Brittany Bernstein :Pro-Palestinian ‘Anarchists and Communists’ Claim Responsibility for Vandalism at University of California President’s Office
A pro-Palestinian group of “anti-colonial anarchists and communists” says it was behind a recent vandalism attack against the University of California Office of the President.
The group claimed to have released hundreds of cockroaches and defaced the building’s exterior in a Sunday morning assault.
“With the Aurora Borealis above us and the martyrs in our hearts, we attacked the UC Office of the President in solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance,” read a post by the “sacred black and red” on Indybay. “Using a fire extinguisher filled with red paint we covered the facade and smashed seven windows. Then, with access to the building, we released 500 cockroaches inside and emptied a second fire exintguisher [sic] onto the interior.”
However, while the president’s office confirmed to the San Francisco Standard there was damage done to its building, it did not confirm cockroaches had been released into the building. Police are investigating the incident as a “hate-related crime.”
The alleged vandals said they “finalized the act by leaving a water jug inscribed with ‘Bonk’ at the scene — an homage to the militants of Cal Poly Humboldt and the international student encampment movement.” The comment was an apparent reference to a pro-Palestinian protester at Humboldt’s California State Polytechnic University who hit a police officer with an empty water jug in April.
The vandals went on to post a screed about the UC system’s “entanglements” with Israel that calls for the abolition of the UC system.
“The University’s true fascist form has been put on full display, and hiding behind hollow progressive ideals is no longer an option for the dead-eyed desk killers,” the group wrote. “Abolish the UC showed us in 2020 that the University of California is nothing more than a settler colonial project, that their police are protecting the gates of colony, where knowledge is produced and captured by the State to only dig its claws deeper into the flesh of Indigenous lands here and abroad.”
“Let us not forget the UC became co-ed to breed settlers and populate the west coast,” it added. “Speaking only to the UC’s material connection to the Zionist entity obfuscates the extent of the political, theoretical, and cultural entanglements between the UC and the Israeli State. The University does not simply fund Israel, it creates Israel, and launches this white-colony into the post-modern Empire. What does divestment mean when the very essence and foundation of the institution is a fascist regime? Where does Zionism begin and end in the University of California? Is divestment an oxymoron? The UC must be abolished.”
They finish by calling for “escalation in the imperial core.”
“This is our historical and spiritual duty. To not hold this as truth is to give up and accept defeat, hoping someone else will do what it takes to disrupt the flow of capital into the settler-colonial project. We must bring the war home,” the group concludes.
Nearly 3,000 people have been arrested at anti-Israel protests at 57 colleges and universities across the United States, according to Yahoo! News.
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