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Groups urge Stanford to address threat of violence against Jewish students

In a Facebook post, an incoming residential assistant and former student-government member at Stanford University, Hamzeh Daoud, wrote that he would “physically fight Zionists on campus next year […] after I abolish your ass I’ll go ahead and work every day for the rest of my life to abolish [Israel].”

Stanford University in Palo Alto, California
The Main Quad of Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Several Jewish groups have called on Stanford University to address a recent threat of violence against Jewish students at the school.

In a Facebook post last week, an incoming residential assistant and former student-government member at Stanford University, Hamzeh Daoud, wrote that he would “physically fight Zionists on campus next year […] after I abolish your ass I’ll go ahead and work every day for the rest of my life to abolish [Israel].”

Signed by the Lawfare Project, World Jewish Congress and Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the letter calls “on the Stanford University administration to take immediate action in response to this clear threat to Jewish students.”

The groups said “there should be no room on any campus for these kinds of threats and intimidation. No students should have to live with threats of physical violence because of who they are. Moreover, the law mandates that minority communities be offered protection from this kind of vicious, bigoted targeting.”

Daoud later amended his post to say he wanted to “intellectually fight,” explaining that he edited it “because I realize intellectually beating Zionists is the only way to go. Physical fighting is never an answer to when trying to prove people wrong.”

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