FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Tallahasee, FL -- June 15, 2020) -- StandWithUs strongly condemns Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Florida State University (FSU) for launching a campaign to defend blatant antisemitism on campus. SJP is trying to shield one of its members, the new FSU Student Senate President, from accountability for a long record of antisemitic statements. Most notably, the Senate President has repeatedly equated Israelis with Nazis, exploiting the Holocaust for personal and political gain. The Student Senate will discuss this issue in a meeting on Wednesday, June 17th.
"As the daughter of Holocaust survivors, I will never accept anyone promoting vicious lies that equate the Jewish state with those who murdered my family and millions of other Jewish people," said Roz Rothstein, CEO of StandWithUs. "While countless Palestinians and Israelis have suffered trauma due to the conflict, this is never a legitimate excuse to exploit other people's pain and spread more hate. SJP and everyone who signed their statement should be utterly ashamed for defending this blatant antisemitism."
The Senate President was initially criticized for a recent social media post saying "#f***israel". He responded with an instagram video defending this post, and while claiming to oppose antisemitism he equated Israelis with Nazis and Palestinian experiences with the Holocaust. It later emerged that he had previously created an entire website devoted to this antisemitic lie, along with a number of other highly offensive social media posts.
StandWithUs applauds students at FSU who are standing up for their community and speaking out against this hate. We will continue to work with FSU students, ICC, Hillel, and our other partners to empower Jewish and pro-Israel voices on campus.
About StandWithUs
StandWithUs (SWU) is an international, non-profit and non-partisan Israel education organization that works to inspire and educate people of all ages about Israel, as well as challenge misinformation and fight against antisemitism.
Through university fellowships, high school internships, middle school curricula, conferences, materials, social media, educational films and missions to Israel, StandWithUs supports people around the world who want to educate their schools and communities about Israel.
Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Los Angeles, the organization has chapters, programs and activities on 5 continents, including the U.S., Israel, UK, Canada, South Africa and Brazil.
For the last 7 years, SWU has consistently received the highest possible ratings from Charity Navigator (4 stars) and Guidestar (Platinum).
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