UC Berkeley Jewish, pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups flocked to Sproul Plaza to commemorate the three-year anniversary of Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7, 2023 attack, which killed about 1,200 people in Israel, and Israel\u2019s subsequent genocide in Gaza. Israel has killed about 70,000 people in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to Amnesty International.<\/p>\n
Beginning at about 9 a.m., groups including UC Berkeley Chabad and Students Supporting Israel tabled on the steps of Sproul Hall, setting up an Israeli flag and sign reading \u201cbear witness to the massacre.\u201d Pro-Palestinian groups set up tables on Upper Sproul Plaza, many adorned in keffiyehs. Group members hung a string of Palestinian flags from a nearby tree.<\/p>\n
Pro-Palestinian groups raised funds for the Sameer Project, a humanitarian organization working in Gaza. Organizers told The Daily Californian that they raised about $1,000 while tabling.<\/p>\n
Organizers sold print issues of the protest parody newspaper the New York War Crimes for $7 each.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a very large pro-Palestine community in the Berkeley community, the Bay Area community, but specifically here at UC Berkeley as well,\u201d said Yusuf, a campus Ph.D. student and member of Students for Justice in Palestine. \u201cWe\u2019re calling attention to many American institutions\u2019 complicity and contributing to the military-industrial complex that is hand-in-hand in Israel\u2019s role in the crusade against Gaza, the West Bank, and the Palestine territories as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yusuf also drew attention to the UC Berkeley Foundation, which declined to divest from weapons manufacturing in 2024.<\/p>\n
Chabad and SSI, which reserved the space on the steps of Sproul Hall in advance, aimed to draw attention to the atrocities of Oct. 7.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen our people walk through this campus, what they see is people are supporting the brutalization of my family. That\u2019s what they see when they walk by and they chose October 7 to come out here,\u201d said Dan Gotesdyner, president of SSI. \u201cThey chose this day of all days when we are mourning our dead to come out here and counter us, counter our mourning.\u201d<\/p>\n
At about 2:50 p.m., UCPD arrived at SJP\u2019s table after speaking briefly with organizers. UCPD removed their loudspeaker, which had been playing drone sounds and audio from a number of videos throughout the day.<\/p>\n
UCPD proceeded to take the loudspeaker to the Sproul Hall UCPD station.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were asking who owned the speaker. We responded. They were asking us more questions. I was particularly confused because I\u2019ve been doing this for a while. I\u2019ve been tabling for a while. Usually there\u2019s a protocol. Someone from administration, from event services, would usually facilitate the conversation,\u201d Yusuf said. \u201cBut this is the first time police came up and were a direct part of the process.\u201d<\/p>\n
UC Berkeley\u2019s Time, Place, and Manner restrictions include specific rules for amplified sound. According to these rules, any use of amplified sound outdoors must be approved by UC Berkeley Event Services, building coordinators of surrounding buildings and the specific campus department managing the facility.<\/p>\n
Time and date restrictions also apply. During times of instruction, amplified sound is only permitted during two periods of the day: between noon and 1 p.m., and between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., seven days a week.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to take in consideration the humanity of every single person, and in the Jewish tradition, we believe that one life is like an entire universe. So one person dying is like killing an entire potential universe of what could have been,\u201d Shaya Keyvanfar, student president of campus\u2019s Chabad.<\/p>\n
Keyvanfar said she was concerned with how some groups were \u201cweaponizing\u201d Oct. 7 and that she wants both sides to understand each other with an open mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re on this campus, thousands and thousands of miles away from Israel and Gaza, where this conflict is playing out and affecting people in real time,\u201d Keyvanfar said. \u201cIf we can\u2019t even try to come to peace with each other on this campus, then how can we ever expect for anything to get better over there?\u201d<\/p>\n
Pro-Palestinian organizations also emphasized their push for peace and for voices to be heard.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019ve gotten some pushback and such. Of course, it\u2019s a controversial day,\u201d said Ethan Flores, member of STEM4Palestine. \u201cBut I think in general, we\u2019re here for humanity. We\u2019re here for humanitarian aid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Flores highlighted how his organization aimed to link STEM disciplines with political issues, helping students stay principled even if they are working for large corporations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to help (the) world around us,\u201d Flores said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s why we\u2019re trying to welcome an entire field that\u2019s disconnected from politics into politics, in order to make them feel welcome and know that they have a voice only when they exercise it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bears for Palestine held an evening vigil at the Campanile, attended by about 65 people. Organizers hung Palestinian flags from trees on the Campanile Esplanade and arranged candles and flowers around banners reading \u201cevery martyr is a universe.\u201d<\/p>\n
UC Berkeley student Abdulaziz Alandejani said he thinks it\u2019s \u201cbeautiful that people stand up for what they believe in.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t seen a lot of conflict and that\u2019s a beautiful thing on such a controversial day,\u201d Alandejani said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UC Berkeley Jewish, pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups flocked to Sproul Plaza to commemorate the three-year anniversary of Hamas\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[190967,27463,190959,87753,52883,111887,190963,30000,190966,4004,3784,340,143,145,144,3783,190965,190960,190964,30725,26656,48527,68193,96902,315,149,190961,14759,36482,190962],"class_list":["post-489190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-abdulaziz-alandejan","tag-american","tag-amnesty-international","tag-campanile","tag-chabad","tag-daily-californian","tag-dan-gotesdyner","tag-esplanade","tag-ethan-flores","tag-gaza","tag-hamas","tag-israel","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-palestine","tag-place-and-manner","tag-sameer-project","tag-shaya-keyvanfar","tag-sproul-hall","tag-sproul-plaza","tag-stem4palestine","tag-students-for-justice-in-palestine","tag-students-supporting-israel","tag-time","tag-uc-berkeley","tag-uc-berkeley-campus-safety","tag-ucpd","tag-west-bank","tag-yusuf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}