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Lexi Boccuzzi (Free Beacon)
Anti-Israel agitators mobbed, harassed, and threatened University of Michigan student government representatives who voted against funding a Hamas-associated university in the West Bank, videos show. The school is investigating the incident, and the student government president and vice president have faced calls to resign.
Protesters began to approach and verbally attack the speaker and other CSG representatives, “Are you proud of yourself?”, “Fucking Zionists!”, “Shame!”. Protesters also reportedly spit on members. According to a former CSG rep, protesters followed members to their car and home. pic.twitter.com/wuV3STFRDf
— Josh Brown (@jbis9051) October 11, 2024
In the wake of the vote held Tuesday night, protesters quickly swarmed Central Student Government (CSG) officers, calling them “f—ing Zionists” and “race traitors,” according to videos of the ordeal. They also made “thinly veiled death threats,” accused representatives of being “colonists,” and called a female Lebanese student a “Zionist whore,” students told the Washington Free Beacon.
“The fact that there were students physically assaulting other students is unbelievable,” Patrick Szendro Arceo, a student government representative, said. “This is one of the many cases of how our campus is collapsing socially. People can no longer talk to each other.”
Agitators accused Arceo of “betraying his people.” He said some students cried while the mob followed them out of the meeting.
“People were still trying to chase us, but the police were able to block them. We had to separate into groups in order to escape and run to our cars,” Arceo said.
The outburst began after the CSG passed the Wolverines’ Budget Act on Tuesday, restoring funding for campus activities. The organization’s president, a member of the SHUT IT DOWN party, which aims to halt all student government activity until the University of Michigan divests from Israel, had vetoed a previous budget, forcing student groups to rely on loans from the college for months.
The anti-Israel party also petitioned to send $440,000 of the $500,000 fall budget, which is funded by student fees, to Birzeit University. Students at the West Bank college have repeatedly been arrested over their ties to Hamas. The university itself pushes anti-Israel messages, writing “Glory for martyrs” days after the Oct. 7 attack.
Their proposal failed, prompting outrage from protesters. Videos from the meeting show agitators screaming at the student representatives, “Are you proud of yourself?,” “F— your vote, f— CSG, this is not democracy!” and “Shame!” The disruption forced the meeting to end early.
The vote was conducted via secret ballot, but the anti-Israel agitators targeted CSG members they believed opposed the resolution and followed representatives to their cars, students told the Free Beacon.
“We were just trying to get out of there because we had campus police on site towards the end, once it was getting out of order,” student Alex Richmond said. “They had to escort many of the students out because they were pressing up on us, and I was actually spat at.”
Arceo recognized some of the protesters as his classmates in the Ford School of Public Policy and reported them to the dean’s office. The University of Michigan’s Department of Public Safety and Security and the Equity, Civil Rights, and Title IX Office launched an investigation and have requested more information from the CSG representatives, emails obtained by the Free Beacon show.
On Wednesday several anti-Israel groups, including SHUT IT DOWN, hijacked CSG’s Instagram account and posted a clip replaying a video of the vote with the text “UMich Student Gov Zionists Block Gaza Reparations Budget Resolution.” The caption condemned the vote and called the CSG an “institutional puppet.”
The next day, 1pm Oct 9th, the official CSG Instagram (umcsg) account was hijacked and a video originating from the Shut It Down’s account was posted. The caption condemned CSG as an “institutional puppet” concluding with “Glory to our Martyrs and Long Live the Resistance” pic.twitter.com/Kzk1Frhkdq
— Josh Brown (@jbis9051) October 11, 2024
“Glory to our Martyrs, and Long Live the Resistance,” it added. Instagram removed the account, but it was later restored with the post removed.
The Central Student Government released a statement Friday afternoon condemning the harassment and the post. It also called on the president and vice president, both members of SHUT IT DOWN, to resign.
“Their inability to protect Student Representatives, their endorsement of violence and harassment, and their misuse of official platforms to spread misinformation are direct violations of their duties and unbefit the office of the presidency,” the statement reads. “President Chowdhury and Vice President Atkinson must take full accountability for the harm they have caused.”
The University of Michigan confirmed that it was reviewing the incident, but did not comment further.
Hundreds of students held an anti-Israel march the day before the vote to commemorate the anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack. Agitators painted “Death to Israel” and “Glory to the Resistance” over a Rosh Hashanah message and vandalized University of Michigan president Santa Ono’s home.
