Two blocks south of UC Berkeley’s campus, anti-Zionist protesters took over a vacant building owned by the university on Wednesday morning, vandalizing it with swastikas and antisemitic language.
“Zionism is Nazism” was spray-painted in black letters on several walls inside the condemned building, which was destroyed in a 2022 fire. Several dozen individuals from an unidentified protest group were believed to be inside the structure.
“Martyrs never die” was spray-painted on another wall of the burned-out building, part of the Anna Head School complex near People’s Park.
“This is a crime scene. This is not a protest,” UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof told J. on Thursday morning.
He estimated that there were 60 to 65 people inside and outside the building participating in the takeover.
“The suspects on the scene have engaged in breaking and entering, trespassing, vandalism — they’re not violating policies, they’re violating the law,” Mogulof said.
The takeover of the building is meant to “avenge Al Shifa,” according to words spray-painted on plywood boards near the building’s double doors.
In March, Israel Defense Forces raided and destroyed Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza, which it said was being used by Hamas to store weapons, hold hostages and connect to the terrorist organization’s vast network of tunnels.
Mogulof said he confirmed with UC Berkeley’s Free Palestine encampment organizers that the group of protesters is not affiliated with the encampment, which was dismantled Wednesday after an agreement was reached with UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ.
“In fact, we saw our students, those students yesterday, hundreds of miles away in Merced, protesting at the regents meeting. This is a different group,” Mogulof emphasized. “What they are engaged in is a very different sort of activity.”
UC Police were “monitoring” the scene but presently not making arrests, Mogulof said, noting that he would not comment on the plans for police response.
Mogulof speculated the majority of the people in the building takeover are not Berkeley students, noting that some are “known characters” in the community unaffiliated with the university. “There do appear to be at least a handful of students among them, but it’s not clear.”
Tye Gregory, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area, disagreed that the two protest movements are unrelated.
“Non-students are helping students organize the encampment at Berkeley. They may be different people, but the idea that the two events are not connected is ludicrous,” Gregory told J. “The moral of the story is don’t negotiate with antisemites, don’t negotiate with people that support lawlessness, like antifa. You can’t do it,” Gregory said. He criticized Christ’s public statement to the UC Berkeley Divest Coalition in which she declared her support for a cease-fire and the release of hostages and conceded to exploring divestment options.
“She gave in and frustrated our community with her rhetoric in the negotiation statements, and then the negotiation didn’t even work and there’s a bigger problem,” Gregory said, citing the building takeover.
He said JCRC Bay Area is calling on the UC Board of Regents to step in and “restore order to campus.”
“I mean, what we saw scrawled on the walls, Zionism equals Nazism with the Star of David and a swastika, it doesn’t get more antisemitic than that,” Gregory said. “So from my perspective, this was a big failure.”