Jenny Davis
Members of the student group that organized the protest decried hate speech after one of their posters sparked controversy.
Roughly three dozen students participated in a protest on Wednesday in support of Palestinian people affected by the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, some walking out of their classes to participate in the demonstration.
Students who spoke at the demonstration pleaded for peace in the region, but the demonstration caused controversy for its inclusion of a poster with the phrase “from the river to the sea.”
The protest was organized by Pards for Palestine, a student coalition that was recently formed. The group urged the college administration to “move beyond the space of silence” and foster learning about “Palestinian liberation in a way that’s critical and … necessary for education,” according to an organizer of the group. The coalition hosted other events throughout the week intending to educate students about the conflict and its history.
One of the students who participated in the demonstration, called for peace and understanding on both sides of the conflict.
“We must always remember mercy and compassion when we deal with ourselves and when we deal with others,” he said to the gathered students. “Don’t shut down Jewish voices as they cry for those who were lost. Don’t shut down Palestinian voices as they cry for those who were lost.”
Despite an otherwise unifying message propagated by the demonstrators, the sign reading “from the river to the sea” prompted a stern response from college President Nicole Hurd.
In a message to the campus community released several hours after the protest, Hurd denounced the message as antisemitic and reminded students of the college’s policy against hate speech.
“This incident was immediately reviewed by our student life team, and will be addressed through our bias incident accountability process,” Hurd wrote in her message.
Several students expressed concern about the sign which, like all of the signs at the demonstration, was a collaborative effort by Pards for Palestine. According to another organizer of the protest, the phrase’s definition was researched due to concerns about its possible impact.
“It’s intimidating,” one Jewish student, who wished to remain anonymous, said of the sign. “As somebody who chose a college because I knew I’d be accepted for being Jewish, it was eye-opening. Calling for the eradication of Israel and the pushing out of everyone ‘from the river to the sea’ is a dangerous message to have.”
According to a second Jewish student, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fear of being targeted for her faith, there is a clear distinction between advocating for Palestinian people and embracing antisemitism. She believes the phrase crosses into the latter.
The phrase has a complicated history. According to the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish organization that combats antisemitism, the phrase “can be understood as a call for a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, territory that includes the State of Israel, implying the dismantling of the Jewish state.”
The phrase appears in a 2017 Hamas manifesto. Some insist the phrase should be considered separate from its recent association with Hamas as it predates the group’s creation by decades, gaining traction in the 1960s.
“This phrase is used by many different people with many different intentions,” history professor Rachel Goshgarian wrote in an email. “The most overarching intent of the phrase, to my understanding, is to recognize the shared experiences of the Palestinian people within the contemporary context of Zionism.”
Goshgarian studies the Middle East and attended the protest.
Protests like those by Pards for Palestine have received national backlash for championing the phrase. Several George Washington University alumni called on the university to condemn and investigate a student protest after it used the phrase.
Pards for Palestine, in an op-ed published in this issue of The Lafayette, denied that the phrase is antisemitic.
“We stand against hate speech in general,” an organizer said.
Goshgarian feels that the message from the president misrepresents what she saw at the protest.
“All I heard were students expressing their desire for humanity, compassion and mercy. All I heard were the voices of students saying they wanted to empathetically and thoughtfully talk about what was happening in Gaza and in Israel,” she wrote. “It is a little shocking to me, as a member of this community, that the College has chosen one small sign at a peaceful student communal conversation to respond to in the context of everything happening in Israel and Gaza.”
The student holding the sign in question stuck by the wording of the poster after being subject to a OnePard bias report, being informed of its association with Hamas – a terrorist group, according to the United States government – and repudiation by Hurd.
He said that he did not know that the phrase was used by Hamas prior to the OnePard report.
“But [I] now know and that doesn’t really change my opinion on my sign,” he said. “The words that I put on that sign were words taken from the … Palestinian Liberation Organization, who do not in any way intend for a genocide of Israelis. I stand by what I put on that poster and I do believe that I was totally misinterpreted, possibly even on purpose.”
“I’m very aware what the difference in terms of intent and impact is,” another organizer said. “[The sign’s] impact is backed by potentially lack of knowledge and context on the issue.”
A different organizer of the protest, emphasized that the demonstration was pro-Palestine and anti-Hamas.
“The walkout is definitely not supporting Hamas,”a leader of the ill-fated Students for Justice in Palestine group said. Lafayette’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, itself the subject of a bias report, was denied club status by the college earlier this year for fear of it targeting other groups.
“The point of our walkout is specifically calling for the U.S. government to stop condoning and sending money to Israel for them to keep bombing Gaza,” she continued.
Hurd’s message to the student body reflected the peaceful message of the walkout’s speakers.
“We owe it to each other to treat one another with care and respect, especially in times of fear and deep sorrow,” Hurd wrote.
Jenny Davis ‘26 contributed reporting.
In the interest of protecting college community members, with the guidance of multiple student press associations, identifying information and photos were removed from this article on April 11, 2025.