Anti-Israel group sets up protest at Pitt chancellor’s home, warns students to hide identities

Anti-Israel student organizations from the University of Pittsburgh organized a protest outside the house of school Chancellor Joan Gabel and warned student protesters to hide their identities. 

The protest, which took place Sunday, was organized by a group called Pitt Divest from Apartheid.

“Gabel, Gabel, come to the table!” the group posted to Instagram on July 11, advertising the protest and providing Gabel’s personal home address. The group urged demonstrators to “mask up, bring a friend, and wear a kuffiyeh!”

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In a separate post, the group told its followers to “[t]ake steps to protect yourself ahead of today’s rally,” pushing them to “[w]ear nondescript clothing and cover identifying features,” and to “[c]onsider biking or walking to prevent license plate readers from recording your vehicle’s exact time, date, and location.” 

In a June 12 post outlining its positions, Pitt Divest wrote: “The Pitt Apartheid Divest Coalition is grounded in a collective stance against fascism, racism, colonialism, and all forms of injustice, and recognizes Palestinian liberation as the vanguard of those struggles.”

It added: “We therefore reiterate our overarching demand that the University of Pittsburgh disclose and divest from its ties to the genocide being committed by Zionist ‘Israel’ against the Palestinian people in Gaza.”

So far, there have been two anti-Israel encampments at the University of Pittsburgh. Anti-Israel protesters called for the “termination” of two pro-Israel groups on campus, including the university’s Jewish Hillel organization, before backtracking and saying they only wanted the school administration to condemn the two groups for “promoting Zionist ideology and propaganda while excluding dissenting voices.”

Some have claimed that anti-Semitism has been growing worse in Pittsburgh since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre against Israel. 

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“What we have been witnessing since October 7 is aggression from the radical Left. Here too in the neighborhood I do not feel entirely safe and secure,” one Pittsburgh resident told Israel Hayom. “If I argue over the price in a store then on occasions I will hear an antisemitic comment. I see people wearing pins with the Palestinian flag on their shirt collar and I would be lying if I were to say that it doesn’t make me feel uncomfortable.”

”On Shabbat, I wear a kippa and go out on the street wrapped in my tallit, so I probably feel the tension more than others,” he said. “It’s not that I have a target marked on my back, but since 2018 I have constantly been looking over my shoulder and to the sides much more than in the past.” 

Campus Reform has contacted the University of Pittsburgh for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.