University of Maryland won’t allow pro-Palestinian group to hold Oct. 7 event after initially allowing it – The Forward

(JTA) — The University of Maryland has revoked a permit allowing pro-Palestinian groups to hold an event marking the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, following concerns from Jewish groups that such an event could glorify Hamas killings.

According to the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, the planned event was a “vigil” to be held in conjunction with the school’s chapter of the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace.

University President Darryll Pines announced the change in a letter to the institution Sunday, writing that “numerous calls have been made to cancel and restrict events taking place that day.”

“As a university community, we recognize the significance of the October 7 anniversary and the horrific suffering it represents for people here on our campus and around the world,” Pines wrote. Without naming specific events, he said that “only university-sponsored events that encourage reflection” would be permitted on that day, with “all other expressive events” postponed until before or after the anniversary. A university spokesperson declined to comment further.

News of the cancellation was celebrated by a coalition of Jewish and pro-Israel groups on campus, including Maryland Hillel, Terps for Israel, the Jewish Student Union and a campus chapter affiliated with the Israeli-American Council.

“October 7, the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, is a day of mourning for the Jewish and Israeli community,” the groups wrote on Instagram. “We are relieved that SJP can no longer appropriate the suffering of our family and friends to fit their false and dangerous narrative.”

The October 7 campus conflict is an example of the divisions emerging within Jewish and pro-Palestinian communities around the world over the significance of the anniversary and how it should be commemorated. Jewish and pro-Israel groups hope to use the day to honor the 1,200 Israelis killed by Hamas on the day of the attacks. At the same time, pro-Palestinian groups, including JVP, view the date as the beginning of Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands to date, and largely ignore or even support the attacks themselves.

All this comes as universities more broadly brace for a resurgence of controversial student activism around Israel this fall. The Maryland saga also came as news broke that six Israeli hostages in Gaza had been killed by Hamas.

Pines did not refer to the hostages in his letter, but said he had ordered a security assessment around the planned events and that campus police had determined “there is no immediate or active threat.”

Even before the hostages’ deaths, Maryland quickly found itself under pressure from Jewish parents who felt that allowing SJP to gather on the anniversary was inappropriate and that the school was failing to classify a series of pro-Palestinian remarks as anti-Semitic.

In their statement, the Jewish groups said that holding only official university events to mark the anniversary — a decision that would likely prevent Jewish groups from holding their own — was “not an ideal situation,” adding, “We would have liked to have been able to use campus space to grieve together as a community.” A memorial event is planned at the Maryland Hillel building, which is not operated by the university.

The Maryland chapter of the JVP, which organized on the College Park campus after October 7 and has allied with SJP in other protests, said on Instagram that it was “disappointed” and “angry” by the decision. Both groups said the planned event would have been peaceful and argued that they had an equal right to use the day to honor Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.

“Some in our campus Jewish community claim that October 7 is a day of Jewish mourning and Jewish mourning alone,” JVP wrote. “They consistently refuse to let us mourn the loss of the 186,000 Palestinians murdered by Israel” — an estimate of the Gaza death toll that is several times higher than that of the Gaza Health Ministry, but which the Maryland chapter of SJP, citing a letter on the public health crisis in Gaza published in the medical journal The Lancet, has promoted at other campus events.

In its lengthy statement, the SJP called the pressure campaign against the group “racist” and made no reference to Hamas or the 1,200 Israelis murdered by the terror group on October 7. Instead, the student group described the date as “one year since the Zionist entity began its latest genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people.”

SJP added that the university’s cancellation came “as a result of Zionist pressure and threats” and said: “We honor the lives of all the martyrs of this genocide, but the Zionists on this campus celebrate the death and destruction of Palestinian life.”

In a joint statement released before the event was canceled, the two groups said: “A vigil mourning hundreds of thousands of innocent lives poses no threat to our campus Jewish community.”