Bands of Non-Students, Out of Town Instigators, Descend on UTRGV
Some students supported, others denounced and questioned their motives, while many onlookers recoiled from fear of their thuggish demeanor and chants.
The same band of thugs and goons who have organized antisemitic rallies in McAllen since the Oct. 7 Pogrom descended upon UTRGV for a so-called “peaceful protest” (my foot). It consisted of non-students like local musician and activist, Carmen Castillo, and Food Not Bombs RGV founder, Mariam El Haj, as well as out-of-town members of the Maoist Red Star Tx, acting as masked Basiji to intimidate opponents like me, students, staff. I counter-demonstrated, educating several students, university workers and onlookers, all of whom were receptive and thanked me for my courage.
As I reported earlier in the week, the flyers advertising the event strangely did not list any sanctioned student organization, as is customary with all flyers on campus promoting their events. Many students tore down and scrapped the flyers around campus. On social media, the antisemitic Maoist groups announced the rally, suggesting that they were behind it. Before blocking me on Instagram and “unsending” their message, like others, Red Star Tx said they had made communication with university officials who approved their event.
Food Not Bombs RGV and Red Star Tx are hosting another rally at Archer Park Saturday, just a day before the Jewish community is set to light the Menorah for Hanukkah at the same park, in line with other insensitive events.
I contacted UTRGV’s marketing and communications department who replied to me in an email saying, “Our office did not communicate or have discussions with organizers of the protest” and referred me to the dean of students for which student organizations hosted them. As of publishing this piece, I’ve not heard back from the dean of students but will update it when I do. Update: The person behind the anonymous email was indeed Mariam El Haj as the university’s legal department revealed to me in a public information request that I filed.
Some university students, like the RGV Muslim Students Association, attended their hate rally in full support of its aims, as they held vulgarly antisemitic placards. Several others dropped in to listen out of curiosity as they walked to and from class. I counter-demonstrated, holding a placard of an Israeli flag on one side and the other side reading, “No More Human Shields” in black, red and green ink — colors of Palestinian flag.
The University newspaper, The Rider which has not done good reporting on the issue, published a video titled “UTRGV students protest for Palestine.” Its thumbnail is of somebody holding a placard in front of their face which reads, “Free Palestine.” It contains a sliced watermelon image, which has become an anti-Jewish symbol suggesting Israel should be erased. Its structural resemblance to Israel’s map, filled with red, is used to suggest what they claim aloud, that Israel shouldn’t exist.
Failing at writing well about the issue, the video is good, but the headline is still off the mark. Interviews given in the video make the claim that Israel is committing genocide, without interviewing me, as Ch. 4 did. The genocide allegation is unfounded, propagandistic, and intended to be a low blow. (A Jewish attorney coined the term genocide after the holocaust because we needed a new word to describe what the Nazis did. Broken down to its Latin form, genocide means ‘race murder.’)
Covering of faces has been a constant element seen in the pro-Hamas movement that rose after Oct. 7. They are ashamed to show their faces because deep down they know what they are advocating for is wrong. Across the country, people have been reprimanded professionally for their public demonstrations of antisemitism. The rally’s website suggested wearing of masks, as they have at past events. This is one side of it. The other is to intimidate any would-be opposition.
Students who just happened to fall upon the event but were genuinely curious about the topic and (much to their credit) admittedly not very knowledgeable made their way to me, as all of them expressed gratitude and congratulations for my courage in standing up for Israel in the face of a battalion of Hamas supporters. Several more walked by, smiled, waved, and gave me thumbs up and fist bumps. They were glad.
These students, about 20, were lovely and a pleasure to speak with. We exchanged info and agreed to continue the conversation. All subscribed to Fighting Words. To them, thank you for your hospitality. This journalistic essay is dedicated to you.
I explained that we support the creation of a Palestinian state and the self-determination of oppressed nations, including Israel, for mutual recognition. That Hamas and their voluntary spokespeople aren’t Palestine’s allies.
That those of us who defend Israel’s right to destroy Hamas forever are the true friends and allies of the Palestinian people and their just fight for national and human rights. They all agreed with this perspective and the observation that the organizers of the rally were approaching with hate and dishonesty.
This message made Channel 4 news, who interviewed me during the rally.
Meanwhile, as hundreds of students walked by, many showed faces of concern and worry for what was happening on their campus. UTRGV police had a visible presence, which staff and professors commented on in discussions with me. Professors I saw walk by, including former philosophy professors of mine, looked terrified. They looked at me with facial expressions that seemed to suggest, “Is everything okay?”
