This Time, We Will Win

After a month into the fall semester, the political situation on the campuses of the Claremont  Colleges in California appeared quiet. We saw none of the marches, encampments, or building invasions that had taken place in previous years. This year, especially with the recently announced cease fire, we hoped this year would be different. We were wrong. On October 15, 2025, our Hillel chapter invited Yoni Viloga to speak as part of a memorial to the attacks on October 7th. The event took place on the campus of Pomona College. On that fateful day, Yoni was staying with his family on Kibbutz Mefulsim, and helped to defend his family and the community. The room was packed with students, faculty, and community members who had come to hear of Yoni’s experience and to be present with one another to remember and commemorate those events. At the end of his talk, a group of four students, dressed in black and faces covered with sunglasses and keffiyehs entered the room and began shouting a series of anti-Israel slogans. Ironically, their keffiyehs muffled much of what they had to say. It appears masking takes precedence over message.

I along with some of my colleagues approached the group in order first to prevent them from moving further into the room, and second to maneuver them out of the space and thus end the disruption. We were eventually successful. While the evening’s program then continued, most of those present were clearly shaken by what had happened.

The following day, Pomona College President G. Gabrielle Starr sent a message to the college community. She denounced the event in clear and unequivocal language. What happened, she said, was “outrageous and cruel,” and declared it to be an act of “antisemitic hate.” While the students themselves are responsible for their actions, the absence of any meaningful security enabled the disruption to take place. Contrary to what President Starr claimed, the security personnel were not the first to respond. The only ones to confront the demonstrators were myself and fellow faculty and staff. The lone security guard was stationed outside the room, and entered only after we had engaged the group, and then only stayed in the room for about ten seconds. Other security personnel arrived at the scene, but only after the students had departed. For whatever reasons, the security arrangements proved to be woefully deficient. The space was not secure, and the number and caliber of security personnel were inadequate.

The student demonstrators were not done. A few days later, they posted a declaration on the Instagram account of another student group, Claremont Undercurrents. It accused “the zionist entity” of committing genocide and Pomona College for defending it. It described Mr. Viloga as a “genocidal maniac” who served in the “zionist occupational forces” and comes from a “family of genocidal settlers.” The message then took on a more sinister tone. The group pronounced that “zionism is a death cult that must be dealt with accordingly” and identified everyone in the room as having advanced the “genocide of Palestinian life.” Their goal, as stated in the message, was to “engage in collective direct action,” and to make “modern-nazis feel unwelcome.” In the two weeks since the post appeared, no college official has publically responded to this statement, nor have they taken any action with regard to the student organization that published them. While Undercurrents did not write the words, it chose to publish them, and therefore is complicit in this hateful speech.

Around this time, the Claremont chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, posted on its Instagram page an image of Betsy Korn, a trustee of Claremont McKenna College, one of the other Claremont colleges. It identified her various affiliations with the “Israel Lobby,” including AIPAC, Conference of Presidents, and AJC. The image included a strip of $100 bills printed in red running across her face and the sinister title “Break the Butchers.”

It seemed as if we were stuck in the past, and that anti-Israel attacks would continue without an effective response. My concern was amplified by the fact that several months before these events, I had arranged to have Israeli award-winning author and journalist Matti Friedman speak at the college. His visit to campus was scheduled for Monday, October 27th, precisely in the wake of the other anti-Israel activities. On the Friday before the talk, I met with the college’s director of security, along with the college’s president and other senior administrators. Given the recent events, they recommended several security measures to prevent a repeat of the incursion at Pomona, and to ensure that the speaker and all attendees could attend the talk in safety. We agreed that we would relocate some of the events to new, more secure venues, deploy a large security force, and create the ability to pivot to a virtual format if conditions demanded.

I am pleased to say that Matti’s time on campus went forward without incident. He engaged in an fascinating discussion with a group of Jewish students and faculty, had dinner with another group of students in my Israel class, and delivered an insightful talk to an appreciative audience on the challenges facing Israel today. And not a keffiyeh in sight.

The various events that transpired over that two week period have helped me to gain better perspective on what we, those of us who work on university campuses, must be doing to prevent and respond to the disruptive and malicious activites that continue to plague our campuses. First, be proactive. Do not wait for disruptions and protests to happen. The range of acceptable reactive measures is limited. Better to deal with these problems before they occur. That does not mean suppressing legitimate speech, but it does require a clear and repeated message that certain actions will not be permitted. Second, develop security protocols that includes a visible and sizeable security force to be employed wherever Israel related activities are taking place. I will admit that I initially had some qualms about deploying a large number of security personnel at the Friedman talk. I did not want to create the impression that his visit was being held in a fortress, and wished that as many people with varying perspectives, including those who are critical of Israel, would feel welcome at his talk. In the end, however, I resigned myself to the realization that we live in a world where these types of measures are currently necessary. Third, when disruptions and violations of existing policies do occur, it is imperative that university leaders speak out immediately and forcefully, and hold accountable those who violate policies, target individuals, and suggest the use of violence.  Letters such as the one issued by President Starr are a good start, but much more must be done.  Finally, while I disagree fiercely with the message and tactics of the group that disrupted Yoni Viloga’s talk, I share their sense of perseverance. Presenting an informed understanding of any issue can be a challenge, made more difficult when the issue, in this case Israel, is complex and controversial. Those engaged in teaching about Israel and the institutions where they work must remain committed to finding ways, through faculty appointments, curricula, lectures and other events, to promote the study of Israel, and engage as many people as possible in learning about, discussing, and even contesting issues related to Israel’s history, culture, and governmental policies; otherwise, “we let them win.”