Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox.
Subscribe to our newsletter here.

Three things happened on April 29.

First: Two-hundred and six days into the Israel-Hamas War, at Syracuse University’s Shaw Quadrangle, a few dozen students gathered with chairs and tents in solidarity with student protests happening across the United States.

Second: In response to the protest at Syracuse University, Representative Brandon Williams took to X, formerly known as Twitter, and declared:

Demands? I don’t care what your demands are. Get the hell out of our community and never come back.

Those are my demands.

And the clock is ticking. https://t.co/NXdal2xD8o

— Rep. Brandon Williams (@RepWilliams) April 29, 2024

Third: Thousands of miles away, the State of Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared, “There are no half measures. (The Gazan cities of) Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat – total annihilation. You will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.”

I was immediately taken aback. “Get the hell out of our community”? Who is he talking about? My students? Me? These reckless comments are declarations that authorize violence – Williams asks us to set our neighbors apart as outsiders while Smotrich connects modern Palestinian cities to a commandment to obliterate a biblical foe. We find ourselves among politicians who, at best, don’t understand the gravity of their shouting, or at worst, don’t care who gets hurt.

Even if it feels right, even if it’s what we heard on television or read while scrolling, we don’t have to go along with it.

I won’t get into the facts of this present moment. If you really want to know about the history of the conflict, you can seek out resources that aren’t reckless soundbites meant to activate partisan fault lines. If you really want to understand the perspectives on the conflict right now, you can click through jpost.com, haaretz.com and 972mag.com to read reporting that spans the political gamut.

What is clear is that Smotrich’s words are unabashedly calls for violence, meant to activate far-right and fundamentalist interests while attempting to allay the pain of this tremendous crisis for Jewish Israelis. This is the moment Smotrich and his allies have been waiting for. In March 2023, in response to Smotrich’s call to “wipe out” the West Bank village of Huwara, Jewish Voice for Peace wrote, “If (Joe) Biden fails to take action at this moment, the U.S. will be fully complicit in the violence that comes next.”

Students across this country are stopping. They are stopping to educate themselves, seek facts, consider complex histories, dream of more just tomorrows, mourn. I hope those who feel energized by Williams’ comments will stop to consider why.

Nicholas Croce is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Maxwell School. He can be reached at [email protected].

Published on April 30, 2024 at 11:13 pm