This was reminiscent of how, back in November, these gangsters and hoodlums startled innocent park-goers at Bill Schupp who didn’t know beforehand that their night-time rally would be occurring.
But unlike Bill Schupp and Archer Park, where there was disgracefully zero police presence, the UTRGV police department who was well-notified of the potential for violence prior to the event made sure their presence was known. Over a dozen police officers were on site, several of them on bicycles to shadow the march.
When I first arrived, the police cyclists were at a distance from the rally, about 100 yards east of them, near the Engineering Building. But as soon as they saw me arrive, with my signs, they bicycled around and past me within seconds. UTRGV PD, who is well-aware of how similar protests at campuses around the nation became violent, were not going to let any incidents occur. Their presence deterred the goons and thugs from being as aggressive, as they were at the past events they held.
To this extent, I thank the university for securing my safety and the safety of those students who were kind enough to approach me, but some of whom also received scorn from the rally-goers by association with me and nevertheless stood by me.
A further note about campus events. The rally was curiously held at the same time the university president, Dr. Guy Bailey, was on campus holding a holiday party for staff. A winter holiday event was also being setup just across the quad, outside the student union, on the university chapel lawn, just south of the rally.
Sources who attended the staff event told me President Bailey had to be escorted out on his way to the parking lot by campus police as the rally had begun marching toward the staff event during his exit. As a former student government senator and later journalist, with many past disagreements with President Bailey, I am appalled that his safety was put into question even for a second.
Clip of skirmish with people who aggressively approached me and another student trying to have a discussion. Excuse my heckling at the end, as I’d concluded they weren’t really arguing in good faith. Before recording, they were interrupting and speaking over us.
Prior to the rally starting, I made conversation with three workers who were setting up a holiday tabling event outside the union, which was ultimately tainted with the hateful sights. I told them what was happening, and they were disgusted by hearing what the rally was really all about. Speaking in Spanish, they agreed with me and wished me luck. On their way out, once the protest was well underway, they congratulated me as they drove by in their work truck.
One of them, Beto, said “Hey! You need a megaphone!” I had been counter-chanting, in rhythmic time, to their chants of “Is-rael, you can’t hide! We charge you with genocide!” I would say, as they’d say hide, “Israel’s not hiding!” And as they chanted “ceasefire now,” I would reply “never” or “nope,” exactly on the fourth beat of their 4/4 cadence (for the music nerds).
I laughed and replied to Beto, who spoke both English and Spanish, “I don’t need one!” My voice carried quite well with the library building’s acoustics, providing a nice echo. He laughed, too. His co-worker took pictures of me and my signs to send to family and friends.
This response was not surprising, as working-class people have been horrified by what Hamas did Oct. 7. The social base for these pro-Hamas rallies has largely come from the middle and capitalist classes, with a few demoralized and politically disoriented workers, as well as elements recruited from the homeless, drug-addicted, organized criminal and unemployed underclass of the region.
This is because antisemitism doesn’t just target Jewish people, as we know from history. Antisemitism is also a deadly threat to the working class and all of humanity. These movements supporting Hamas, which call themselves “socialist,” will find themselves easily allied with future fascist forces.
As the Socialist Workers Party (founded in 1938, with political roots going back to the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the best traditions of the Left-Wing of the old Socialist Party of Eugene Debbs) explains, fascism in America is not around the corner. We are in the epoch of socialist revolution, which means workers taking control of industry and government, to create a workers and farmworkers state, to join the world struggle against capitalist oppression and exploitation, which is what breeds antisemitism. It’s only along this course that it can finally be eradicated.
A few skirmishes broke out. At several points, small and medium-sized groups would approach me, shouting in a hostile tone of voice, interrupting conversations I was having with curious students, in stark contrast to the kind students who were genuinely interested in discussion. Students took my side and stood up for me against the goon squads.
One young lady pictured below, stared at me for several minutes, from not too far a distance. She took pictures and video of me and people I spoke with, saying she was helping her friend “record everything.” When she first approached me, she stared and said nothing, even when I asked her what she wanted. A small group of university staff had stopped by to talk to me, but she scared them away with her bizarre behavior.
She finally said she hadn’t heard of Oct. 7 and wanted to “hear my argument.” Me and another student who’d joined me by that time, explained to her what happened, the same way you would need to tell somebody who had died before Oct. 7 what happened if, somehow, they could be brought back to life now.
