Jewish Journal
Aaron Bandler
June 17, 2020
Two petitions have been launched calling on Florida State University (FSU) Student Senate President Ahmad Daraldik to step down from his position over his past social media posts that have been criticized as anti-Semitic.
The social media posts in question include a post from August that said, “#f—theoccupation #f—israel” and a 2013 post stating, “Stupid Jew thinks he is cool.” Additionally, according to the Algemeiner, Daraldik seems to have a website on which he wrote, “The contemporary Holocaust in Palestine is very similar to that of Germany.”
One petition, titled “Remove Ahmad Daraldik from FSU Student Senate,” states: “Eldeek says, ‘F— Israel’ ‘Stupid Jews’ and compares the Israeli government to Nazi Germany’s genocide on the Jews. These anti-Semitic remarks are not welcomed on FSU’s campus, in the United States, and most importantly, on this EARTH!”
This petition has nearly 5,000 signatures.
The other petition, titled “Condemn Anti-Semitic FSU Senate President Ahmad Daraldik,” similarly pointed out the “f— Israel” and “stupid Jew” posts and noted that the “stupid Jew” post featured an image that turned out “to be a fake photo of an Israeli soldier holding a gun at a young girl. The image was part of a Palestinian propaganda campaign referred to as ‘Pallywood’ in which Palestinians staged photos to spread lies about Israel.”
It added: “Daraldik must be removed from his position immediately. We MUST do better. Allowing Daraldik to continue his presidency means our student body supports hostility and racism on campus. We cannot stand for this.”
Daraldik will face a potential vote of no confidence in the FSU Student Senate on June 17.
FSU Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) defended Daraldik in a June 12 Facebook post, condemning calls for him to step down “as racially and politically motivated to smear and silence Palestinian students and critics of the state of Israel.”
“We are calling upon our student senators to vote NO in the upcoming vote of no confidence in Ahmad Daraldik’s Senate presidency,” the pro-Palestinian group wrote. “As a diverse group of Palestinians, Jews, Muslims, black and brown people of color and working class students, we are confident in Ahmad’s leadership and unyielding advocacy for marginalized students.”
The post linked to a statement in which FSU SJP defended Daraldik’s “f— Israel” post as him criticizing “Israeli military occupation” and that the “stupid Jew” post was written when Daraldik was 12 years old. The statement concludes with the line, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
According to Campus Reform, Daraldik defended his “f— Israel” post in a video, explaining that he was reacting to being stopped at an Israeli checkpoint when he tried to enter the West Bank.
“I was dehumanized, I was humiliated, and I was upset,” Daraldik, who is a Palestinian American, said. “So yes, I took a photo with the statue of Nelson Mandela given to my people from the people of South Africa as a symbol of hope to end the apartheid. I made the post on Instagram to release my frustrations about the situation that persecutes my family, my friends, and all those considered second-class humans in our own country.”
He added that those calling him anti-Semitic are defaming him for criticizing “a racist system that continues to commit human rights violations and was created through the genocide of my people.”
StandWithUs CEO and co-founder Roz Rothstein denounced Daraldik and FSU SJP.
“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,” Rothstein said. “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 anti-Semitism.”
Noles for Israel President Cindy Chamides told Campus Reform that although she sympathizes with whatever trauma Daraldik has experienced, it doesn’t justify him “saying and writing things that are blatantly anti-Semitic. For those of us who are descended from Holocaust survivors, it’s especially painful for an elected leader to lie about and exploit what our families went through for his own political agenda.”
She called on Daraldik to resign and “learn from his mistakes.”
Florida State University’s Office of Admissions tweeted in response to a Twitter user highlighting Daraldik’s ‘Stupid Jew’ post, “Florida State University does not condone this type of behavior. We take matters like this very seriously, and have informed FSU’s Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards.”
Daraldik became FSU Student Senate president after the Student Senate removed the prior president, Jack Denton, from office on June 5 after messages he sent in a GroupMe chat emerged of him stating that the Black Lives Matter movement’s support of transgenderism and the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) support for abortion are antithetical to Catholic doctrine.
Read the article here.
