There has been a lot of talk lately about the suspension of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) from Northeastern’s campus, and as a Northeastern student that has visited Israel, has Israeli friends and family, and wears my Magen David around my neck with pride, I feel a need to express my observations of SJP’s actions over the last couple of weeks.

It is neither an issue of free speech, nor civil rights. As much as I disagree with the message of SJP, that is not why they were suspended. Instead it was due to their continuous refusal to follow university policy. They were on probation last semester and given a chance to review their policies as a group, meet with administrators and sign papers agreeing to follow campus rules but they refused.

Any other student group on campus would have been and would still be suspended if they had acted as Northeastern SJP has – not abiding by the rules outlined in the student handbook.

Instead members of the group and sympathizers across the country are claiming it is an issue of free speech and once again trying to play the victim card. On March 18, they had a rally with hundreds of people on the sidewalk outside of campus. I stood across the street and watched in complete awe as they shouted messages of hate, screamed how “ Zionism is racism,” and that they were in no way being anti-semitic. They continued with their chants of “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” When I hear that, I hear anti-semitism, I hear a call for the complete destruction of the Jewish state and all that its inhabitants call home.

I am what they call a member of the “zionist war/propaganda machine,” and while I stood across the street and watched this rally, I kept a folded Israeli flag underneath my jacket. I kept on wanting to unfold it and hold it up high, but I was scared. I was afraid for one of the first times in my life as I heard their chants of anti-semitism, full of hatred and shouting for intifada and increased violence. I was scared, but I am even more afraid of the idea of what happens when nothing is done, when nobody stands up.

I am proud to attend Northeastern, and I am proud of them for not backing down and sticking to their suspension ruling. I am a proud Zionist Jew, who has never been more proud to be a Husky.

-Ross Beroff is a freshman business major.