Anti-Zionist students at Oberlin College in Ohio erected a memorial last week commemorating the death of multiple Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists.
By Algemeiner Staff
The Oberlin Students for a Free Palestine group shared in a Facebook post on Thursday that it had installed a display in “commemoration of the 34 Palestinians killed by Israeli rocket fire this last week” in Wilder Bowl, a central outdoor space on campus where students often congregate.
A sign explaining the display stated, “Last week, Israel unleashed violent airstrikes on the Gaza Strip to assassinate Bahaa Abu al-Atta and his wife on Tuesday, November 12th. In the process, killing 34 unarmed Palestinian civilians, including 8 children.”
“Oberlin Students for a Free Palestine and Oberlin Jewish Voice for Peace have created this installation to commemorate the lives of these 34 Palestinians who died at the hands of Zionist Settler Colonialism,” it continued. “We list the names and ages of those who were lost on each black flag.”
Oberlin memorial honoring Palestinian terrorists. (Algemeiner/Twitter)
The allegation does not accord with casualty tolls shared by international observers and the involved parties, including those in the Gaza Strip, which largely acknowledge that a majority of fatalities were members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an Iranian-backed terrorist organization that is blacklisted by the United States, European Union, and others. The group, which aims to replace Israel with an Islamic Palestinian state, has taken responsibility for suicide bombings and other attacks targeting Israeli civilians.
The most recent flare-up began after Israel assassinated Baha Abu al-Atta, a senior Islamic Jihad commander, which led to an escalation that saw more than 450 rockets and mortars fired from Gaza at Israeli communities, and dozens of Israeli airstrikes on Islamic Jihad targets.
Palestinian sources have said 34 people were killed in the fighting, 16 of whom were civilians, including several children. The Israeli military has said that around 25 of the fatalities were members of terrorist organizations, and shared photos of some in Islamic Jihad fatigues. It also announced an investigation into a strike that killed eight civilians, the brother of an Islamic Jihad operative reportedly among them.
On the other side of the border, nearly 60 Israelis sustained injuries or received treatment for shock, while several rockets that were not intercepted by the Israeli military damaged homes, businesses, and roads.
The display erected by Oberlin Students for a Free Palestine, which advocates for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, did not mention Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In a Facebook post earlier this month, the student group said it would “shout the names of those that the IDF has killed,” listing Abu al-Atta and multiple other Islamic Jihad members, again without referring to their affiliation with the terrorist group.
BDS organizers on and off university campuses have long been accused of ignoring or supporting the goals and activities of terrorist groups like Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Since 4am Tuesday, we targeted terrorists involved in firing rockets at Israeli civilians. We killed 20 terrorists, most of them from Islamic Jihad.
Our mission is to defend the people of Israel.
We will fulfill this mission relentlessly, as these 9 terrorists have learned👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/UkLE8RvclR
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 13, 2019