Pomona College Bans Students Who Raided Jewish Event From Campus

Pomona College, working with its sister institutions in the Claremont consortium of liberal arts colleges in California (5C), has identified and imposed disciplinary sanctions on members of a group who stormed a Jewish event recently held on campus to commemorate the victims of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, footage of the incident released last month showed the group, whose members concealed their faces with keffiyeh scarves, attempting to raid the event venue while screaming expletives and pro-Hamas slogans. They ultimately failed due to the prompt response of the Claremont Colleges Jewish chaplain and other attendees who formed a barrier in front of the door to repel them, a defense they mounted on their own as campus security personnel did nothing to stop the disturbance.

Later, the group behind the incident issued a disturbing open letter on social media.

“Satan dared not look us in the eyes,” the note said, while attacking event guests and Oct. 7 survivor Yoni Viloga. “Immediately, zionists [sic] swarmed us, put their hands on us, shoved us, while Viloga retreated like he did on October 7th, 2023.”

Appearing to threaten murder, the group added, “We let that coward know he and his fascists settler ideology are not welcome here nor anywhere. zionism is a death cult that must be dealt with accordingly [sic].”

After an exhaustive investigation which drew in every member of the 5C, Pomona College determined that two of the young people involved in the raid are enrolled in sister schools it would not identify due to privacy laws. It has banned them from the Pomona campus. Two other individuals remain at large.

“Given the gravity of the alleged offense — and the published statement that has raised significant concerns about similar disruptions in the future — I have initiated an interim campus ban for both individuals, pending further inquiries, and in line with our policy,” Pomona College president Gabrielle Starr said in a statement. “The alleged behavior here is serious, and to ensure an appropriate adjudication is reached, the college is committed to maintaining a fair process.”

She added, “I assure you that Pomona hopes for — and will advocate for — an outcome that ensures our campuses are free of the kind of targeted harassment we witnessed.”

The campus antisemitism crisis in the US continues to rage, more than two years after the Oct. 7 massacre.

Last month, for example, National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP), a primary organ of the student anti-Zionist movement in the US, appeared to call for executing Muslim “collaborators” working with Israel in retaliation for the death of Palestinian influencer Saleh Al-Jafarawi during a conflict between the Hamas terrorist group and a rival clan, Doghmush, in Gaza City.

The statement went on to volley a series of unfounded charges alleging that anti-Hamas forces are “exploiting Gaza’s youth for money” and pilfering “desperately needed aid to the killing of their own people in service of Zionism.” NSJP concluded, “Death to the occupation. Death to Zionism. Death to all collaborators.”

At Harvard University, a conservative student magazine published an article that echoed the words of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, escalating concerns about rising interest in Nazism, white nationalism, and illiberal political theories in the “new right” conservative movement.

Written by David F.X. Army, the article chillingly echoed a January 1939 Reichstag speech in which Hitler portended mass killings of Jews as the outcome of Germany’s inexorable march toward war with France and Great Britain. Whereas Hitler said, “France to the French, England to the English, America to the Americans, and Germany to the Germans,” Army wrote, “Germany belongs to the Germans, France to the French, Britain to the British, America to the Americans.”

Army also called for the adoption of notions of “blood, soil, language, and love of one’s own” in response to concerns over large-scale migration of Muslims into Europe.

Cornell University took center stage in another campus antisemitism outrage, as its student newspaper published an anti-Zionist opinion piece which promoted Holocaust inversion by melding a Nazi symbol with the Star of David.

The article, titled “Thousand & One Eyes for an Eye” and written by indigenous studies professor Karim-Aly Assam, argued that Israel’s military strategy for the Gaza war against Hamas prioritized revenge for the Oct. 7 massacre over security “under the pretext of obtaining justice.” The article further accused Israeli officials of describing Palestinians as “animals” to justify “ruthless destruction and killing” — a distortion of former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s describing the Hamas fighters who murdered, raped, and maimed women, children, and men on Oct. 7, 2023, as “human animals” two days after the atrocities transpired.

Assam’s article implied an equivalence of Israel’s military objective to eradicate Hamas from Gaza with the Nazi genocide of Jews across Europe during World War II, a trope which anti-Israel activists and antisemites often traffic to foster negative public opinion against Israel’s efforts to secure its borders and quell jihadist activity in the Palestinian territories.

The tactic — Holocaust inversion — is one part of a triad of Holocaust-skepticism, the other two components of which are “denial” and “distortion” — used to defame Jews and deny that they are and have been victims of hatred. Once reserved to neo-Nazi media, Holocaust inversion, experts say, is being increasingly embraced by other more mainstream segments of society.

Assam later said that he regretted how “some” people “interpreted” the drawing.

“I am deeply saddened to learn that this portion of the artwork has been interpreted by some as antisemitic,” he told the New York Post. “That was not my intention and I have learned from this experience.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.