By Zack Sampson, News Staff

The West Village F classroom could not contain the volatile crowd that showed up to hear Norman Finkelstein speak.

A divided group of Northeastern students attended the lecture, which was the subject of much contention between NU Hillel, Students for Israel and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) — the main sponsor of the event. As some people boiled with anger, interrupting Finkelstein during his address about the Israel-Palestine conflict to dispute points, others rebuffed the exclamations with cold shushing.

Before Finkelstein could take the podium, SJP President Eva Badra had to tell audience members who were standing in the aisles to leave because the crowd had exceeded the room’s maximum capacity, according to fire code.

“It was a good event for campus — it got a lot of people engaged, even if they didn’t agree,” Badra said.

As The News reported last week, Jewish students and their supporters on campus maintained that Finkelstein had a history of anti-semitism and said he had no place speaking at Northeastern for an event funded by the Student Activity Fee (SAF).

“He is also discredited in the academic community and in addition is known for hate speech, and my tuition dollars going to that is extremely upsetting,” Marlena Lurie, the current president for Huskies for Israel, said.

To express their displeasure with the event, members of Huskies for Israel, NU Hillel and other supporters protested Finkelstein, standing whenever he said the word “Israel,” holding signs that supported their beliefs and carrying Israeli flags.

At one point, someone yelled at Finkelstein, saying “You’re wrong.” The room erupted in chatter before someone from the back of the room shouted “Shut up, let him finish,” in support of Finkelstein.

Arthur Maserjian, media coordinator for Huskies for Israel, said the protest before Finkelstein’s lecture was “unbelievable” and exceeded expectations. Maserjian, who will also take over as president of NU Hillel next semester, said approximately 100 Jewish and non-Jewish students attended.

“I think, in general, on campus the court of public opinion was in our favor,” he said.

Though Maserjian said he has received mostly positive feedback about the protest, Badra, the SJP president, said she thought some of the dissent was “a bit disrespectful.”

On a personal level, Badra said she considered some of the interruptions inappropriate.

“The whole standing up thing every time he said ‘Israel’ was a bit rude,” she said.

Though Finkelstein said he did not mind rebukes from the audience, Badra said she believes he meant that he welcomed any dispute during the question and answer period after his lecture. She said she spoke to Finkelstein a few days after the event and they agreed that the program was still effective.

“Generally, we agreed that it was a good event, but I do think it went a little too much in the disruptive effect and I think it made the people who were disrupting look bad,” Badra said.

Going forward, Lurie said Huskies for Israel are looking to bring in a “speaker of similar caliber except who is academically justified and an accredited professor” to provide a different view on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Maserjian said NU Hillel plans to look into the process of how money is allocated to events and the reason why there are no measures to prevent speakers like Finkelstein from coming to campus.

The Student Government Association (SGA) Comptroller Anthony Golia, who chairs the Finance Board which allocates money for such events, said speakers are funded if the event matches up with sponsoring organization’s mission statement and the lecture is educational.

Golia said he could see how certain students would be upset by an event that opposes them ideologically, but with how many SAF funded programs occur annually, people will “inherently not agree with some.”

SGA President Mike Sabo said he in fact thinks this was “one of the more successful events” funded by the SAF.

Though he disagrees with Finkelstein’s views, Sabo said sometimes nobody goes to SAF-funded events, so “by virtue of the fact that we had several hundred people there,” the program was effective.

In general, Sabo said many students do not know what the SAF is and what it pays for, so this event may have had the positive effect of “bringing renewed focus” on the fee.

Lurie and Maserjian have not spoken with Badra since the event, but all agreed that they do not want this event to spark an ongoing feud between the groups.

Each, however, said the other group needed to show they were willing to cooperate before any future collaboration can occur.

Maserjian said he wants SJP to apologize for bringing Finkelstein to campus.

“Given the current situation, I don’t know if we can work with them until they apologize to our community,” he said