RUTHFULLY YOURS

Editor’s note: The Freedom Center continues its report on the “Top Ten College Administrations Most Friendly to Terrorists and Hostile to the First Amendment” by naming San Francisco State University to the list.  It joins the campuses of Brooklyn College (CUNY), Tufts University, Brandeis University, UCLA, UC-Berkeley and Vassar College. These campuses provide financial and institutional support to terrorist-linked campus organizations such as the Hamas-funded hate-group Students for Justice in Palestine while actively suppressing speech exposing the truth about Israel’s terrorist adversaries and their allies in the United States. 

The San Francisco State administration has ignored outright threats of terrorism originating from its General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) but labeled Freedom Center posters critical of Hamas “bullying behavior.” Last night, the Freedom Center again placed posters exposing the links between the terrorist group Hamas and SJP on SFSU’s campus. It remains to be seen whether the SFSU administration will again order them torn down or whether they will uphold the First Amendment on campus.

San Francisco State University: Leslie E. Wong, President

San Francisco State University cultivates its reputation as one of the most radical campuses in the nation, known for its disruptive protests and extremist student movements. The anti-Israel movement at SFSU, led by an SJP-surrogate group called the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) fits into this tradition. Even in the radicalized world of anti-Israel student organizations, GUPS stands out for its brazen and public Jew hatred.

In April 2016, when Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat appeared on campus, a GUPS mob shouting “Intifada” and chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!,” itself a call for the obliteration of the Jewish state, forced the cancellation of his speech. When SFSU President Leslie Wong called tepidly for an investigation into the protestors who shut down Barkat’s speech, GUPS responded by asserting that this request “criminalize[s] anti-racist speech on campus.”

The former president of GUPS, Mohammad G. Hammad, wrote dozens of social media posts threatening violence to pro-Israel students, Israelis, the IDF and others. He also praised Hamas and the violent Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

During an “emergency rally” held by GUPS at SFSU in December 2013, the phrase “My Heroes Have Always Killed Colonizers” was written with chalk on the concrete stage at Malcolm X Plaza. The same phrase, referring to the Hamas assertion that Jews have colonized Arab Palestine and must be exterminated, was also written on a sign at a display table during the “Edward Said Mural Celebration.”

The faculty advisor for GUPS, Prof. RababAbdulhadi, met with terrorists Leila Khaled and Sheikh Raed Salah during a university-funded trip to the Middle East. (Khaled is a convicted hijacker and a member of the terrorist organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Sheikh Raed Salah has been repeatedly jailed on charges of incitement to terrorist violence.) Abdulhadi also helped to broker a formal collaboration between SFSU and An-Najah National University in Palestine, which is known for its recruitment of students as cadre for Hamas and as suicide bombers.

Despite these many incidents, the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) remains an organization in good standing at SFSU. After it disrupted Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat’s speech, SFSU President Wong initially called for an open investigation of the incident, but ultimately placed the blame on campus administrators—not the student protestors—writing, “It makes exceptionally clear that the responsibility for the inadequate response prior to, during and following the event falls squarely on the shoulders of San Francisco State University administrators. On April 6, we failed our students — both the event attendees and the protesters — through multiple inactions.”

But while exonerating GUPS for its attack on Barkat, President Wong immediately attacked the David Horowitz Freedom Center and threatened legal action when it placed posters on campus exposing the links between SJP and Hamas, and criticizing SFSU Professor Rabab Abdulhadi for her support of anti-Israel terrorists.

“Flyers were posted by an outside extremist group in numerous locations, singling out one of our faculty members, our students and vandalizing our campus,” Wong wrote in a letter addressed to the entire campus community.  “We know that this group is not affiliated with San Francisco State University.”

He continued, “Let me be clear, this is not an issue of free speech; this is bullying behavior that is unacceptable and will not be tolerated on our campus. A line has been crossed, and we are investigating any legal recourse we have with the perpetrators.”

For his repeated failure to censure SJP for its violation of campus policy and incitement of violence against Jewish students while castigating speech critical of SJP as “bullying” and threatening legal action against its agents, Wong makes the case for SFSU’s inclusion on the list of campuses most friendly to terrorists and hostile to the First Amendment.