Pro-Israel Groups Slam Attack on Philadelphia College Student
An assortment of pro-Israel groups has issued a joint statement deploring the attack on a Jewish student at Temple University.
It also criticized a pro-Palestinian campus organization, and urged universities to monitor it and other likeminded groups.
In a statement released today, 12 organizations, including StandWithUs, the Zionist Organization of America and the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (CAMERA), condemned the incident in which a Temple student, Daniel Vessal, was struck. Vessal, a fellow with CAMERA, was hit in the face by person at an informational booth for the group Students for Justice in Palestine. Students at the booth, set up at a campus fair Wednesday, also allegedly shouted anti-Semitic slurs at Vessal.
SJP issued a statement condemning the attack and denying that the assailant was a member of SJP. The statement also denied that any anti-Semitic slurs were used.
In their statement, the pro-Israel groups alleged that SJP “has a proven track record of intimidation, harassment, and incitement merging into anti-Semitism against Israel and its supporters on campus.” The organizations urged that SJP and groups like it be closely monitored.
They also called on Temple University to condemn the attack. Temple issued such a statement yesterday.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO