WATCH: UC Berkeley Student’s Anti-Israel Rant Disrupts Event at Jewish Dean’s Home

Amy Furr

An anti-Israel student protester disrupted an event on Tuesday for Berkeley Law School graduates that was hosted at the residence of the Jewish dean, Erwin Chemerinsky, and his wife.

The confrontation centered on the Israel-Hamas war, the New York Post reported Thursday, noting Chemerinsky serves as dean of Berkeley Law School.

Once law student Malak Afaneh shared an Islamic greeting while speaking into a microphone at the backyard event, she then demanded the school divest from corporations funding Israel’s role in the ongoing conflict.

In video footage of the incident, Chemerisnky’s wife, Professor Catherine Fisk, approaches the young woman and she and her husband request that the protester leave the premises.
Chemerisnky asks her to leave before his wife informs the young woman, “This is not your house. It is my house and I want you to leave”:

Fisk also appears to try and take the microphone from Afaneh:

“We are talking about Ramadan and the holy month of Ramadan. As Muslim students, we refuse to break our fast on the blood of Palestinian people,” Afaneh told Fisk.

“The UC has committed sending $2 billion dollars to weapons manufacturers,” she added.

Following the incident, KTVU cited a civil rights attorney who said Chemerinsky is respected across the nation for his work in constitutional rights, adding that Chemerinsky was within his rights to remove a student from his home.

In a statement, Chemerinsky later said he and his wife never imagined that such an event for the community could turn negative, per the Post:

“The dinner, which was meant to celebrate graduating students, was obviously disrupted and disturbed. I am enormously sad that we have students who are so rude as to come into my home, in my backyard, and use this social occasion for their political agenda,” the statement continued.

The educator also revealed he had been the target of antisemitic harassment the previous week at the university, where posters of a caricature of him holding a bloody knife and fork with the words “No dinner with Zionist Chem while Gaza starves” were displayed around campus.

In February, Jewish students at UC Berkeley had to leave campus once a mob of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protesters shut down their event where an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldier was scheduled to speak, according to Breitbart News.

“In 1964, Berkeley was the home of the Free Speech Movement, which held that any political speech should be tolerated on campus. The movement inspired a generation of activists in the 1960s, who in turn inspired many activists today,” the article said.

“Ironically, many of those activists now oppose free speech,” it concluded.

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