus that are scared to walk to class, their mental health is impacted and they live in fear at a public university in this country,” the student group leader said. “Open calls were made that ‘Zionist, we are coming after you in your classes’ and that resistance to Zionism needs to be done ‘by any means.’”
Sinelnikov had visited other US campuses beleaguered by the establishment of anti-Israel protest encampments seeking to force administrations to adopt boycott, sanctions and divestment (BDS) policies.
On Monday, he said that he had documented activists at the University of Minnesota waving a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine flag. The PFLP is listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organization.
The Berkeley encampment was established last Monday in emulation of the protest tent settlement on the Columbia University campus, and a call by National Students for Justice in Palestine to replicate the tactic across the US. U of M established its own encampment last Thursday.