She sinisterly pretended to be genuinely interested in wanting to learn more but would aggressively interrupt with strong assertions against Israel “bombing hospitals.” Strong opinions about Israel supposedly bombing hospitals, but has never heard a word about Oct. 7? This was modern-day Holocaust denial, in real time, in line with Hamas attempts to deny what happened that awful day.
During one point in an argument with her, she said to me, in response to my passion, “This is why nobody is standing alongside you.” A few students who were at my side responded to her, “We’re standing with him.”
One student, who stood with me in the picture above, came out chanting from the library “Israel” every time the rally chanted “Palestine” as part of “Free, free, Palestine!”
(One of my adoptive Jewish uncles jokingly once said, “Hey, don’t tell us it’s free! We’re Jewish. We’ll take it!” Maybe just one more Woody Allen-style joke about the issue: One of the few Jewish members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization executive committee in the 90s, Ilan Halevi, once said to his fellow negotiators in the early rounds of the Oslo Accords, when the Israelis tried the hardest thing for any Israeli government to ever do, and that’s giving away Gaza, “Brothers, let’s accept. Let’s tell the Israelis, yes. We’ll take Gaza. But now what will you give us in return?”)
The student who’d stood beside me above, wearing a university polo, was very bold. He walked out with swagger, shouting down the hate. I’ll track down his name over the weekend, as I met so many, and will tell you more about him in coming articles, as well as the other brave students who courageously stood up against the hate.
Also present at the rally was the Dean of Students who observed the event. A student government senator released a strong statement on social media condemning the rally, its violent and intimidating character, and most importantly its antisemitism.
Alexis Ascanga, Senator at Large for the Student Government Association, was very clear:
Today, a Pro-Hamas rally took place outside of the University Library complex and they were marching across our Edinburg campus grounds chanting against Israel’s right to existence. I will continue to stand in support of our Jewish community and our Israeli international students, and I will stand against the antisemitic phrases that were shouted by the protesters.
I am a firm believer in our first amendment, will always champion freedom of speech, assembly, and expression, but I will also call out the antisemitic chants that the crowd was shouting, “from the river to the Sea” which has its origins in antisemitism.
It was also incredibly sad to see our Campus Police were subject to shouting and slurs from a small group of the protesters that were in attendance. I want to give my outmost support and respect to our police that were there to ensure the campus community was safe, and that violence didn’t break out. . .
His statement makes me proud to have also been a Senator at Large and reassured that there are still courageous voices in SGA. Should he run for re-election or for student body president someday, all students should vote for him.
Shortly after 5, I ended my conversation with two male students and made my way. I thanked the officers as I walked by them, one of which replied, “Stay safe,” surely alluding to the tense nature of the event. As I walked away, one of my former philosophy professors called on me from behind. She mentioned the police presence, noting how big it was, relieved that I was safe. We joked about how the university admin’s interests just happened to briefly (and only briefly) coincide with mine.
We walked on campus, discussed philosophy, like we always do. During the university merger between both legacy institutions, we did the same, also after protests. But boy, how the sides have changed. From protesting the university in 2014, to being protected by them at protests against reactionary political movements with whom I used to be allied politically on many issues going back to 2011.
As we’ve witnessed intimidation of university staff, faculty and officials at institutions across the country in recent years, by similar middle-class radicals, we’ve now seen the first glimpses of it here in the RGV on Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023. But these movements will not be triumphant. And they know it.
They know this is their last sigh, that they’re on the losing side, as well as on the wrong side of history. It’s what underlies their hatred and resentment evident in their rhetoric and body language. Future fascist forces will also utilize ‘the politics of resentment’ to mobilize its shock troops for violence against workers and Jews.
Institutions will growingly protect their free speech and try to turn a blind eye to their violations of ours. This is why defending free speech is important. The way to combat lies and slander, like charges of genocide against Jews, is with truth, not censorship, even though the other side is happy to enforce censorship wherever they can.
Students, staff, faculty who saw the “rally” for what it truly was encourage me and make me quadruple sure that good and peace will prevail. Israel will be victorious. Hamas will be militarily and politically defeated, along with their sympathizers. Then Palestinians will truly be free. Free to determine their future and their lives free of the tyranny to which Hamas has subjected the people of Gaza for 20 years.
What Hamas did on Oct. 7 was a collective suicide attack. Hamas’ days are numbered.