Sign up for Weekday J and get the latest on what's happening in the Jewish Bay Area.

Pro-Palestinian activists returned to protesting on Bay Area college campuses this week, accusing Israel of genocide, calling for “intifada” and pushing back against new policies put in place to prevent a repeat of last school year’s tent chaos.

Many universities in California, including Stanford, UCLA, UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis, operate on the quarter system, and classes begin in September. But demonstrations at UC Berkeley, Sonoma State University and San Francisco State served as a likely preview of what’s to come at universities across the state.

The University of California system, which enrolls more than 200,000 undergraduates across the state, earlier this month announced updates to its policies in hopes of quelling the more disruptive elements of demonstrations commonplace in the spring on UC campuses. The updates include prohibiting encampments, “unauthorized structures” and masks that conceal identity.

The California State University system, too, published an updated “time, place and manner” policy for campus protests. The policy bans “encampments of any kind,” as well as “overnight demonstrations” and “overnight loitering.”

Protesters appeared ready to test the boundaries of those policies this week.

In Berkeley, about 150 people gathered Thursday at Sproul Plaza, where an anti-Israel tent encampment took root for about a month in the spring. Classes started on Wednesday.

Pro-Palestinian activists with the anti-Zionist groups Bears for Palestine and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) called on students to wear masks and kaffiyehs during the first week of classes in response to UC’s revised policy.

Hatem Bazian, a UC Berkeley lecturer on Middle Eastern languages and cultures and the founder of SJP, was one of the speakers there. Bazian, who is Palestinian, mocked the new policy on face coverings, calling it “nonsense.”

“What they came with is a policy on face coverings. They should actually be ashamed for covering for genocide by blaming the students who are covering their face out of doxxing [concerns], rather than actually trying to institute a policy that targets the students who are actually the moral compass of the university at this time,” Bazian said.

Student speakers at the 90-minute rally included representatives from Bears for Palestine, Law Students for Justice in Palestine and the Muslim Student Association. Several had their faces uncovered. 

The rally, organized by SJP, opened with call-and-response chants including “1-2-3-4, Zionism no more” and “We don’t want no two states, we want all of ’48.”

At one point, an older man wearing a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball cap and sunglasses yelled “Fuck Zionists” in support. 

Students were encouraged to keep up their protests and their support for Palestine until the State of Israel ceases to exist.

“May we see the death and destruction of the Zionist entity,” a Bears for Palestine student leader proclaimed.

Another speaker, who talked through a mask, criticized “Western media” for being “silent” about Palestinian suffering. She falsely stated that claims of Hamas sexually assaulting Israeli women on Oct. 7 were made up.

A speaker representing the Muslim Student Association portrayed Israel’s assassination last month of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran as the tragic murder of a heroic activist, and referred to Israelis as “Zionist pigs” and “Zionist scum of the earth.”

Student leaders ended the rally with a vow to continue their activism on campus, and to do so more aggressively than last school year.

If administrators considered the previous student protests to be their “biggest headache,” an SJP leader said, “get ready for a migraine.”

At Sonoma State in Rohnert Park, video from a pro-Palestinian demonstration went viral and garnered media coverage. Students set up mock “checkpoints,” carrying fake rifles and wearing flak jackets to simulate Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank. They handed out flyers that stated “Wake up, you are funding a genocide against Palestinians.”

An activist told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat that the protest enabled students to evaluate where the administration stood at the start of the new school year. “This action also helped us to gauge where admin is right now and their response, as well as the response from students,” 21-year-old Madyline Jaramillo told the paper. “We’re here to make noise and get students on board.”

Like other university presidents across the country, Sonoma State’s president stepped down during last school year amid controversy surrounding student protests. Ming-Tung “Mike” Lee was also disciplined by CSU for agreeing to an academic boycott of Israel, one of the demands of the protesters, without the knowledge of CSU leadership.

At San Francisco State, also on Thursday, about 120 protesters gathered for a demonstration outside the Cesar Chavez Student Center. They wore kaffiyehs, listened to speeches and chanted slogans including “Free Palestine” and “Intifada, intifada, we are the intifada.” Protesters unfurled a large banner that stated “There is no future without Palestine” and another that claimed more than 186,000 Palestinians had been “martyred.” (The Hamas-run health ministry estimates the death toll in Gaza at around 40,000.)

The demonstration was held three days after the semester’s start and a week after SFSU Vice President Jeff Jackanicz announced that the university had committed to making an effort to “strengthen” its ethical investment strategies after “several months of discussions” with leaders of the pro-Palestinian movement on campus. The new investment suggestions would be “region-neutral,” the announcement said, implying that it would not target companies based solely on their ties to Israel, one of the demands of the campus protesters.

Aaron Levy-Wolins contributed to this report.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by J. The Jewish News (@jewishnews_sf)